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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: The Deaths of Bonnie and Clyde · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Quody does, but Joseph's gotten more. There's an old adage
0:07
Speaker 1: that says, throughout history, the victors write the story that
0:13
Speaker 1: they essentially put forth the narrative from their perspective of
0:19
Speaker 1: how things happened. And you know, it can be stated
0:23
Speaker 1: that that comment, if you will, that adage applies primarily
0:30
Speaker 1: to the rise and fall of civilizations and to wars.
0:36
Speaker 1: But there was a smaller war, very smaller war that
0:42
Speaker 1: took place back in the thirties in Middle America. And
0:48
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, even though the quote unquote good guys prevailed
0:55
Speaker 1: in the end, history doesn't exactly reflect the truth today.
1:07
Speaker 1: Looking back, we're going to discuss a period in time
1:12
Speaker 1: ninety years ago. Today, we're going to talk about the
1:19
Speaker 1: deaths of multiple police officers at the hands of two
1:26
Speaker 1: of the most infamous cop killers in American history, Bonnie
1:33
Speaker 1: and Clyde. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body
1:41
Speaker 1: Packs Dave mac my friend. When I hear the name Bienville,
1:54
Speaker 1: it evokes memories of my hometown of New Orleans.
1:59
Speaker 2: And how far is it from New Orleans.
2:02
Speaker 1: Well, Bienville itself, there's multiple streets and are multiple locations
2:08
Speaker 1: in New Orleans that have the name Beingville and it's
2:11
Speaker 1: a uniquely French name. But the odd thing about it
2:16
Speaker 1: is we're going to talk about Benville Parish, and Benville
2:19
Speaker 1: Parish is nowhere near New Orleans. As a matter of fact,
2:22
Speaker 1: it would probably take you, because there's not a really
2:24
Speaker 1: good director out. It probably takes you about four hours
2:27
Speaker 1: to get there from from New Orleans. It's the parish itself.
2:32
Speaker 1: And remember, you know, in my home state, they don't
2:34
Speaker 1: have counties that parishes, and Benville Parish actually is closer
2:43
Speaker 1: to the Arkansas border than it is Gulf of Mexico, and.
2:49
Speaker 2: That gives me a much better idea.
2:52
Speaker 1: And it's not near the Mississippi River. As a matter
2:55
Speaker 1: of fact, if you were to show up in Benville
2:58
Speaker 1: Parish day and ride through it, and all of North
3:01
Speaker 1: Louisiana has this kind of reputation, it doesn't remind most
3:05
Speaker 1: people of what you commonly think of when you think
3:10
Speaker 1: about Louisiana, which is swamps and Cajun culture and Creole culture.
3:17
Speaker 1: You feel like you're in Texas, like an annex of Texas.
3:20
Speaker 1: In North Louisiana. Along the Eye twenty corridor running through there,
3:24
Speaker 1: there's horse farms everywhere, and rolling hills. Now they're not
3:29
Speaker 1: huge hills, but it's rolling hills. The soil is red clay.
3:32
Speaker 1: It's not that dark, dark gumbos that they call it
3:35
Speaker 1: gumbo soil that's down there, you know, that's associated with
3:40
Speaker 1: the decay of vegetation and that sort of thing. Very swampy.
3:44
Speaker 1: It's not like that. It looks like more like you're
3:47
Speaker 1: heading to Texas, and you are, because this is not
3:51
Speaker 1: too far from Shreeport. And you know that Shreeport on
3:54
Speaker 1: the E twenty corridor is kind of the gateway out
3:56
Speaker 1: of Louisiana into Texas. You continue on down that road
4:00
Speaker 1: out of Report headed westbound and you'll be in Texas
4:03
Speaker 1: pretty soon. So but you know, Benville Parish is where
4:09
Speaker 1: Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker actually met their end in
4:15
Speaker 1: a halo of gunfire. And I think that most people
4:18
Speaker 1: understand that. And you know the infamous you know, desert
4:24
Speaker 1: colored sedan that they were in that was bullet ridden.
4:28
Speaker 1: But I got it. I know I've been prattling on,
4:31
Speaker 1: but I got to tell you what initially got me
4:33
Speaker 1: interested in this, other than the fact that it took
4:36
Speaker 1: place in Louisiana. And and I actually have seen that car.
4:42
Speaker 1: It used to when I was little, That car that
4:46
Speaker 1: Bonnie and Clyde died in used to be placed up
4:49
Speaker 1: on the back of a flatbed truck and they take
4:51
Speaker 1: it all over the South to fairs and people could
4:54
Speaker 1: see it. It's kind of a gruesome kind of thing.
4:57
Speaker 1: But you know, that's compared to the world that we
5:01
Speaker 1: inhabit now, it's kind of tame when you begin to
5:03
Speaker 1: think about it.
5:04
Speaker 2: You know, you can still see the car.
5:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, John can't.
5:07
Speaker 2: Play at the Prim Valley Resort and casino.
5:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, isn't that something? And I was telling you
5:13
Speaker 1: about my son Noah the other day up in I
5:19
Speaker 1: guess Ripley's I think the crime usum or something up
5:22
Speaker 1: in Pigeon Forge. You see Ted Bundy's car right there,
5:24
Speaker 1: the Volkswagen and John Wayne Gacy's clown suits and all
5:28
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So it's rather macabre. But yeah,
5:32
Speaker 1: it's a it's a fascinating bit of certainly crime history,
5:36
Speaker 1: and it's it's kind of woven its way through through
5:43
Speaker 1: our tails. I think, you know when you think about it.
5:46
Speaker 2: Well, when you mentioned the color of it, Joe, most
5:48
Speaker 2: of us don't know because we've only seen black and
5:50
Speaker 2: white photos unless you've seen it in person. I haven't.
5:52
Speaker 2: I've only seen it in pictures, and some of the
5:55
Speaker 2: pictures that we've seen or that have been shown are
5:58
Speaker 2: pretty graphic in terms of the bullets in the car
6:00
Speaker 2: and the shots that were on Bonnie and Clyde. I
6:04
Speaker 2: know there have been some over the years, not leaked
6:08
Speaker 2: to the press, but published by newspapers all over the
6:11
Speaker 2: country because this was at the era in the early
6:14
Speaker 2: thirties where the Great Depression had set in and banks
6:19
Speaker 2: were in disfavor with most Americans at the time. The
6:23
Speaker 2: banks were blamed for a lot of the undoing of
6:25
Speaker 2: our financial structure in this country. And so at first,
6:28
Speaker 2: when you had these people that Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger,
6:32
Speaker 2: pretty Boy Floyd, you know, you had a whole litten.
6:36
Speaker 1: Baby face Nelson.
6:38
Speaker 2: Yes, they all had nick they had nicknames that just
6:40
Speaker 2: you know, there was they were celebrities in a way.
6:46
Speaker 1: They were no, not no, you're absolutely right. And Capone
6:50
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean Capone. I mean and I know
6:52
Speaker 1: that that's a little bit different, but they're all kind
6:54
Speaker 1: of swirling around that same toilet bowl. Yeah, yeah, you're
7:01
Speaker 1: absolutely right.
7:02
Speaker 2: And when this one on Capone was in Alcatraz by then,
7:05
Speaker 2: by the thirties, wasn't he?
7:07
Speaker 1: I think it was. It was a little bit later
7:09
Speaker 1: in the thirties or maybe the early forties. Oh wow,
7:12
Speaker 1: wound up Percy wound up dying of syphilis. Why is that?
7:15
Speaker 2: You and I go right there? Every time he died
7:19
Speaker 2: of the things they warned us about in health class
7:22
Speaker 2: in seventh or eighth grade. There you go, all right? Anyway,
7:25
Speaker 2: Bonnie and Clyde, they were very young. Oh yeah, when
7:29
Speaker 2: they started their life of crime. Bonnie had already been
7:34
Speaker 2: married and actually was currently married when she met Clyde Barrow.
7:39
Speaker 2: I think she was like nineteen, she was nineteen, yeah, yeah,
7:42
Speaker 2: and she was already married and her husband was in jail,
7:45
Speaker 2: and they hit it off. But Clyde ended up in
7:49
Speaker 2: the clink very shortly after he met Bonnie. He ended
7:52
Speaker 2: up in jail and she actually they met and just connected.
7:57
Speaker 2: You You hear of stories of people talking about love
8:00
Speaker 2: first sight and things like that. Yeah, Bonnie and Clyde
8:02
Speaker 2: very close to that. Again, she was already married to
8:04
Speaker 2: somebody else. He's in prison. Clyde had been in and
8:07
Speaker 2: out of jail by the way, to give you an
8:09
Speaker 2: idea of how old they were, Clyde was twenty five,
8:14
Speaker 2: Bonnie was twenty three when they were killed.
8:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're not talking about a huge amount of tom.
8:20
Speaker 2: No, very short window here. And it was Bonnie Parker
8:27
Speaker 2: that smuggled the gun into Clyde in prison for him
8:31
Speaker 2: to break out of jail. Yeah, that's they just connected
8:34
Speaker 2: so fast and boom. She didn't do that for her husband,
8:37
Speaker 2: but she did it for Clyde.
8:39
Speaker 1: Did it for Clyde and he was and he's a
8:41
Speaker 1: little bidial guy. She was tiny as well. I think
8:47
Speaker 1: that people build these folks up so that they're you
8:51
Speaker 1: know that you think that they're giants walking the earth,
8:54
Speaker 1: and they're really not. And when you think about how
8:56
Speaker 1: much devastation they reaked that it was roughly a two
9:01
Speaker 1: year period.
9:03
Speaker 2: Like twenty month. There's a twenty one month span from
9:05
Speaker 2: the beginning to the end of killing. And by the way,
9:09
Speaker 2: they were not good thieves, you know, they were not
9:14
Speaker 2: bank robbers that made a lot of money. They'd never
9:17
Speaker 2: actually scored a lot of money. I think their average
9:19
Speaker 2: take was like eighty bucks. But what they were was
9:22
Speaker 2: they were soulless merciless killers who killed more police officers
9:27
Speaker 2: than civilians.
