True Crime Chronicles: Constable Cal Campbell was gunned down by the Barrow Gang in 1934 near Commerce

Constable William Calvin Campbell

On the morning of April 6, 1934, heavy rains had turned the back roads south of Commerce, Oklahoma, into a quagmire. A black Ford sedan sat stalled on a muddy lane just west of Highway 66. Inside were three fugitives: Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and Henry Methvin.

Their car had sunk into the soft earth after a night of driving through the downpour.

A passing motorist spotted the armed trio and alerted authorities in the small mining town of Commerce. Constable William Calvin Campbell, known to everyone as Cal, and Police Chief Percy Boyd responded to the call.

Campbell was 60 years old, a widower raising eight children on his own. Before the Depression forced him into law enforcement, he had worked as a contractor. In the hard years of the early 1930s, he took the job as constable to provide for his family.

He had served in law enforcement for decades, earning a reputation as a steady, no-nonsense officer in Ottawa County.

The two men drove south and spotted the Ford. As they stepped out of their vehicle to investigate, the outlaws' car began to back up. It traveled about 100 yards before sliding into a ditch and lodging firmly in the mud. A man leaped from the Ford carrying a Browning automatic rifle.

Gunfire erupted immediately. Campbell took a bullet to the center of his body and collapsed in the road. He died within moments. Boyd was struck in the head but survived the initial blast. As he lay wounded, another man emerged from the car holding a rifle. This was Henry Methvin.

He pointed the weapon at Boyd, seized the chief's pistol, and ordered him to stand. "Get up and come with me," Methvin said. "Hurry up. We are going to take you with us."

The outlaws forced Boyd into their car. They also stopped a passing truck driver at gunpoint and made him pull the Ford free from the ditch. During the struggle to extract the vehicle, witnesses saw both Barrow and Methvin armed with rifles.

One local resident heard the shots and watched from her porch as two men waved guns near the stuck car while a woman in a red dress sat inside. Another mine worker observed the entire sequence from a short distance away

.With Boyd as their hostage, the gang drove north into Kansas. They treated the wounded chief with a measure of rough courtesy. Barrow reportedly expressed regret over shooting "the old man."

At one point they bought Boyd a clean shirt to replace his blood-soaked one. Bonnie Parker asked him to tell the newspapers that she did not smoke cigars, insisting that "nice girls do not smoke cigars."

After roughly 15 hours, they released Boyd near Fort Scott, Kansas, giving him a few dollars and leaving him unharmed.

Campbell's body remained where it fell until help arrived. He left behind a large family that would mourn him for the rest of their lives. His grave lies in the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery in nearby Miami, Oklahoma.

A memorial plaque in Commerce still honors him today as a fallen officer who answered a routine call on a rainy spring morning.

Henry Methvin was 22 years old when he stood trial for Campbell's murder. He came from a rural farming family in Louisiana. Born on April 8, 1912, to Ivan "Ivy" Methvin and Avie Stephens, he grew up working the land in a poor corner of the state.

Like many young men during the Depression, he drifted into crime. By his late teens he had convictions for burglary and auto theft

Henry Methvin.

.In January 1934, Methvin was serving time at the Eastham prison farm in Texas when Barrow and Parker staged a daring raid to free another inmate. In the chaos, Methvin escaped and joined the gang. Over the next few months he participated in bank robberies, thefts, and shootouts.

He was with Barrow and Parker when they killed two Texas highway patrolmen near Grapevine on April 1, 1934. Five days later came the confrontation in Commerce.

Methvin always maintained that he did not fire the fatal shot that killed Campbell. He claimed he had been asleep in the car when the shooting started and that Barrow alone pulled the trigger. He said he only followed orders out of fear for his own life.

The state argued that Methvin acted as a principal in the murder, either by firing the rifle or by aiding and abetting with full knowledge and intent. Witnesses placed him at the scene with a rifle in hand, directing Boyd into the car and helping control the situation while the gang freed their vehicle.

Clyde Barrow and Henry Melthvin

Methvin was arrested after Barrow and Parker were ambushed and killed in Louisiana on May 23, 1934. His father had reportedly helped authorities set the trap in exchange for leniency toward his son. Methvin himself later provided information that assisted in the case.

He faced justice in Ottawa County District Court. The first trial in March 1935 ended in a hung jury. A second trial began that September. On September 20, 1935, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder and recommended the death penalty. The judge sentenced him to die in the electric chair.

On appeal, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction in 1936 but took the unusual step of modifying the sentence. Citing Methvin's cooperation in the capture of Barrow and Parker, the court commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment at hard labor. He entered the state penitentiary on October 2, 1935.

Methvin served nearly seven years before receiving parole on March 20, 1942. He returned to Louisiana, where he tried to live quietly at first. He opened a small restaurant and later worked at a munitions plant.

Trouble followed him, however. In 1945 he was jailed for fighting and carrying a shotgun. The next year he faced charges for attempted robbery and drunk driving near Shreveport.

On April 19, 1948, at age 36, Henry Methvin died in Sulphur, Louisiana. Intoxicated, he stepped onto railroad tracks and was struck by a passing train. The circumstances remained unclear, though some in his family suspected foul play tied to his past.

He was buried in a small cemetery in the region where he was born.

The murder of Constable Cal Campbell marked one of the final violent acts of the Barrow gang. It came at a time when public outrage over their crimes had reached a peak. For the people of Ottawa County, it was a stark reminder of the cost of confronting outlaws in the lawless days of the Depression.

Campbell's death helped fuel the manhunt that ended Barrow and Parker's run just weeks later. Methvin's conviction, though later reduced, ensured that at least one member of the gang answered in court for the bloodshed in Commerce.

The case remains a footnote in the larger Bonnie and Clyde legend, yet for the Campbell family and the small communities along old Route 66, it was never just a story. It was the day a father, a husband once, and a dedicated constable lost his life on a muddy Oklahoma road.