{{Short description|American gangster (1914-1935)}} {{Other people}} {{Use American English|date=May 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2026}} {{Infobox criminal | name = Raymond Hamilton | image = | caption = | birth_name = Raymond Elzie Hamilton | birth_date = {{Birth date|1914|5|21}} | birth_place = Oklahoma, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1935|5|10|1914|5|21}} | death_place = Huntsville Unit, Texas, U.S. | resting_place = Elmwood Memorial Park, Dallas, Texas, U.S. | known_for = Member of the Barrow Gang | occupation = Crime, gangster | partners = Mary O'Dare<br>Katie Jenkins (a.k.a. Katie Kemper) | signature = | allegiance = | criminal_status = Executed by electrocution | criminal_penalty = Death | conviction = Murder with malice }} '''Raymond Elzie Hamilton'''<ref name="brit">{{Cite web|url=https://www.cityoflewisville.com/about-us/our-history/timeline/1934-bonnie-clyde-gangster-robs-lewisville-bank|title=Bonnie & Clyde Gangster Robs Lewisville Bank | City of Lewisville, TX|website=www.cityoflewisville.com|access-date=2020-11-16|archive-date=2020-11-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201128145836/https://www.cityoflewisville.com/about-us/our-history/timeline/1934-bonnie-clyde-gangster-robs-lewisville-bank|url-status=dead}}</ref> (May 21, 1914 – May 10, 1935) was a member of the notorious Barrow Gang during the early 1930s. By the time he was 20 years old, he had accumulated a prison sentence of 362 years.<ref name="Oddball">{{cite book |title=Oddball Texas: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places |last=Pohlen |first=Jerome |year=2006 |publisher=Chicago Review Press |isbn=1-55652-583-4 |page=80 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EPJ_0i9zNS8C&q=%22raymond+hamilton%22+362+bonnie&pg=PA80 |accessdate=May 4, 2009 }}</ref>
== Early life == Raymond Hamilton was born May 21, 1914,<ref name="auto1">{{Cite web|url=http://texashideout.tripod.com/raydc.jpg|title=Standard Certificate of Death | Raymond Hamilton}}</ref> in a tent on the banks of the Deep Fork River in Oklahoma.<ref name="brit"/> His father was John Henry Hamilton<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=http://texashideout.tripod.com/rayio.jpg|title=Identification Order No. 1231 (August 13, 1934) |Raymond Hamilton}}</ref> who abandoned the family when Raymond was 10 years old.<ref name="down">Guinn, Jeff (2009). ''Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde''. New York: Simon & Schuster. {{ISBN|1-4165-5706-7}}. pp 87-88</ref> His mother was Sara Alice Bullock.<ref name="auto1"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://texashideout.tripod.com/rayio2.jpg|title=Identification Order|Raymond Hamilton}}</ref><ref name="auto3">{{Cite web|url=http://texashideout.tripod.com/ray.html|title=Raymond Hamilton|website=texashideout.tripod.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://texoso66.com/2016/10/27/floyd-hamilton-barrow-gang/|title=Floyd Hamilton, Public Enemy No. 1|date=October 27, 2016}}</ref> Raymond had one brother, Floyd Hamilton (1908-1984), and four sisters – Lilly Hamilton, Lucy Hamilton, Margie Hamilton, and Audrey Hamilton.<ref name="auto"/>
Sarah moved the family to West Dallas, where Raymond was raised and where he received his minor public education. Little is known about Hamilton's childhood.<ref name="down"/> He began skipping school at a young age. He used to fence stolen bicycles through future sheriff Smoot Schmid and began committing petty thefts.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}
==The Barrow Gang== Hamilton met Clyde Barrow who lived in the same neighborhood when they were boys,<ref name=down/> and later joined the "Barrow Gang". Hamilton was involved in the killing of Deputy Sheriff Eugene C. Moore,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.odmp.org/info/mission.php|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091212013803/http://www.odmp.org/info/mission.php|title=The Officer Down Memorial Page|archive-date=December 12, 2009}}</ref> when Moore and Sheriff Charlie Maxwell became suspicious of the men at an outdoor country dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma.<ref name="Blanche">{{cite book |title=My Life with Bonnie and Clyde |last=Barrow |first=Blanche Caldwell |author-link=Blanche Barrow |author2=John Neal Phillips |year=2005 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=0-8061-3715-0 |pages=35–47,182 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ks6tb-Ks6pEC&q=%22raymond+hamilton%22+%22clyde+barrow%22 |accessdate=May 4, 2009 }}</ref> Sheriff Maxwell sustained six gunshot wounds in the exchange but survived. It was Barrow's and Hamilton's first murder of a police officer. The group had drawn suspicion because they were well-dressed strangers at a small-town dance, and some local boys were upset that they were dancing with the local girls. The police, assuming the strangers were just bootleggers, originally intervened to prevent a fight.
