The Time Capsule: Bonnie and Clyde’s trip through Villisca

 Watching the most recent re-make of “Bonnie and Clyde” brought to mind a story I was told years ago by a Villisca resident.  

Books and movies about the gang invariably include a depiction of the shootout at a Platte City, Mo. motel. Following a wild exchange of gunfire from automatic weapons, Bonnie, Clyde, W.D. Jones, Buck and Blanche made it to their stolen Ford V-8 and escaped, heading north on Hwy. 71. Buck (Clyde’s brother) was badly wounded, his wife cut by flying glass.  The Ford took a few hits, but could do 100 mph and couldn’t be overtaken.  

A few days later a farmer became aware the gang was hiding in a park near Dexter. A posse was formed and another gunfight followed.  The unfortunate Buck was hit again and the gang’s cars immobilized.  Leaving Blanche and Buck behind, Bonnie, Clyde and Jones, all of them wounded, fled on foot. Concealed by timber and heavy brush, they waded the Raccoon River and onto a farm owned by a family named Feller.   

Feller lived well into his 90s, and I was one of many who interviewed him years after the incident. He enjoyed relating how Clyde, displaying a nasty-looking handgun, ordered him to gas up his 1929 Plymouth. Feller said he then helped lift Bonnie, who was suffering from burns and had been hit in the stomach by shotgun pellets, into the car. Bonnie and Clyde escaped, but of course were shot to death a few months later.           

There has been some uncertainty as to the route taken from Platte City to Dexter. One version has Clyde driving north on 71 to near the Iowa line, then east, after which he took various back roads to arrive at the Dexfield Park.  Others think he took a more direct route, staying on 71 to Hwy. 6, then east to Dexter. Among those who believe they stayed on 71 and passed through Villisca was a man named Needham.

I was in Villisca several times during the 1970s interviewing old timers about the ax murders. Mr. Needham (I’ve forgotten his first name) had no first-hand knowledge of that crime, but had a great Bonnie and Clyde story.  

He said in late July of 1933 he was 17 years old and working nights at a service station on the main road through town, which then was U.S. 71. At some time after midnight—he thought about 2 a.m.—a Ford V-8 pulled up to the pumps. The driver wore his hat down over his eyes. Someone in the back seat was moaning as if in pain. Needham said he filled the tank, after which a front-seat passenger asked if the station sold food.  Needham brought them a few candy bars, the passenger paid, and the car pulled out headed north. Only as it as it was leaving did Needham notice that the back window was broken out.   

The Barrow gang? Who knows, but if not there were some strange coincidences.  

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.