After the shootout at the Red Crown hideout, the Barrow Gang headed north, and crossed the border into Iowa. Upon reaching the village of Dexter, they settled in the twenty acre wooded recreation area called Dexfield Park, to lick their wounds. Exhaustion, panic and painful moans filled the air on that summer day of July 20, 1933. Buck was delirious and in great pain, suffering from a vicious head wound, and Blanche faced blindness from the shards of glass that had showered down on her when the car's windows were shot out. The scabs from Bonnie's burnt legs had re-opened causing them to bleed. They had to endure the extreme pain without the aid of the medication, which was left back at the Red Crown hideout. After making rough beds on the ground for Buck and Bonnie, the lesser injured, busied themselves washing up at a nearby stream and applying makeshift bandages to Buck's head and Bonnie's legs. Clyde's plans for returning his brother back home to his mother became a priority as he didn't expect him to survive his horrible injuries. They had promised her that if either one of them were badly hurt or dying, that they would be brought back home to her. On about the third day on July 23rd, the group had gone to buy some medical supplies & food, leaving the campsite for a few hours. A local who had been taking a stroll through the park, had found evidence suggesting that that someone had burned some bloody bandages. He heard the radio reports telling of the possibility of wounded fugitives being in the area and notified the county sheriff. Sheriff C.A. Knee didn't take any chances, as he knew who he would be dealing with. He made a call to his dentist friend Hershell Keller who was also a National Guardsmen, and together they formed a posse. They swore in a couple of new deputies and located every farmer or store keeper who owned even a squirrel gun or pistol. Surrounding the campsite which was vacant for the moment, they took up their positions in the nearby bushes. By late afternoon, the two bullet riddled cars had returned to the campsite. The posse remained in the bushes surveying their prey. W.D. was busy inspecting the damage to the vehicles, while Clyde meticulously cleaned their weapons. |
Plans had been made to return the dying Buck Barrow back to their mother's home in Dallas. They threw caution to the wind, and made a campfire. While W.D. cooked some sausages, Bonnie was brewing the coffee. Suddenly gunfire erupted from the bushes surrounding the camp. Bonnie screamed, and everyone of them started grabbing for their weapons, even Blanche. While they began to assemble near the cars, Clyde jumped behind the wheel of one of them and put it into gear, he began to drive the car to where the others had been waiting. Just then, a bullet struck him in the arm, causing him to drive onto a tree stump. With this car disabled, Clyde and W.D. Jones advanced to the other car, only to see it reduced to rubble, by the onslaught of the possemen's gunfire. Buck had received a total of five gunshot wounds to his back, and dropped to the ground. Blanche had refused to leave his side. Now that both cars were eliminated as a means of escape, and Buck and Blanche unable to flee, Clyde, Bonnie and W.D. made tracks for the woods nearby. As the lawmen closed in, Blanche holding on to her husband, began crying out to them, "Stop, don't shoot!", "He's already dying". Grabbing her by the arms, they pulled her away from Buck's side, Buck just lay there helplessly in a heap and dying! |
During Buck's stay at the hospital, the doors were barred, and the place was surrounded by armed lawmen. There were fears that Clyde and Bonnie would attempt to get Buck out of police custody. Only the doctors and nurses were allowed to enter the premises. Emma Parker and her daughter Billie had gone to the Perry, Iowa hospital along with Cumie and L.C. Barrow. While there, they had rented rooms in a house that was located directly across the street from the hospital. |
The following excerpts contain quotes from the doctor who had treated the wounds of the outlaws following the shoot-out in the field in Dexter, Iowa. |
Doctor Keith Chapler of the Chapler-Osborn Clinic in Dexter, Iowa, had attended to Buck & Blanche Barrow following the shoot-out. Blanche had sustained small cuts around both eyes with small pieces of crushed glass inside the upper and lower lids of both of her eyes producing traumatic conjunctivitis. "Blanche was highly tense and nervous and as you watched her sitting on the floor of the reception room in my office, with Buck surrounded by many officers, she would become more subdued" Buck Barrow had a through-and-through head wound in the front part of his skull where no vital centers are contained. This is the wound the gang had been treating themselves. They had been pouring Peroxide into the front opening and letting it boil through, three or four times a day. He (Buck) said it had not bothered him except for the pain in the beginning which had been alleviated with aspirin, and neither Doctor Osborn or myself could believe how clean the wound was. When we first saw him, he was complaining of the severe pain in his back from the shoot-out that had occured at Dexfield Park. It was found that a bullet had entered his back and ricochetted off of one of his ribs and lodged in his chest wall, posteriorly, close to the pleural cavity. "Doctor Osborn and I, did go over to the Perry hospital and did remove the bullet that was logged in Buck Barrow's chest, but I believe he developed pneumonia in a few days and did die" The report goes on to say that Blanche, dressed only in a hospital gown and a sheet, had asked to use the bathroom and then tried to escape. |