Hamilton's presence in the group was often problematic, with Clyde Barrow and other members of the gang commonly referring to his girlfriend Mary O'Dare as "the washerwoman."<ref name="Blanche"/><ref name="Fults">{{cite book |title=Running with Bonnie and Clyde |last=Phillips |first=John Neal |year=2002 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=0-8061-3429-1 |pages=4, 173–174, 296 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YxLgx0OkrMgC&q=running+with+bonnie+and+clyde |accessdate=May 4, 2009 }}</ref> Mary was the sister of local criminal and early partner of Clyde – O'Dell Chambless. When Hamilton was imprisoned at the Eastham prison farm north of Huntsville, Texas, Bonnie and Clyde raided the farm to free him and four other prisoners on January 16, 1934.<ref name="Blanche"/>
One of the other escapees, Joe Palmer, mortally wounded guard M.J. Crowson<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.odmp.org/officer/3663-prison-guard-major-joe-crowson|title=Prison Guard Major Joe Crowson|website=The Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP)}}</ref> and caused a series of events which led to Texas Prison System chief Lee Simmons to issue a shoot to kill order against Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.<ref name="Blanche"/> Simmons hired ex-Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, who formed a six-man posse in order to execute this order.<ref name="Fults"/>
After a quarrel between Bonnie and Clyde, Hamilton's girlfriend Mary had suggested that Bonnie put something in Clyde's drink to knock him out, and they would take his money and leave. Bonnie immediately told Clyde. Clyde also observed through a rearview mirror that Hamilton was putting some of their robbery money in his pocket. Hamilton left the Barrow Gang after the fight about Mary O'Dare and was recaptured by authorities on April 25, 1934. He was in prison when Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were ambushed and killed by Hamer's posse on May 23, 1934.<ref name="Blanche"/>
Hamilton escaped and went on a crime spree with another former Barrow gang member Ralph Fults. In February 1935, Fults and Hamilton burglarized a National Guard Armory in Beaumont, Texas, taking two Thompson submachine guns. After stealing a car in Tulsa, Oklahoma on February 24, they headed for Texas. They evaded an ambush in McKinney, Texas by capturing and disarming the posse.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}
On March 10, 1935, the two gave an interview to Houston reporter Harry McCormick. The two discussed the inhumane conditions of the Texas prison system. To keep McCormick from facing charges for harboring, they staged it to look like a kidnapping, and McCormick was left tied up. Hamilton left his fingerprints as proof of identity.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cronkite |first=Walter |title=A reporter's life |date=1996 |publisher=A.A. Knopf |isbn=978-0-394-57879-8 |edition=1st |location=New York |page=49}}</ref>
Hamilton was recaptured April 5, 1935, in a Fort Worth railyard while posing as a hobo.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} Hamilton had sent a note to his sister in Dallas, which was intercepted by Dallas deputy Bill Decker. Decker and four more deputies drove to Fort Worth and enlisted the help of Fort Worth detective Chester Reagan and Tarrant County deputy sheriff Carl Harmon.
