Editing Bonnie and Clyde (section)

=== Platte City and Dexfield Park ===
[[File:RedCrownBarrowHideout1933.jpg|left|thumb|Two-unit Red Crown Tourist Court, where the gang's conspicuous behavior drew police; Buck was killed in the ensuing gunfight. {{Coord|39.31194|-94.68639|display=inline|region:US-MO|name=1933 Site of Red Crown Tourist Court Platte City, Missouri}}]]

In July 1933, the gang checked in to the [[Red Crown Tourist Court]]<ref name="platte">Vasto, Mark. [http://www.plattecountylandmark.com/Article792.htm "Local lawmen shoot it out with notorious bandits"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080527073111/http://www.plattecountylandmark.com/Article792.htm |date=May 27, 2008 }}. Platte County Landmark. Retrieved May 25, 2008.</ref> south of [[Platte City, Missouri]]. It consisted of two brick cabins joined by garages, and the gang rented both.<ref name="platte" /> To the south stood the Red Crown Tavern, a popular restaurant among [[Missouri Highway Patrol]]men, and the gang seemed to go out of their way to draw attention.<ref>Knight, James R. and Jonathan Davis (2003). ''Bonnie and Clyde: A Twenty-First-Century Update''. Waco, Texas: Eakin Press. {{ISBN|1-57168-794-7}}. p. 100</ref> Blanche registered the party as three guests, but owner Neal Houser could see five people getting out of the car. He noted that the driver backed into the garage "gangster style" for a quick getaway.<ref name="Guinn, p 211">Guinn, p. 211</ref> Blanche paid for their cabins with coins rather than bills, and did the same later when buying five dinners and five beers.<ref>Knight and Davis, p. 112.</ref><ref group=notes>The gang had many coins because they had broken into the gumball machines at the three service stations that they robbed in [[Fort Dodge, Iowa]], earlier that day. Guinn, pp. 210–11</ref> The next day, Houser noticed that his guests had taped newspapers over the windows of their cabin; Blanche again paid for five meals with coins. Her outfit of [[jodhpurs|jodhpur]] riding breeches<ref>Parker, Cowan and Fortune, p. 117</ref> also attracted attention; they were not typical attire for women in the area, and eyewitnesses still remembered them forty years later.<ref name="Guinn, p 211" /> Houser told Captain William Baxter of the Highway Patrol, a patron of his restaurant, about the group.<ref name="platte" />

Barrow and Jones went into town<ref group=notes>Sources are split on this; most say that it was Blanche who went to town, but she recounted it as Clyde and Jones; p. 112</ref> to purchase bandages, crackers, cheese, and [[atropine]] [[sulfate]] to treat Parker's leg.<ref>Barrow and Phillips, p. 112</ref> The druggist contacted Sheriff [[Holt Coffey]], who put the cabins under surveillance. Coffey had been alerted by Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas law enforcement to watch for strangers seeking such supplies. The sheriff contacted Captain Baxter, who called for reinforcements from [[Kansas City, Missouri|Kansas City]], including an [[Armored car (VIP)|armored car]].<ref name="platte" /> Sheriff Coffey led a group of officers toward the cabins at 11pm, armed with [[Thompson submachine gun]]s.<ref name="redcrown">[http://texashideout.tripod.com/redcrown.html "Red Crown Incident"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080526182154/http://texashideout.tripod.com/redcrown.html |date=May 26, 2008 }}. TexasHideout. Retrieved May 25, 2008.</ref>

In the gunfight which ensued, the .45 caliber Thompsons proved no match for Barrow's .30 caliber BAR, stolen on July 7 from the [[United States National Guard|National Guard]] armory at [[Enid, Oklahoma]].<ref>Ramsey, p. 153</ref> The gang escaped when a bullet short-circuited the horn on the armored car<ref group=notes>The armored car was an ordinary automobile that had been fortified with panels of extra boilerplate.</ref> and the police officers mistook it for a cease-fire signal. They did not pursue the retreating Barrow vehicle.<ref name="platte" />

[[File:BlancheCapturedExfield1933.jpg|thumb|Blanche is captured at Dexfield Park, Iowa, still in her ''jodhpurs'' with husband Buck lying mortally wounded nearby<br />{{Coord|41.564388|-94.228942|display=inline|region:US-IA|name=Site of Barrow Gang shootout at Dexfield Park, Iowa}}]]
[[File:WDJones1933.jpg|thumb|upright|Jones' confession triggered murder warrants against the gang]]
The gang had evaded the law once again, but Buck had sustained a bullet wound that blasted a large hole in his forehead's skull bone and exposed his injured brain, and Blanche was nearly blinded by glass fragments in both her eyes.<ref name="platte" /><ref>Barrow and Phillips, pp. 119–21</ref>

The Barrow Gang camped at Dexfield Park, an abandoned [[amusement park]] near [[Dexter, Iowa|Dexter]], [[Iowa]], on July 24.<ref name="riding" /><ref name="road">Vasto, Mark. [http://www.plattecountylandmark.com/Article790.htm "Further on up the road"]{{dead link|date=May 2020}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080527073101/http://www.plattecountylandmark.com/Article790.htm |date=May 27, 2008 }}, Platte County Landmark. Retrieved May 25, 2008.</ref> Buck was sometimes semiconscious, and he even talked and ate, but his massive head wound and loss of blood were so severe that Barrow and Jones dug a grave for him.<ref>Guinn, p. 220</ref> Local residents noticed their bloody bandages, and officers determined that the campers were the Barrow Gang. Local police officers and approximately 100 spectators surrounded the group, and the Barrows soon came under fire.<ref name="road" /> Barrow, Parker, and Jones escaped on foot.<ref name="riding" /><ref name="road" /> Buck was shot in the back, and he and his wife were captured by the officers. Buck died of his head wound and [[pneumonia]] after surgery five days later at Kings Daughters Hospital in [[Perry, Iowa]].<ref name="road" />

For the next six weeks, the remaining perpetrators ranged far afield from their usual area of operations, west to [[Colorado]], north to Minnesota, southeast to [[Mississippi]]; yet they continued to commit armed robberies.<ref>Guinn, pp. 234–35</ref><ref group=notes>Guinn writes that their clothes were so bloody after Dexfield that they wore sheets with slits cut for their heads.</ref> They restocked their arsenal when Barrow and Jones robbed an armory at [[Plattville, Illinois|Plattville]], [[Illinois]] on August 20, acquiring three BARs, handguns, and a large quantity of ammunition.<ref>Ramsey, p. 186</ref>

By early September, the gang risked a run to Dallas to see their families for the first time in four months. Jones parted company with them, continuing to [[Houston]] where his mother had moved.<ref name="riding" /><ref name="road" /><ref group=notes>Knight and Davis had a different version, but once they split up, Jones never saw Barrow and Parker again. Knight and Davis, pp. 114–15</ref> He was arrested there without incident on November 16, and returned to Dallas. Through the autumn, Barrow committed several robberies with small-time local accomplices, while his family and Parker's attended to her considerable medical needs. On November 22, they narrowly evaded arrest while trying to meet with family members near [[Sowers, Texas]]. Dallas Sheriff Smoot Schmid, Deputy Bob Alcorn, and Deputy Ted Hinton lay in wait nearby. As Barrow drove up, he sensed a trap and drove past his family's car, at which point Schmid and his deputies stood up and opened fire with machine guns and a BAR. The family members in the crossfire were not hit, but a BAR bullet passed through the car, striking the legs of both Barrow and Parker.<ref name="Knight and Davis, p. 118">Knight and Davis, p. 118</ref> They escaped later that night.

On November 28, a Dallas grand jury delivered a murder indictment against Parker and Barrow for the killing – in January of that year, nearly ten months earlier – of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis;<ref name="Slaying Bill 1933, p 1">"Clyde and Bonnie Names Reported in Slaying Bill", ''The Dallas Morning News'', November 29, 1933, section II, p. 1</ref> it was Parker's first warrant for murder.