9:30
Speaker 1: Think about that. Yeah, they did, And I think that's
9:32
Speaker 1: an extension. And I've heard this reported before. You know that.
9:36
Speaker 1: You know Clyde. Apparently he wound up in prison as
9:40
Speaker 1: a result. They hooked him up on a beef over
9:43
Speaker 1: stolen chicken, and that's kind of his first entree into this.
9:47
Speaker 1: No pun intended there. And then I think he failed
9:53
Speaker 1: to return a rental car of all things. But here's
9:58
Speaker 1: what happened when he got in side with the penitentiary
10:05
Speaker 1: or the jail in Texas. He wound up getting raped
10:09
Speaker 1: multiple times inside of that institution. And so, and like
10:14
Speaker 1: I said, he was a really tiny guy and he
10:17
Speaker 1: probably had a really hard time defending himself. There was
10:22
Speaker 1: a prison guard that is counted on his scorecard as
10:29
Speaker 1: a result of a death, you know, And so that
10:33
Speaker 1: extension of police officers if you've crossed his path, Because
10:39
Speaker 1: let's face it, heat this is kind of an interesting take.
10:42
Speaker 1: And I don't know if people have really thought about this.
10:46
Speaker 1: We talk a lot about serial killers, and we have
10:49
Speaker 1: now for decades. Can you, Dave Mack, my friend, remember
10:56
Speaker 1: any serial killer that targeted police officers?
11:00
Speaker 2: Wow?
11:01
Speaker 1: No, and he found a compatriot in Bonnie.
11:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
11:06
Speaker 1: And they were out to kill cops. I mean, and
11:10
Speaker 1: these these are young, young fellows that they're killing, and
11:14
Speaker 1: many of them had families.
11:16
Speaker 2: And you know, you mentioned young Joe. Very quickly the
11:21
Speaker 2: tide turned on Bonnie and Clyde because of the killing
11:24
Speaker 2: of a police officer on Easter Sunday who was on
11:28
Speaker 2: his second day on the job. Up until then, they
11:31
Speaker 2: were folk heroes, you know, they were robbing banks that had,
11:34
Speaker 2: you know, destroyed people's lives. Killing police officers. I don't
11:39
Speaker 2: know what the I don't know what the average take
11:41
Speaker 2: was on that in the nineteen thirties. I don't know,
11:44
Speaker 2: but I do know this after there was, like before
11:50
Speaker 2: the killing of the police officer on that Easter Sunday,
11:54
Speaker 2: there was kind of a groundswell of support entertainment value
11:57
Speaker 2: of watching the Shenanigans of Bonnie and Clyde in the barrow.
12:00
Speaker 2: After that murder for no reason, killing these two police officers,
12:05
Speaker 2: not in the shootout, not in a shootout. That was
12:09
Speaker 2: when people, Okay, these are evil people. We got to
12:12
Speaker 2: get them, you know, we have to take them out now.
12:14
Speaker 2: And that's what led to the beginning. That was the
12:17
Speaker 2: beginning of the end. Granted they were being hunted, but.
12:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were, and they became you know, they used
12:25
Speaker 1: to love to use the term mad dog. Yeah, I
12:28
Speaker 1: mad Dog Killer. And there was actually a guy who's
12:31
Speaker 1: associated with the New York Underworld, Underworld. I think it
12:36
Speaker 1: was mad Dog McCall was his name. And a matter
12:40
Speaker 1: of fact, I think the movie The Cotton Club back
12:44
Speaker 1: in the eighties, maybe eighty four, Nicholas Cage actually played
12:51
Speaker 1: a character that's based on that guy and went by
12:53
Speaker 1: that name, and so they used that term mad and
12:57
Speaker 1: I think and it's an easy you know, when you're
12:59
Speaker 1: a rural person and you've got a dog out in
13:03
Speaker 1: the yard that's foaming at the mouth, that's baring its teeth,
13:09
Speaker 1: and you know what's going on, it not just indicates danger,
13:16
Speaker 1: but it also indicates a disease, a level of lethality
13:22
Speaker 1: that you know that if you don't put them down.
13:25
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna stop, Dave. I got a question for you, brother.
13:40
Speaker 1: Have you have you ever done something that felt wrong
13:49
Speaker 1: when you were doing it but it really wasn't wrong,
13:55
Speaker 1: but yet you had this kind of feeling, you know,
13:57
Speaker 1: like and if somebody saw me doing this or getting
14:01
Speaker 1: caught with this, I'd be in trouble. Has that ever
14:03
Speaker 1: happened to you. I'm not asking to reveal any deep
14:08
Speaker 1: dark secrets here.
14:08
Speaker 2: But boy, okay, I'll go along with that and say yes.
14:15
Speaker 1: And that's all I'm going to get out of you. Yeah.
14:17
Speaker 1: Oh look, man, this is I tell you, this is bogus. Man.
