Law Enforcement Figure. Benjamin Maney Gault gained recognition for being the former Texas Ranger, who, with the assistance of his colleague, Frank Hamer and four other law enforcement officers, ended the notorious crime spree of Bonnie and Clyde on May 23, 1934. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were credited with killing at least twelve people including nine law enforcement officers in three different states in addition to a host of robberies and auto thefts. Born the son of John McCain Gault and his wife Minnie Rose Linden, he was employed at a furniture-making business and assisted law enforcement in capturing illegal moonshiners before thinking about entering law enforcement. His Texas Ranger career started in 1929 after being recruited by his neighbor Hamer at the Headquarters Company in Austin. The two lawmen served together as partners until Governor Miriam Amanda "Ma" Ferguson dismissed or fired all the Texas Rangers by January of 1933. He found a position with the Texas Highway Patrol. Some months later, Hamer was recruited by the head of the Texas Prison System to capture the Barrow Gang, better known as "Bonnie and Clyde." He was once again chosen to be Hamer's partner. After a three-month search, the lawmen traced the fugitives Bonnie and Clyde to Louisiana. In the early hours of May 23, 1934, he and Hamer, as members of a posse of lawmen from Louisiana and Texas, hid in the bushes along a country road in Bienville Parish in a planned ambush. Both Bonnie and Clyde were killed in a hail of gunfire after Barrow drew his gun on law enforcement. Besides Gault and Hamer, the posse consisted of Dallas County, Texas Deputy Sheriffs Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn and Bienville Parrish Sheriff Henderson Jordon and his deputy, Prentiss Oakey, who is credited with firing the first shot. After this assignment, both he and Hamer were "tight-lipped." Three years after his role in tracking down and killing Bonnie and Clyde, he returned to the Texas Rangers after five years, earning the rank of captain and serving ten years with distinction until his death in 1947. His territory covered some 94 counties in west Texas, extending from the Panhandle to the Rio Grande. During the ten years he served, Gault solved many cases involving murder, bank robbery, and cattle rustling. Maney, as he was called" was inducted into the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame.