[BONNIE & CLYDE] Wanted notice

[BONNIE & CLYDE] Wanted notice

Wanted Notice for the Couple Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow
[Washington, D.C. 21 May 1934], 20 x 20 cm
In fine condition throughout
Framed under beige Marie-Louise, museum plexiglass

The original wanted notice for the couple Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, issued two days before their death in a police ambush

The document bears the identification “Order No. 1227.” It is dated May 21, 1934, precisely two days before the couple’s death. The notice was issued by the Division of Investigation of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. (the forerunner of the FBI, which would not take that name until 1935). The notice is explicitly tied to the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, the federal legal basis allowing authorities to act on a charge of interstate vehicle theft, the Bureau’s sole legal jurisdiction in this case. The document is signed by J. Edgar Hoover, Director.

The Final Manhunt: Since December 1932, the Bureau of Investigation had taken an interest in Bonnie and Clyde, having traced their movements through a medical prescription found in an abandoned stolen car, which led to a pharmacy in Nacogdoches, Texas, tied to Clyde’s aunt. On April 1, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde shot down two young highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas, then, on April 6, a constable in Miami, Oklahoma, was mortally wounded by the couple, who also abducted and wounded a police chief. Although the FBI’s official jurisdiction extended only to the charge of transporting a stolen vehicle across state lines, its agents distributed wanted notices with fingerprints, photographs, and descriptions to police forces everywhere, and eventually established the link between the couple and Henry Methvin, a gang member from Louisiana. It was this tracking that led the authorities to the Methvin family in Louisiana, two days before the fatal outcome.

The Ambush of May 23, 1934: On May 20, Bonnie and Clyde became separated from Henry Methvin at a café in Shreveport; upon learning this, Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan, who knew the address of Methvin’s father, assembled a posse that lay in wait in the woods for two days and two nights, gambling that the couple would try to reconnect with Methvin. On May 23, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde were killed on Louisiana Highway 154 by a posse of lawmen led by former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. The officers fired approximately 130 rounds into the moving vehicle, killing both fugitives instantly. Bonnie was 23 years old, Clyde was 25.