14:21
Speaker 1: I was really hoping we were going to open the
14:23
Speaker 1: vault here on Dave mac No.
14:25
Speaker 2: I can't you know what, Joe, I look at now,
14:31
Speaker 2: a statue of limitations. You know, you start thinking about
14:36
Speaker 2: I always said if I ever ran for office, my
14:39
Speaker 2: slogan would be yes, I did you know? Just because well, I.
14:44
Speaker 1: Gotta tell you something real quick that I felt I
14:47
Speaker 1: had that feeling about myself when and it has to
14:53
Speaker 1: do with Bonnie and Claude. Yeah. I guess it was
14:57
Speaker 1: probably nineteen eighty eight or eighty seven. I can't recall.
15:06
Speaker 1: Went to a State Corners convention in Louisiana, where I
15:12
Speaker 1: was working at the time, and it's kind of that's
15:15
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, it's kind of an interesting event
15:17
Speaker 1: to go to, particularly if you were not in that world,
15:19
Speaker 1: if you were an observer and you could come in
15:21
Speaker 1: because you can imagine all the stories that are being
15:24
Speaker 1: told in this environment. I think that it might make
15:27
Speaker 1: some people at crime con blush more than likely because
15:30
Speaker 1: they you know you and particularly during that time period,
15:35
Speaker 1: all those years, all those years ago, there were you know,
15:38
Speaker 1: so many things that were going on relative to serial
15:40
Speaker 1: killings and just horrible crimes that a lot of people
15:43
Speaker 1: had never heard of because you didn't have the vast
15:45
Speaker 1: media coverage. But back to my big reveal here. When
15:50
Speaker 1: I was there, I was with my mentor. It was
15:55
Speaker 1: my first first time I'd ever been, and it was
16:00
Speaker 1: a mentor that had trained me as a death investigator arguably,
16:03
Speaker 1: in my opinion, probably the best forensic scientist and practitioner
16:07
Speaker 1: I've ever been around in my life. It was Bill.
16:12
Speaker 1: Bill introduced me to a group of people that were
16:15
Speaker 1: Corners from North Louisiana. Now remember we're down in New
16:20
Speaker 1: Orleans and we're chatting and I met the corner from
16:26
Speaker 1: being vill Perish and he tells Bill, I've got something
16:33
Speaker 1: for you, but don't tell anybody. You know. Bill says,
16:39
Speaker 1: you know, he's like talking to me, and he's like,
16:41
Speaker 1: I don't know what he's got, but he says, I
16:45
Speaker 1: can't tell anybody, but I'm telling you. And the next
16:48
Speaker 1: thing I knew, Bill's like waving me over to the side, right,
16:52
Speaker 1: and this is we went. We were tired somewhere for drinks,
16:56
Speaker 1: all right, and we're kind of hold up in a lounge.
17:00
Speaker 1: He says, You're not going to believe what I've got.
17:03
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, hit me, I said, does this
17:06
Speaker 1: have something to do with the guy from Benvilpairs. He's like, yeah,
17:09
Speaker 1: You're not gonna believe what I got. I was like, okay,
17:12
Speaker 1: what have you got? He says, I've got a copy
17:17
Speaker 1: of the Corners records from Bonnie and Clyde's examination post mortem.
17:24
Speaker 1: I was like, what, because you know, back during that time, Dave,
17:27
Speaker 1: as you well know, you've been in the you've been
17:30
Speaker 1: in media for quite quite a while. You remember, back
17:33
Speaker 1: you didn't have access to this kind of stuff. Now
17:36
Speaker 1: you can just go online like you can. And if
17:39
Speaker 1: you go online now you can actually see the Corner's
17:43
Speaker 1: jury report that's written out in longhand it looks like
17:48
Speaker 1: it's written in pencil. It's the same one that I
17:51
Speaker 1: was given all those years now and now it's everywhere,
17:54
Speaker 1: you know, and it's been transcribed, because I remember sitting
17:56
Speaker 1: down day when I got this thing because day day,
18:00
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Bill made a copy of it for me
18:03
Speaker 1: when we got back, and it's on legal, legal sized paper,
18:06
Speaker 1: so you had to load legal paper into the copier.
18:09
Speaker 1: He made me copies of this thing, and I actually
18:12
Speaker 1: had to take a magnifying glass out and try to
18:16
Speaker 1: make out because this is all written in longhand none
18:20
Speaker 1: of this stuff was typed up, And all of a sudden,
18:24
Speaker 1: the world kind of burst open for me because for
18:28
Speaker 1: the first time I'd seen images, you know, in publications
18:32
Speaker 1: and all these sorts of things. I'd heard the tales
18:34
Speaker 1: as a kid, I'd seen the car. But when you
18:40
Speaker 1: have that document in front of you that recorded this
18:44
Speaker 1: event and these people that were there and they're actually
18:49
Speaker 1: relaying what they saw in regards to bonding Clyde, it
18:54
Speaker 1: was It was quite amazing, It really was, because you
18:57
Speaker 1: had a clothing description, you know. The only only point
19:00
Speaker 1: of reference I had I don't know about you was
19:04
Speaker 1: Faye Dunaway and Warren Baby, you know, in that movie
19:09
Speaker 1: from back in the sixties, which is horrible because I
19:12
Speaker 1: think that it, you know, it further propagated this idea
19:17
Speaker 1: that these people were were heroes and isn't that isn't
19:21
Speaker 1: that horrible? You know, kind of how they painted this
19:26
Speaker 1: relative to these people. And we've had this this evolution
19:29
Speaker 1: over a period of time, and I hope that it continues.
