Bonnie & Clyde Ambush Museum - Gibsland, LA (Eternal Partners in Crime)

2419 Main St. 

Gibsland, LA 71028

32.531048,-93.051131

*Special thanks to our North Chapter for their work on this investigation

Let's face it, who isn't fascinated with gangsters? Note, I said gangsters and not gangstas. There is nothing appealing about half naked men with their pants cinched around their knees! I'm referring to the mobsters of the twenties and thirties. I mean, come on, who doesn't like “The Godfather”? Granted, I'm not endorsing the crimes they committed, but there is just a unique allure as to their lifestyle, code of honor, and respect for family that is quite fascinating.
When you hear of mobsters, you can't help but think of some of the most famous such as Al Capone, Lester “Baby Face Nelson” Gillis, and John Dillinger. In the same breath as mentioning these notorious criminals, we must not forget about the infamous lethal lovebirds, known as Bonnie and Clyde.

  Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow were infamous bank robbers during the “public enemy era” of the early to middle thirties. Their crime spree spanned from Dallas all throughout the southern United States. It is said that when the smoke cleared, literally, Bonnie and

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow
True Partners in Crime

Clyde had killed a total of nine police officers and several civilians during the numerous robberies. They were quite the brazen duo, as they often posed for pictures with cigarettes in their mouths and pistols in their hands, showing off their dastardly acts.
Their reign of terror came to an abrupt halt at approximately 9:15am on May 23, 1934, when a posse consisting of Captain Frank Hamer, Dallas County Sheriff's Deputies Alcorn and Ted Hinton, former Texas Ranger B.M. "Manny" Gault, Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan and his deputy Prentiss Oakley, set up an ambush at the rendezvous point along Louisiana State Highway 154 south of Gibsland toward Sailes. The ambush proved to be successful, as Barrow stopped his vehicle, the officers jumped out and opened fire, firing approximately one hundred and thirty rounds of ammunition from various weapons. Barrow was killed almost instantly, while Parker, even in her last seconds, proved to be the tough little lady she was, by taking several other gunshot wounds to silence her for good. During the ambush, policemen made sure that these two would not be leaving the scene in anything but a body bag. According to statements made by policemen Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn:

"Each of us six officers had a shotgun and an automatic rifle and pistols. We opened fire with the automatic rifles. They were emptied before the car got even with us. Then we used shotguns ... There was smoke coming from the car, and it looked like it was on fire. After shooting the shotguns, we emptied the pistols at the car, which had passed us and ran into a ditch about 50 yards on down the road. It almost turned over. We kept shooting at the car even after it stopped. We weren't taking any chances."

To commemorate the historic event, there is a small museum in Gibsland that marks the site of Bonnie and Clyde's demise. The commercial building used as the museum was built in the early

The Actual Bullet-Riddled Car of Bonnie & Clyde

1900's, and initially served as a retail establishment for the early Gibsland community. The building was a small cafe at the time Clyde barrow and Bonnie Parker stopped by for sandwiches, only minutes before they lost their lives in the deadly ambush.
Although the history of Bonnie and Clyde is fairly well documented, the history of this particular building has not. Its relationship to the paranormal is unknown prior to our visit. Several weeks prior to our research efforts in this building, several of our investigators visited the ambush site, and did pick up some interesting audio recordings. The owner of the museum was contacted, and allowed Louisiana Spirits to conduct follow up research in this building, and the artifacts it contains.
Our investigation would not go down as the most eventful of investigations. No anomalous photos, audio, or video were obtained. We did get a couple of interesting interactions with the device known as the Spirit Box, however, as many legitimate investigators know, this is simply a novelty tool and cannot be used to truly validate a paranormal presence. The device basically scans AM radio stations that do not contain a valid signal. It is this white noise that is generated that spirits are theoretically able to communicate through. In the first session, an investigator asked what they thought of a Bonnie and Clyde festival that was soon to be held. The Spirit Box replied with a voice saying, “thanks!”. In another session, the investigator asked, “Why did you rob all those banks?” This one was a bit more interesting as an unknown voice said, “I was broke!”
As I mentioned the Spirit Box is an interesting piece of equipment that many groups may swear to, claiming it to be definitive proof of a paranormal presence. With our strenuous scrutiny though, we must not rely too heavily on the results from this tool. After all, it is using human voices from an AM receiver to “cut and paste” random words and phrases to allow the investigator to assume a particular answer to a question. There is just way too much room for contamination to put all your faith behind the box. Such is the problem with much of the modern “ghost hunting” equipment. Let's face it, many of these devices are pure junk, just trying to con average investigators out of their hard earned money. It seems as those in the present day, there are a dime a dozen companies out there that try and make all these cool looking devices that light up, vibrate, spin around and do everything shy of singing the Star Spangled Banner, yet for what? Call me old school, but I've always been more than content with a good voice recorder, digital camera, EMF meter, and a good full-spectrum video camera. The rest is all just fluff in the modern day attempt to be the biggest and the best. P.T. Barnum always said, “There is a sucker born every minute!” Don't be just another statistic!