Ford V-8’s Pitted Against the Law as 1938 Public Enemy #1

Floyd Hamilton Roared Across the South

By John Emmering

The theft of a pickup truck is not the most serious crime on the books. In this case however it seems to have been the turning point which led Floyd Hamilton, brother of Bonnie and Clyde accomplice Raymond Hamilton, back down the path of a public enemy and many years behind bars.

Becoming the family breadwinner at age 14 when his father abandoned the family, Floyd went to work fulltime.  Regrettably Floyd became drawn into serious law-breaking as he helped his brother Raymond, five years his junior, who was involved in the crimes of the Barrow Gang.  When Raymond was imprisoned Floyd aided his escape from the Eastham Prison Farm by planting a gun in the prison yard.  After Raymond made his escape Floyd joined him in two 1935 Texas bank robberies. The brothers were apprehended separately later that year. Raymond was executed by the State of Texas as a habitual criminal while Floyd was confined in Leavenworth Penitentiary for two years after a conviction for aiding and abetting his brother Raymond and Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.

After release from Leavenworth Prison in 1937, Floyd drifted in despair, unable to find work to support his wife and family.  After unsuccessfully seeking employment on a road construction project, Floyd’s companions “Terrible Ted” Walters and Jess Keathnley suggested they steal a nice looking 1938 Ford V-8 pickup truck owned by Paul Donald of Bowie, Texas.  According to some reports the trio used the Ford V-8 pickup in the burglary of a drugstore in Ringgold, Texas.  Floyd then stripped the truck’s V-8 engine and tires for use in his own older model Ford V-8 automobile and abandoned the truck in the country near Dallas, setting it on fire.

Dallas County Sheriff’s detectives soon linked Jess Keathnley to the theft of the truck and were willing to drop his charges for information on his more sought after cohorts Ted Walters and Floyd Hamilton. Floyd and Ted soon found themselves under arrest and were sent for trial to Montague County, Texas where they were held in the County Jail.  Floyd recalled that a Texas Prison Captain had once told him that if he ever was sent to a Texas State prison he would be killed in retaliation for aiding in his brother’s escape, since a corrections officer had been killed during the incident.  Floyd was determined not to end up in the Texas Prison system.

Desperately working on an escape plan, Floyd had a saw blade smuggled in to him and sawed free a bar in his cell.  On April 30, 1938 after the bar was removed Floyd had another inmate, Ervin Goodspeed, a slight man in custody for horse theft, slip through the bars.  When the Sheriff’s grown son Kenneth Chandler came by with food for the prisoners Goodspeed stabbed him in the leg, snatching the keys and freeing Floyd and Ted.  Floyd and Ted offered to dress Chandler’s wounds but he refused treatment and the two made good their escape, taking a number of the Sheriff’s firearms with them.

Using dogs to track the escapees, the Sheriff’s men and State Police were unable to locate them after they ran through a shallow creek.  The criminal pair soon located an unattended 1937 Ford  V-8 sedan and stole it to make their getaway.  As they approached a police roadblock Ted lay down on the floor of the back seat and Floyd drove through slowly with a hat covering the top of his face, avoiding detection by the officers.  Crossing into Louisiana the pair found a brand new maroon 1938 Deluxe Ford V-8 and stole that vehicle.  Floyd commented that he liked Ford V-8’s because “they would always start fast and a few seconds could mean a lot when you’re trying to get away.”  Floyd and Ted subsisted by committing robberies as they traveled and were designated by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as Public enemies #1 and #2.

Boldly entering the bank at Bradley, Arkansas on June 6, 1938 at 9:10 am, they confronted the lone teller Jack Meeks with loaded .45 pistols demanding he turn over the bank’s cash.  Meeks handed over only $685.25 although there were thousands more on hand.  As the robbers pulled away, Meeks opened up with a shotgun, striking the rear of the Ford.  The maroon 1938 Ford V-8 was found abandoned miles down the road with buckshot damage to the back of the car. Floyd and Ted then switched to an Oldsmobile for a while.  On June 8, 1938 Floyd, Ted and a third man robbed the Minden, Louisiana Bank of $18,000.  In August they saw a Crittenden County Deputy Sheriff park his blue 1937 Ford V-8 Tudor to go into a barbershop for a haircut in Marion, Arkansas.  Floyd saw the Deputy had left the keys behind and soon pulled away in the unmarked Ford.

The last job Floyd and Ted would pull was the robbery of the offices of the Coca-Cola Bottling Plant in Nashville, Arkansas on August 12, 1938.  The pair only netted $67.36 in the robbery.  While speeding past a road block after the robbery, police bullets hit the radiator disabling the 1937 Ford V-8.  They then commandeered a Plymouth that passed by from its wealthy owner and chauffeur.  When the Plymouth was riddled with bullets the pair took to the woods hiding out for a week.  Cold, hungry and desperate they evaded capture and were able to hop onto a box car on a freight train bound for Dallas.

Arriving in Dallas on August 21, 1938, Ted and Floyd separated, but both were apprehended that day.  Floyd ended up back in Leavenworth Prison on Federal Bank robbery and interstate auto theft charges. The authorities arranged to ship him to Alcatraz soon after.  In 1943 Floyd managed to escape his cell block in Alcatraz with three others.  Thought to have been killed in the escape attempt Floyd hid in a cave along the shore of the island for two days.  The cold water and crabs made things uncomfortable and Floyd left the cave and was recaptured.  Because of the escape attempt, Floyd served nine years in solitary confinement in a cold dark 5½ x 8 foot cell and was housed for a time next to Robert Stroud, the “Bird Man of Alcatraz”.

Floyd’s life turned around through letters from an elderly woman, Hattie Rankin Moore and her pastor W.A. Criswell of Dallas, Texas who paid Floyd a visit at Alcatraz.  With a noticeable change in his life Floyd was transferred back to Leavenworth and eventually released from Federal Custody.  He was paroled from the Texas Prison System in 1958.  Ted Walters was killed in a 1971 gun fight with Texas Rangers.  Floyd however, reunited with his wife Mildred and worked many years for Dallas auto dealer W.O. Bankston, who made a habit of giving ex-offenders a chance.  Floyd’s prison ministry work after his release led to full pardons from Texas Governor John Connelly and President Lyndon B. Johnson. Floyd returned once again in 1970 to Montague, Texas where he had broken out of jail in 1938, this time to address the congregation of the First Baptist Church with the story of his changed life.