19:32
Speaker 1: But you know, in addition to for folks that have
19:36
Speaker 1: never been to that area up there, it's it's beenvil
19:40
Speaker 1: perish and it's it's obviously not populated by the most
19:44
Speaker 1: wealthy people in the world. They're salt of the earth
19:46
Speaker 1: people that grind a life out. They make their they
19:49
Speaker 1: make their living, you know, in aggra based stuff or
19:53
Speaker 1: their pulp witters. And here's something fascinating that that I
19:59
Speaker 1: discovered because I went out to the site the location
20:02
Speaker 1: of where the ambush took place, because you know, Kim
20:05
Speaker 1: and I we were on the road and we were like, hey,
20:08
Speaker 1: here's Gibbsland, because that's the address that it carries. But
20:13
Speaker 1: it's actually about eight miles outside of Gibbsland, and so
20:16
Speaker 1: it's a two lane state highway and it's got new
20:21
Speaker 1: growth pine forest on both sides of the road that
20:25
Speaker 1: has obviously been harvested for pulpwood over the years. And
20:30
Speaker 1: there is this stone monument that sits in this kind
20:34
Speaker 1: of dusty red clay area just off the shoulder of
20:36
Speaker 1: the road, and over the years it's been chipped away.
20:41
Speaker 1: There's chunks of it that are missing because people show
20:44
Speaker 1: up with a hammer or chisel and they'll take a
20:46
Speaker 1: piece of it. And there's weird poetry that's been scribbled
20:50
Speaker 1: or left in bottles that kind of occupies this space
20:54
Speaker 1: around there. And then when you look across the road
20:58
Speaker 1: from where this thing is, and this was kind of interesting,
21:02
Speaker 1: there are these tiny, these tiny little wellheads that are
21:07
Speaker 1: capped off that the field is just populated with and
21:10
Speaker 1: those are natural gas wellheads, right, and you know, and
21:14
Speaker 1: I find that there's a bit of irony I think
21:17
Speaker 1: in that regarding their deaths. You know, they sought, they
21:21
Speaker 1: sought this fantastic you know idea that yeah, we're gonna
21:29
Speaker 1: murder cops, we're gonna try to pick up some money
21:31
Speaker 1: along the way, and here they are, you know, they're
21:35
Speaker 1: just absolutely riddled there in that spot, allegedly. And then
21:41
Speaker 1: across the way is a field that is representative of
21:44
Speaker 1: all the money in the world that you could ever
21:46
Speaker 1: want if you had access to it. And so you know,
21:51
Speaker 1: I don't know, Serve God or Mammon, I guess, but
21:54
Speaker 1: you know, you look there and you see that and
21:56
Speaker 1: it's kind of kind of a fascinating bit, but it's isolated, Dave.
22:00
Speaker 1: This location is so far out there. And you know
22:03
Speaker 1: when when Hamer, who is the retired UH Texas ranger.
22:10
Speaker 2: Frank Hammer, and many Gault that were out there.
22:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, in many gal and they they went out there
22:17
Speaker 1: with a posse and it was it was a posse
22:21
Speaker 1: and they they they sat and waited in that brush line,
22:26
Speaker 1: and you know, there's been reports. I don't know, Dave,
22:29
Speaker 1: if you've ever gotten gotten covered in red bugs at
22:34
Speaker 1: any point in time in your life, these guys had
22:37
Speaker 1: red bugs on them. It's May, it's North Louisiana, it's hot,
22:42
Speaker 1: it's humid, you're dehydrated, and you don't know when these
22:45
Speaker 1: people are going to show up. Because they were going
22:48
Speaker 1: actually to the home of the parent of one of
22:51
Speaker 1: their compatriots.
22:52
Speaker 2: It was actually Henry Methven. It was just Body and
22:54
Speaker 2: Clyde at this point, and the Frank Hamer and many
22:58
Speaker 2: Gaal knew that they were probably going to be paying
23:01
Speaker 2: a visit to Henry Metfin or his family just didn't
23:05
Speaker 2: need a place to sleep because Bonnie had been hurt
23:09
Speaker 2: in a car accident in June of nineteen thirty three.
23:13
Speaker 2: Her face was burned, her arms were burned, her chest
23:16
Speaker 2: was caved in. According to Blanche, she had injuries from
23:20
Speaker 2: this accident that she never recovered from, and they had
23:25
Speaker 2: to take time for her to get off the road
23:28
Speaker 2: for a little while. And that's where they thought they'd
23:29
Speaker 2: be heading to Henry Methven's dad. And that's why Frank
23:33
Speaker 2: hammer Hamer and many gal actually camped out and waited.
