The Trap: The Untold Story of Sheriff Henderson Jordan and the Final Pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde

For too long, Sheriff Henderson Jordan’s role in ending the crime spree of Bonnie and Clyde has been overlooked or ignored. On the rare occasion that he is portrayed in films or documentaries, he is depicted as an insignificant character. Since 1934, we have accepted the notion that Frank Hamer located the outlaws and led the ambush against them. Henderson Jordan was the sheriff in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, when he learned that Bonnie and Clyde were hiding somewhere within the jurisdiction that he had sworn to protect. It was he who tracked the gang to their hideouts, who set the trap to capture them, and who led the ambush posse that ended their crime spree in a hail of gunfire.

Author Brad Dison spent nearly a decade sifting through FBI files, newsreels, newspapers, photos, telegrams, filmed interviews, and true crime magazines to separate fact from fiction. While detailing the gang’s many crimes, including theft, burglary, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, terrorism, torture, and murder in a play-by-play fashion, “The Trap” analyzes the events in Henderson Jordan’s life that led to the final pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde and the legal battle that followed.