The group canvassed the railyard and came upon Hamilton around 50 feet north of the East First Street overpass, "sprawled on the tracks" with six or seven hobos nearby. When arrested, he was wearing dirty overalls and had two .45s{{clarify|date=May 2023}} on him plus a suitcase full of new clothing beside him. Decker approached Hamilton with gun in hand and said, "Host em up Ray, before I cut you in two". Hamilton surrendered and was taken to Dallas. The next day over 500 curiosity seekers flooded the courthouse to see the Public Enemy Number One.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}
==Death==
Hamilton was convicted of his role in the murder of M.J. Crowson and sentenced to death.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1935-05-10 |title=PART 3 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/tyler-morning-telegraph-part-3/170752841/ |access-date=2025-10-07 |work=Tyler Morning Telegraph |pages=1}}</ref> He was executed on May 10, 1935, at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, by electric chair.<ref>{{cite news|url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=PZE8UkGerEcC&dat=19340614&printsec=frontpage&hl=es|title = Pal of Barrow to go to chair |work = The Evening Independent|publisher = HOME Edition |date = 14 June 1933|accessdate =16 November 2020}}</ref><ref name="Oddball" /> Hamilton walked calmly and firmly to the chair and seated himself with the words, "Well, goodbye all."<ref name="Fults" /> He was preceded in the electric chair by Joe Palmer.<ref name="Blanche" /><ref name="auto3" /><ref name="Death">http://texashideout.tripod.com/raydc.jpg Death Certificate</ref> Palmer had agreed to go first to give Hamilton time to compose himself. Hamilton was executed eleven days before his twenty-first birthday.<ref name="Death" />
Raymond Hamilton never publicly admitted killing anyone, but he had told his brother, Floyd, that he was not so sure about the killing of undersheriff Eugene Moore on August 5, 1932, in Stringtown, Oklahoma. "Clyde and I were both shooting," Raymond told Floyd, "It could have been either one of us, or both."<ref>Quoted from the Floyd Hamilton interview by John Neal Phillips, July 18, 1981.</ref> Raymond Hamilton was convicted of the murder of John Bucher of Hillsboro, Texas on May 1, 1932, though he had nothing to do with it. The actual killer was Ted Rogers with Clyde Barrow and Johnny Russell as accomplices.<ref>Quoted from multiple interviews with of Ralph Fults by John Neal Phillips in the 1980s and from an interview with Jack Hammett by John Neal Phillips, February 20, 1982.</ref>
== Bibliography == * UNDERWOOD, SID. ''Depression Desperado: The Chronicle of Raymond Hamilton''. Eakin Press, United States, (1995). 242 pages. {{ISBN|9780890159668}}.<ref>{{cite book |title=Depression Desperado: The Chronicle of Raymond Hamilton|publisher=Eakin Press|location=USA|language=en|year=1995|isbn=9780890159668}}</ref> *BLANCHE CALDWELL BARROW and JOHN NEAL PHILLIPS. ''My Life with Bonnie and Clyde''. USA. University of Oklahoma Press; Illustrated edición, (2005). 376 pages. {{ISBN|9780806137155}}<ref>{{cite book |title=My Life with Bonnie and Clyde|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press; Illustrated edición|location=USA|language=en|year=2005|isbn=9780806137155}}</ref> * ROBIN COLE-JETT. ''Lewisville''. Arcadia Publishing Library Editions (2011) . 130 pages. {{ISBN|978-1531652821}}.<ref>{{cite book |title=Lewisville|publisher=Arcadia Publishing Library Editions|location=USA|language=en|year=2011|isbn=978-1531652821}}</ref> *BURROUGH, BRYAN. Public ''Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34''. Reprint edición. Penguin Books; Media Tie In (2005). 624 pages. {{ISBN|9780143035374}} <ref>{{cite book |title=Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34|publisher=Penguin Books; Media Tie In|location=USA|language=en|year=2005|isbn=9780143035374}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== *{{cite book|last=Underwood|first=Sid|title=Depression Desperado: The Chronicle of Raymond Hamilton|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Xj4GAAACAAJ&q=depression+desperado|publisher=NetLibrary, Incorporated|year=1995|isbn=0-585-23694-1}}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
==External links== * {{Find a Grave | grid = 7124191 | name = Raymond Elzie Hamilton | date = January 28, 2003 | author = | work = Criminal}}
{{Bonnie and Clyde}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Raymond}} Category:1914 births Category:1935 deaths Category:20th-century executions by Texas Category:20th-century executions of American people Category:American gangsters of the interwar period Category:American people executed for murder Category:American escapees Category:Escapees from Texas detention Category:Inmates of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary Category:Executed American gangsters Category:Barrow Gang Category:Executed people from Oklahoma Category:People convicted of murder by Texas Category:People executed by Texas by electric chair Category:20th-century American murderers