23:37
Speaker 2: And it was not hours, it was days.
23:40
Speaker 1: It was days.
23:41
Speaker 2: And you mentioned the bugs, And that's the one thing
23:44
Speaker 2: that was written about these guys, Hammer Galt and a
23:47
Speaker 2: couple other guys. They're waiting, They're waiting in the bushes.
23:52
Speaker 2: They're waiting for Bonnie and Clyde to come driving by.
23:56
Speaker 1: So let me ask something. Do you know why they're
24:00
Speaker 1: were waiting? Do you know why they were willing to
24:03
Speaker 1: endure that heat and that humidity and red bugs and
24:09
Speaker 1: skeeters and all manner of everything else that was up
24:12
Speaker 1: in the brush there along along with them, maybe copper
24:16
Speaker 1: heads and rattlesnakes and everything else that's in that area
24:19
Speaker 1: you're talking about spring, they had had it up to hear.
24:23
Speaker 1: I think what it comes down to is that Frank
24:27
Speaker 1: Hamer and his posse wanted to be on one level
24:38
Speaker 1: that reassurance that they were wearing white hats and that
24:44
Speaker 1: they were going to do whatever they possibly could to
24:50
Speaker 1: bring a resolution to this horror and quiet the public.
24:56
Speaker 1: Because it's one thing for some newspaper and some far
24:59
Speaker 1: flung place away from being Ville Parish, Louisiana, up in
25:05
Speaker 1: New York or Chicago at the time, or maybe even
25:08
Speaker 1: la to write a piece about how romantic this all is.
25:13
Speaker 1: But when you're down on the ground and you're a
25:15
Speaker 1: cop store owner or maybe working in a bank, you
25:20
Speaker 1: live your life in terror. Hey, Dave, you remember a
25:37
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago when we did an episode of
25:41
Speaker 1: body Bags on the Corner System. Yeah, do you recall that.
25:45
Speaker 2: I remember studying after the fact. That was the most
25:49
Speaker 2: enlighten I learned so much on that episode, and a
25:51
Speaker 2: number of people have actually sent in emails about how
25:56
Speaker 2: much well learned. It was like be any class. But
25:58
Speaker 2: I just remember when you and I I went, Okay,
26:01
Speaker 2: I got to figure this out. It's it's a it's a.
26:04
Speaker 1: It's a weird world that you enter into when you
26:06
Speaker 1: walk to the door with Joseph Scott Morgan. I'm sorry
26:09
Speaker 1: for I'm sorry for any trauma.
26:11
Speaker 2: It was awesome. I had no idea, Joe. I mean,
26:13
Speaker 2: it was one of those things where I had no
26:15
Speaker 2: you know, one of the things you don't know what
26:18
Speaker 2: you don't know. I had no idea what.
26:20
Speaker 1: I didn't know. Well, the corner system in Louisiana is interesting.
26:24
Speaker 1: It's interesting everywhere, but you know, unlike other states, in
26:31
Speaker 1: Louisiana there are a couple others, but specifically I'm speaking
26:36
Speaker 1: to Louisiana. In order to run for the office of
26:39
Speaker 1: corner there, you have to be a physician, and that
26:42
Speaker 1: has always been the case. It's not that's not something
26:45
Speaker 1: new under the sun. And you know, when there was
26:52
Speaker 1: a uh an exam that had to be conducted on
26:59
Speaker 1: the remain means of Bonnie and Clyde, it was it
27:03
Speaker 1: fell to the corner of beingvill parish at that particular
27:08
Speaker 1: time to you know, to facilitate that had to make
27:13
Speaker 1: it happen, and it was, you know, it was it
27:16
Speaker 1: was done. Doctor Wade was actually the corner there. And
27:21
Speaker 1: you know, go, hey, let's the old country doctor.
27:25
Speaker 2: When you have like a case that is this big,
27:27
Speaker 2: that has national, you know, international coverage of this these people,
27:32
Speaker 2: is there not a way to bring in somebody at
27:36
Speaker 2: the fact, you know, bigger, more educated. I mean, I
27:39
Speaker 2: know that the law requires that it is handled like
27:42
Speaker 2: right here, but kind of like when JFK was killed
27:45
Speaker 2: thirty years later, they took his body out of Dallas
27:48
Speaker 2: and got it to Washington, d C. Granted he was
27:51
Speaker 2: the president, but these people are famous criminals. They've broken
27:53
Speaker 2: the law in several states. Was there any thought that
27:56
Speaker 2: we need to bring somebody else in to do the autopsy?
27:58
Speaker 2: Or was he just done and get them out?
28:01
Speaker 1: Yeah? Hang on for a minute, because I got to
28:03
Speaker 1: tell you, relative to JFK, they did not take take him,
28:07
Speaker 1: certainly to the finest that was available. They went to
28:11
Speaker 1: the bottom of the barrel. As far as I'm concerned with.
