at Huntsville, to begin serving a 14-year sentence. Nevertheless, he was paroled, on February 2, 1932. While in prison he chopped two toes from his left foot to avoid a work detail.
             Reunited with Bonnie, Barrow resumed his petty criminal career. They bungled a robbery at Kaufman, Texas and Bonnie was arrested, spending three months in the Kaufman jail. Clyde teamed up with another young criminal named Raymond Hamilton on a series of small holdups, one of which resulted in the murder of John Bucher at Hillsboro, in April 1932. This was the Barrow Gang's first known killing.
             On August 5, 1932, Clyde and Hamilton turned up at a country dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma, near Atoka. They were accompanied by a third man, never certainly identified but said by Hamilton's brother Floyd to have been one Ross Dyer. Contrary to later popular accounts, Bonnie was not present. The third man entered the dance hall and joined in the festivities, while Barrow and Hamilton remained in their stolen car, sharing a bottle of whiskey. This attracted the attention of Sheriff C. G. Maxwell and Deputy Eugene Moore, who approached the car, to question its occupants. Clyde and Hamilton responded with gunfire, killing Deputy Moore outright and seriously wounding Sheriff Maxwell. They then roared off, with townspeople in pursuit.
             They wrecked their car a short distance away in a railway culvert, then fled on foot to another road. They flagged down a motorist, a local man named Cleve Brady, then took his car at gunpoint. Fifteen miles out of town, Brady's car lost a wheel. Barrow and Hamilton made their way to John Redden's farmhouse and told Redden they'd had a wreck and had an injured man. Redden's nephew, Haskell Owens, offered to drive them to a doctor. They took him hostage and stole his car. At Clayton, they set Owens free and stole another car from Frank Smith of Seminole. Smith's car was found two days later at Grandview, Texas.
             Atoka County lawmen a...