CBSBYTE - "As I remember Bonny & Clyde where ambushed in their car by the Police in a remote area, their car was riddled with 100rds of holes from BARs with AP rounds, shotgun and pistols. Clyde was killed from the first brust of fire but Bonny survived the first onslaught, but was cut down as the police unloaded a second wave of lead into the car. Their bodies where ripped to shreds by the AP round from the BARS. Live by the gun die by the gun."
Over a period of time, that became the legend, but what happened was Frank Hamer had tracked them down. He had a Louisiana posse with him. (Coincidentally, when I was in college years ago, one of the guys in my fraternity from Shreveport, Louisiana, said his father, who was a peace officer at that time, had been in the posse. Didn't say his father shot B&C, just that he was in the posse that day.)
When Barrow stopped his car at the "mail pickup," an old hollow stump out on a country road, Hamer was the first to step out on the road.
The Ford V8 that Clyde was driving was, of course, a manual shift. The transmission was in gear, but Barrow had his foot on the clutch.
Barrow and Parker both started lifting firearms at Hamer. He immediately fired the two shots with his semi-auto rifle, hitting each in the head, killing them.
Clyde's foot came off the clutch. The car jumped forward and at that moment, the posse members opened up on the car with everything they had.
The car was riddled.
Everything happened very, very quickly.
You're correct. The two bodies had multiple gunshot wounds, but they were dead meat while taking those bullets.
Because of all the nationwide publicity, and the autopsy pictures showing Barrow and Parker with many holes in them, plus the car shot to pieces, the "legend" was that the posse killed the two cowards.
If you look closely at the autopsy pictures of Barrow and Parker, you can see the two killing shots in their heads.
Of course, the legend grew over the years. When I was a kid growing up in north Arkansas, it was standard practice for the travelling carnivals and circuses that toured the country at that time, to have "Bonnie & Clyde's Original, Genuine, Authentic V8 Ford In Which They Were Killed, The One And Only! and for 25 cents, just one quarter of a dollar bill, two dimes and one nickel, you just come right in this here tent and see that car!!!"
What the promoters would do was take an old V8 Ford of the B&C model, take it out in the country and shoot it full of holes, then throw some cow's blood all over and in it, and truck it to every county and State fair in the country. That went on for years.
I'll bet there were 25 or 30 of those old "Bonnie & Clyde" V8Fords touring around. Maybe more.
I assure you, I'v seen the "original, genuine, authentic V8 Ford of Clyde's and Bonnie's!!!" ... four or five times. Different one every time.
Anyway, that is how the legend came about.
As for Frank Hamer, he was not only a crack shot, but during his career as a peace officer, killed 35 criminals. He was wounded 19 times, and left for dead three times.
He died in his own bed, an old man.
Quite a character.
FWIW.
L.W.