Texas Highway Patrol Officer H.D. Murphy, 22, was on his first motorcycle patrol, along with four-year DPS veteran Edward Wheeler, 26, when they were murdered on Easter Sunday 1934, after they mistook Bonnie and Clyde for stranded motorists who needed help.
Joel Kolander, Interactive Production Manager for Rock Island Auction Company in Bedford, says the bullets that killed both officers were forensically linked to Clyde Barrow’s shotgun, the same shotgun clutched by his dead fingers after he and Bonnie Parker were killed in a barrage of gunfire on a rural road near Gibsland, Louisiana.
Clyde modified the 16-gauge Browning Auto-5 into a whippet, so named for how quickly he could “whip it” out when needed. He had sawed off the barrel and the buttstock, shortening the long gun to only 30 inches, and strapped it to his shoulders with a sling he devised to conceal the weapon in a coat sleeve.
The gun and shoulder sling straps are prominently visible in pictures that police found on an undeveloped roll of film Bonnie and Clyde left behind in their rush to escape a police shootout in Joplin, Missouri.
Bids open at $375,000 this weekend for that shotgun. Kolander says the winning bid is likely to approach nearly twice that much.
Meanwhile, a roadside memorial stands today on Dove Road near Highway 114 west of Grapevine to honor the sacrifice of the two young officers where they were killed. Murphy is buried in the Old Palestine Cemetery near Alto, Texas; Wheeler, in Dallas’ Grove Hill Memorial Park.