28:14
Speaker 1: With Bonnie and Clyde, however it was, it was the
28:18
Speaker 1: office of Corner and being Vialparish, you know, reflecting back,
28:21
Speaker 1: I told you about the about the you know, the
28:25
Speaker 1: report that that i'd been given, you know, all all
28:29
Speaker 1: these many years ago that I wanted to talk about,
28:32
Speaker 1: and this sort of thing. And the thing is is handwritten, which.
28:35
Speaker 2: By the way, I could not understand when you told
28:37
Speaker 2: me you got a magnifying glass. I looked at it.
28:39
Speaker 2: I looked at this bayer going over and I'm like,
28:41
Speaker 2: how did you read that?
28:42
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's something to see
28:46
Speaker 1: and look. Anybody can see it. I recommend you.
28:49
Speaker 2: Know.
28:49
Speaker 1: All you got to do is is you know, uh
28:53
Speaker 1: is google search? Yeah, Google search office. You know, the
28:57
Speaker 1: the Corners Report of the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde Parker,
29:00
Speaker 1: and you'll find it. It's there and it's really it's
29:02
Speaker 1: very difficult to kind of decipher. But you know, looking
29:06
Speaker 1: back in time and when I saw this thing, I
29:08
Speaker 1: thought that they did a pretty good job. But you
29:10
Speaker 1: know what's really interesting about body in Clyde's case, Davis,
29:14
Speaker 1: they didn't actually do an autopsy. I don't know if
29:18
Speaker 1: you know that. No, they did not actually do an autopsy.
29:22
Speaker 1: You had what was impaneled back then. It's called a
29:26
Speaker 1: corner's jury, and it was a collection of men. Corner's
29:33
Speaker 1: juries are a thing and it's almost like, I don't
29:36
Speaker 1: know how to describe it other than kind of like
29:41
Speaker 1: a grand jury. Where you're trying to where a grand jury,
29:45
Speaker 1: you're trying to decide if there is enough information to
29:49
Speaker 1: indict somebody, if you're going to true bill or no
29:51
Speaker 1: true bill. A case, right, a criminal case with a
29:54
Speaker 1: corner's jury. Their purpose was to be there for the
30:00
Speaker 1: corner to present evidence to them that how they were
30:05
Speaker 1: going to rule the death. Okay, what are they going
30:07
Speaker 1: to call this? Are they going to call this homicide? Suicide?
30:11
Speaker 1: You know, what are they going to call this? And obviously,
30:14
Speaker 1: you know, we sit here and we think about, uh,
30:16
Speaker 1: well it was pretty obvious, you know how Bonnie god
30:19
Speaker 1: died there. Yes, it is. This is a homicide. Yeah, absolutely,
30:24
Speaker 1: I mean there's nothing that wasn't accidental. It's not suicide.
30:27
Speaker 1: Uh you know, yeah yeah. And it's just like just
30:33
Speaker 1: like a you know, uh, an execution in a state
30:38
Speaker 1: penitentiary is a homicide. Okay, you can't call it anything else, period.
30:43
Speaker 1: And so they impaneled a jury, a corners jury, and
30:48
Speaker 1: it's not that they had trouble determinant. But it goes
30:50
Speaker 1: back to an interesting statement you made just a moment ago.
30:54
Speaker 1: This is going to be the official record going forward,
30:59
Speaker 1: forever and ever and ever and ever amen. And the
31:06
Speaker 1: fascinating thing is that when they're looking at this, you've
31:13
Speaker 1: got all of these men that are impaneled on this
31:16
Speaker 1: jury with a corner being the leader of it, and
31:19
Speaker 1: they're there to verify because who else is going to verify?
31:24
Speaker 1: Remember the world that they're living in. They're living in
31:28
Speaker 1: a world, Dave that news. I mean, it doesn't move
31:32
Speaker 1: move at the speed that say the Pony Express moved at.
31:35
Speaker 1: But you know, you're still working with telegraphs, they're using telephone.
31:41
Speaker 1: I think there may have been a rudimentary facts by
31:44
Speaker 1: that by that point in time, I think they called
31:46
Speaker 1: it something else. But you still it moves slowly. You
31:51
Speaker 1: had to have somebody there that would that would verify
31:54
Speaker 1: that these people were in fact dead, and it's better
31:57
Speaker 1: than just having one person to verify the death. Now
32:00
Speaker 1: you've got a whole group of people. And not only
32:01
Speaker 1: do you have a group, all these guys are signing
32:04
Speaker 1: off on this, and you can see the list of
32:06
Speaker 1: their signatures. You know when you look down, when you
32:09
Speaker 1: look down the page on this thing, they're all there
32:13
Speaker 1: and their names are affixed to this documents. As odd
32:18
Speaker 1: as it is, there were looking at it physically, looking
32:23
Speaker 1: at it right now. There's five people that have signed
32:27
Speaker 1: onto this, in addition to doctor Wade who was there.
