area that essentially adjoined west Oak
Cliff and the City of Dallas.
According to A.D. Campbell Jr., when
it became conventional wisdom that the
crime spree of Bonnie Parker and Clyde
Barrow would most likely come to a messy
end, Campbell Sr. saw an opportunity not
only for additional business but also an
opportunity to offer assistance to Bonnie’s
family. Understanding the potential
situation and how painful it was going to
be for the family, Campbell Sr., through
Buster Parker, managed an introduction
to Bonnie’s mother, Mrs. Emma Parker,
and secured a letter from her—a letter
giving Campbell Sr. permission to retrieve
Bonnie’s body and return it to Dallas,
whenever that would be. Evidently, Emma
Parker realized the amount of stress and
chaos that would surround the likely death
of her daughter and agreed that preplanning
would be the best decision.
In May 1934, as soon as the news
broke that Bonnie Parker and Clyde
Barrow had been ambushed and killed in
Gibsland, Louisiana, my dad left Dallas
to travel to Gibsland with the letter from
Mrs. Parker in hand. Driving in one of the
10 DALLAS MEDICAL JOURNAL • June 2020
McKamy-Campbell emergency ambulances,
Dad arrived in Arcadia, where there was
no doubt that something huge was going
on. A slew of funeral directors was there,
all attempting to secure both bodies and
gain the rights to arrange the funerals. But
because my dad had the letter from Mrs.
Parker, he was able to retrieve Bonnie’s
body and bring it back to Dallas.
Buster Parker accompanied the McKamy-
Campbell ambulance to Louisiana and
helped retrieve his sister’s body.
My mother styled Bonnie’s hair and did
her makeup, which was quite a job, as
Bonnie’s face was really bad. Mother put
the body in a really beautiful dress and
then placed Bonnie in the casket. Mrs.
Parker actually agreed to allow the public
to view Bonnie’s body, and people lined
up from all over the country…for blocks,
and blocks, and blocks. I was 11 years
old at the time—attending Colonial Hills
Elementary School—and there were so
many people around the funeral home
that I could hardly get in the house after
school.
A local newspaper wrote: “McKamy-
Campbell employee John Bullock
estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 people
would have seen her by Friday night,” which
was also noted in Jeff Guinn’s book Go
Down Together.
I tell people that I slept in the same
house with Bonnie Parker.
My dad had the funeral of Bonnie Parker.
It was advertised all over the world and all
over the country. Pretty Boy Floyd and John
Dillinger sent flowers.
The private funeral was held on Saturday,
May 26, at 2 p.m., in the funeral
home’s chapel—an event carried in newspapers
and on radio stations all over the
country…and internationally. All reports
on Bonnie’s funeral state that only family
and friends were in attendance, including
the Barrow Family, with an additional 300
people standing outside. Clyde’s younger
brother, L.C., served as a pallbearer, and
Dudley Hughes was the soloist. Hughes
went on to own and operate four funeral
homes himself, in Dallas, and was the
founder of the Dudley M. Hughes Quartet.
Numerous books have been written and
two movies were made about Bonnie and
Clyde, one a fairly new movie that came
out in 2013. It’s kinda gruesome, but right
at the end of the movie it shows my dad’s
funeral home, and it also shows footage of
my dad putting flowers on Bonnie’s grave.
Before Bonnie’s funeral, Dad was doing
about 10 funerals a month. Afterward, it
tripled.
One book, On the Trail of Bonnie and
Clyde, written by Winston Ramsey, was
published in 2003, in London, England.
The author contacted me and I sent him
a bunch of photographs concerning both
Bonnie and Clyde, images I had collected.
One of the photos, of Bonnie in her casket,
Ramsey put on the back cover, and the
book also included a photo of me. Ramsey
came to the states and visited most all the
places with which Bonnie and Clyde were
associated. I have a copy of the book.
Another interesting story is about
the classy Ford convertible seen in the
background or as part of the many famous
Bonnie and Clyde photographs. Strangely
enough, the car belonged to one of my
future golf friends, Robert Rosborough.
One of the three cars involved in the
Barrow Gang’s Joplin, Missouri, hideout
raid was stolen from the home of R.F.
Rosborough in Marshall, Texas, in 1933.
When the 1932 B-400 convertible sedan
was returned, it had a new 3,000 harddriven
miles on it, with missing odometer
tags.
Note: A year after the deaths of Bonnie
Parker and Clyde Barrow, one of their
former gang members, a well-known
fugitive named Raymond Hamilton, was
re-captured near Grapevine, Texas, having
broken out of Huntsville Prison a year
earlier. Hamilton had received not only
a death sentence but also 362 years of
prison time.
Hamilton was executed at 12:19 a.m.
on May 10, 1935.
I don’t know for sure how my dad was
able to also secure the funeral of Raymond
Hamilton, but it was most likely because
he had done Bonnie Parker’s funeral, and
the Parker family must have been happy
with the funeral home’s services. Bonnie’s
brother, Buster, probably knew Ray
Hamilton’s family, so my guess is that Dad
got the funeral contract through Buster.
Hamilton’s mother, Alice Davis, gave Dad
a letter, just like the one Mrs. Parker had
written for Bonnie, and when Raymond was
executed, Dad not only went to Huntsville
to retrieve the corpse but also to witness
the execution.
After my dad placed Raymond Hamilton’s
body in the ambulance, he drove through
the night back to Dallas. On his way to
Huntsville, Dad had stopped at a café
along the highway and asked if they would
be willing to stay open until around 2 a.m.,
so Dad could get something to eat while
on his trip back to Dallas. Dad explained
where he was going and why, and he told
the manager and employees that if they
would stay open he would let them view
Ray Hamilton’s body…and they did, both
stay open and view Hamilton’s body.
I still have the original letter from Mrs.
Davis.
(End of Part 1) DMJ
Article written by Dr. Campbell in the
April 28, 1957, issue of the Dallas
Times Herald newspaper.