On his second day with Oklahoma City police Auto Theft Bureau Bryce confronted a thief trying to hot-wire a car.

During his first year, while patrolling in a police car, he confronted two thieves attempting to break into furniture store premises.

[1][2][3][4][5][6] On July 18, 1934, Bryce, with other officers, was searching for Harvey Pugh (a wanted killer and criminal associate of Clyde Barrow), and his accomplices Ray O'Donnell and Tom Walton.

He attended Mountain View High School, graduating in 1926, after which he moved to the city of Seminole to work in a grocery store before becoming a police detective and FBI agent.

He married firstly Frances Maxine Wilson, the marriage producing their son, William Delf; they divorced in 1932, and she died from injuries sustained in a 1973 car crash.

[1][3][9][7] Bryce died of a suspected heart attack on May 12, 1974, while attending an FBI reunion at the Shangri-la Lodge near Grand Lake.