32:31
Speaker 1: And you know, they go into, you know, great detail
32:34
Speaker 1: about describing the bodies and the injuries. You know, Bonnie
32:39
Speaker 1: Bonnie actually received the worst of it. Not that what
32:44
Speaker 1: Clyde had received wasn't wasn't bad, But there's a story
32:51
Speaker 1: that goes on out there relative to Bonnie's body. And
32:57
Speaker 1: just imagine this. She was hit so many times and
33:01
Speaker 1: I'll go into kind of the nastiness of these wounds
33:05
Speaker 1: in just a second, but just kind of let me
33:07
Speaker 1: set this up. She was shot so many times that
33:11
Speaker 1: they actually had a very difficult time embalming her body.
33:15
Speaker 1: So just imagine we have to think about the way
33:18
Speaker 1: the embalming process works. It's a profusion of embalming fluid,
33:24
Speaker 1: you know, in the major vessels of the body. The
33:26
Speaker 1: bodies on a table, it's kind of tilted from the
33:28
Speaker 1: head down. They've got these tro cars that they go
33:32
Speaker 1: into the body with and they start their little pump.
33:35
Speaker 1: In days gone past, the mortician would use a foot pump,
33:39
Speaker 1: you know, to infuse the body with the embalming fluid. Well,
33:42
Speaker 1: can you imagine that and they still have to do
33:46
Speaker 1: this today with multiple gunshot one cases, but they had
33:50
Speaker 1: she was springing leaks and let that set in just
33:53
Speaker 1: for a second. So you've got the vessels that carry
33:59
Speaker 1: the bloody obviously are now being perfused with embalming fluid,
34:03
Speaker 1: and the way the thing works is through gravity. You're
34:06
Speaker 1: as as the body is being profused with the embalming fluid.
34:11
Speaker 1: Traditionally you can see the line coming out of the
34:15
Speaker 1: body and the blood is being pushed out of the body.
34:17
Speaker 1: It's being replaced by embalming fluid. Well, it wasn't getting
34:21
Speaker 1: to that point. The holes were there and the body
34:24
Speaker 1: had to be plugged in order to take on the
34:27
Speaker 1: embalming fluid.
34:29
Speaker 2: Joe I was looking at the list of these injuries
34:33
Speaker 2: and it was listed out on Bonnie. Okay, on Bonnie.
34:37
Speaker 2: I actually had to look at this several times because
34:41
Speaker 2: you mentioned probably written in pencil. Yeah, the penmanship is weak.
34:45
Speaker 2: But shot in the left breast going into chest. This
34:49
Speaker 2: was a description of a bullet wound shot four inches
34:52
Speaker 2: below the ear, another shot entering above the right knee,
34:57
Speaker 2: two shots front leg, two shots right leg, gunshot wound
35:03
Speaker 2: around edge of hair, one and a half inches above
35:07
Speaker 2: the left ear. Another threw the mouth on the left side,
35:12
Speaker 2: exiting at top of jaw, another at middle just below
35:17
Speaker 2: left jaw, another above clavical left side, going into the neck.
35:24
Speaker 2: Another entering chest two inches below the inner side of
35:29
Speaker 2: the left shoulder. Two shots about two inches below the
35:34
Speaker 2: left shoulder, fracturing the bone. Another wound on the elbow
35:37
Speaker 2: of the left arm. Another entering left chest above the heart,
35:41
Speaker 2: breaking ribs. Six shots entering three inches on back region
35:48
Speaker 2: left side. Five pellet wounds about the middle of the
35:51
Speaker 2: left side. Cuts from glass on the ankle, cut on
35:57
Speaker 2: top of left foot, apparently from glass cut on center
36:01
Speaker 2: of right thigh, cut six inches in length, about three
36:05
Speaker 2: and a half inches center of right leg. Eight metal
36:11
Speaker 2: fragments centering across the front of face.
36:14
Speaker 1: There you go, wow, So it's yeah, it's.
36:20
Speaker 2: Now, I see, I get that. By the way, that's
36:22
Speaker 2: not the complete list.
36:23
Speaker 1: No, No, it goes on and you Clydes is almost
36:26
Speaker 1: as robust. But you know, they wanted obviously, the purpose
36:31
Speaker 1: here was to make sure that they were I used
36:34
Speaker 1: the term neutralized just a moment ago, and that's a
36:36
Speaker 1: very clinical term. But they wanted. They were mad dogs
36:40
Speaker 1: and they knew the importance of putting them down. First off,
36:46
Speaker 1: I think probably and this is me projecting, because I
36:49
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't presume to get inside their mind,
36:51
Speaker 1: but you know, I think that any right there's right
36:54
Speaker 1: thinking person would probably conclude that not only did they
37:00
Speaker 1: to neutralize this threat, but they needed to send a message.
37:06
Speaker 1: They need to send a message to those individuals that
37:10
Speaker 1: thought that they could go out and randomly do whatever
37:14
Speaker 1: they wanted to do, which includes murdering police officers. And
37:20
Speaker 1: of course they brought this to an end. And right quick,
37:27
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks