Sunday, May 16, 2010

Blanche & The Kissing Bandit-- Paired With the Full Frontal Death Car

Now here are a couple of photos you don't see every day. Another shot from Jefferson City, shows 2 inmates, friends and likely celebrities of the prison in Blanche Barrow & Edna Murray-- better known as The Kissing Bandit.

And this photo of the B&C death car is a good one, as shot head on from grill level-- within the police compound in Arcadia, LA. Note the onlookers as seen in the distance, poised behind the tall perimeter fence. After Bonnie & Clyde's bodies were removed, The Warren Car became the focus of a throng of souvenir seekers-- who pursued it through the streets of Arcadia looking to strip it of it's parts. Sheriff Henderson Jordan, finally ordered the death car pl
aced in the police compound for safe keeping and further examination.

As viewed from this angle, B&C's car seems to show remarkably little damage to it's front and grill. There appears to have been little attempt to disable The Warren Car's engine, with frontal shots seemingly aimed at Bonnie's side of the windshield.

As per Ted-- "Boots" Hinton has told me, this cluster of holes was made by Captain Hamer-- in thinking Bonnie may have slid toward her door in planning to shoot from her window. But this perception, in reality-- may have just been Bonnie being blown into her passenger door, when hit by bullets from her left side. According to a November 1934 interview with Sheriff Jordan, Frank Hamer fired an automatic shotgun at the death car-- loaded with buckshot. I've been told the 3 officers with shotguns, fired the largest buckshot to affect maximum damage. Perhaps this view of the death car windshield, well supports that contention. There are more Blanche photos yet to come.

1 comment:

  1. I don't see how anyone can really dispute the main target of the gunfire; I've noticed that most photos of the death car show the driver's side, which has the most bullet holes, but in the photos in which you can see the passenger side of the vehicle, you can clearly see that a lot of those bullet holes indicate that the bullets came OUT the door on that side - backing up the assertation that the majority of the shooting was directed at Clyde, and that many of the bullets that went through Clyde could very possibly have gone through Bonnie as well and then through the door. What incredible firepower the officers had when they brought a BAR or two along with them!

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