The story behind the 2019 Netflix film, The Highwaymen, and the fateful Easter murders committed by the ruthless duo Bonnie and Clyde.
Almost 90 years ago, a team of resolute and courageous lawmen finally ended the bloody crime spree of a murderous Texas couple. Unfortunately, media romanticization of the ruthless duo — both during and long since their lives were abruptly yet justly ended — has only served to prevent healing and closure for the families of the (at least) 13 men that were murdered during their brutal cross-country rampage. In fact, it was only five short years ago that a major media production — a Netflix Original Film, The Highwaymen — finally set the record straight to an international audience, providing them with a historically authentic portrayal of both the vicious pair and of the brave lawmen who finally “put them on the spot.” April 1st of this year will be the 90th anniversary of one of their most heinous acts, the cold-blooded massacre of two young Texas Highway Patrol officers, who had stopped to render aid to what they thought was a couple stranded on the roadside. On that fateful day, the state officers’ good deed would not go unpunished.
The weather in the Dallas area on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1934, was idyllic. Twenty-six-year-old Edward Bryan “E.B.” Wheeler, a Texas Highway Patrol motorcycle officer, and his young wife, Doris, shared a home-cooked breakfast and made plans to celebrate after E.B. completed his shift that day. Just across town, 22-year-old Holloway Murphy was also up early, excited to begin his first day on the job as a THP motorcycle patrolman. This would be, he thought, his next-to-last Sunday living at the local YMCA, before moving into an apartment with his fiancée, 20-year-old Marie Tullis, after their pending nuptials on April 13. The thoughtful rookie officer was concerned about riding his motorcycle with a loaded gun, potentially taking a spill, causing the gun to go off and possibly harming a civilian. That is why Murphy placed several 12-gauge shells in his pocket, rather than in the chamber of his shotgun, before he headed out to meet his training partners.
Officer Edward Wheeler (left) and Officer Holloway Murphy (right).
Both Wheeler and Murphy set about that Easter day thinking that their lives were yet in front of them, not knowing that the plans they were each making would soon be waylaid.
By midafternoon, the two young motorcycle patrolmen, following senior patrolman Polk Ivy, were casually cruising along State Highway 114 just north of Grapevine, northwest of Dallas. About 3:30 p.m., they noticed a lone vehicle, black with yellow wire wheels, parked 100 yards up a dirt road. The patrolmen U-turned their bikes and rolled up toward the vehicle; it appeared that the occupants were stranded and in need of assistance. Polk Ivy continued down Hwy 114 for some distance, until he realized his two junior officers were no longer behind him.
Farmer William Schieffer heard the motorbikes coming from a distance. He had been doing Sunday chores on his hardscrabble lot that bordered the dirt road, and around 10:30 a.m. he observed a young couple “necking” in the roadside grass. He was only 30 feet away at that point, hauling rocks from his orchard. The girl was “petite with bushy hair,” and holding a white rabbit in her lap. Easter picnic, he figured. As he pushed his wheelbarrow across his orchard that morning, he watched the couple stroll down to the highway — and back — as if looking for someone.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported the death of Officer Wheeler and Officer Murphy.
Now, the day was getting on and Farmer Schieffer’s two daughters — Miss Isabella Schieffer and Mrs. Elaine Adams — came out of the house to call their dad in for Easter dinner. That’s when they spotted the two motorcycle patrolmen stopping their bikes just a few paces from the mystery car. From approximately 100 yards away, Schieffer and his daughters saw the officers dismount and stroll toward the parked Ford. Before they could even reach the vehicle, they were abruptly felled by shotgun blasts. E.B. was killed instantly, but Murphy survived the initial volley, falling on his side.
Stunned, Schieffer and his daughters watched both shooters — including the young woman wearing brown riding pants and boots — walk up to the dead and dying men and fire upon them again, at point-blank range. Stories not reported in the media but passed down in law enforcement circles and the Hamer family indicate Bonnie may have desecrated Murphy’s body, after shooting him. In seconds, two families were destroyed so that Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, two of the most notorious criminals in U.S. history, could evade justice a little longer.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, 1933.
Schieffer and his daughters were not the only witnesses that tragic Easter Sunday. Jack Cook, a lifelong resident of Dove Road (who died in October of 2013), saw a young couple, male and female, at the site just prior to the shootings. Shortly after, a Mr. and Mrs. Fred Giggals had been on a Sunday drive along Hwy 114, some distance behind Ivy, Wheeler, and Murphy. Speaking on behalf of his wife and himself, Mr. Giggals reported that they heard the initial shots after they drove past Dove Road and turned around to see what had happened. According to Giggals, he and his wife exited their car briefly and saw what they thought were two men, with the taller shooting into one of the prostrate bodies. The Giggalses were only within sight of the shooters for a matter of seconds, approximately 100 yards away and with their view obscured by a grove of trees. Mr. Giggals said the shooters looked over and saw them, at which point the couple beat a hasty retreat to their car and sped away.
By the time Murphy’s young fiancée wore her wedding dress to his funeral, efforts to deflect responsibility away from the killers (and their complicit relatives) were already underway. For their legal defense, they attempted to recast the blame for the Grapevine murders (as well as other events). They claimed that Clyde told them his accomplice, Henry Methvin, was the lone shooter in Grapevine. They claimed Henry killed both officers with a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and that he did so against Clyde’s alleged wishes to take the pair hostage, rather than kill them. Bonnie’s mother also claimed that Methvin himself had “confessed” as much to her.
However, Clyde Barrow himself wrote a letter to the Tarrant County district attorneyshortly after those Easter Sunday murders, in which he placed the blame on his former partner-turned-nemesis, Raymond Hamilton. This ruse was briefly successful, likely because Hamilton was traveling in an identical Ford V8 with Bonnie’s younger sister and doppelganger, Billie Mace, making the Schieffers’ description seem to fit.
Law enforcement displaying the large cache of weapons found in Bonnie and Clyde's car after the ambush that would end their lives.
In addition to their appearance, Bonnie and Billie also shared an affinity for vicious and debased paramours — both of their husbands were serving lengthy prison sentences for robbery while the sisters caroused and colluded with their latest depraved suitors. However, Hamilton and Mace were soon cleared of any involvement in the Grapevine murders, due to verification of their whereabouts at the time, plus physical and forensic evidence at the scene directly linking the true killers to the crime.
The Texas Highway Patrol (THP) was a nascent organization in 1934. After the brutal executions of Wheeler and Murphy, Chief Louis G. Phares took quick and decisive action, issuing a $1,000.00 reward for the killers and assigning his entire force of more than 120 officers to search for them. Phares also sought out the services of legendary former Texas Ranger captain Frank Hamer — who, unbeknownst to Phares, was already on the killers’ trail — and assigned another former Texas Ranger, THP trooper B.M. “Maney” Gault, to work with him, at Hamer’s request. Not two months later, Bonnie and Clyde were no more.
The law enforcement team that found and ultimately killed Bonnie and Clyde.
Check out The Untold History of The Highwaymen:
PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy Dr. Jody Edward Ginn
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