Notorious robbery partners: Clyde Barrow (190934), born in Telico, Texas, USA, and Bonnie Parker (191134), born in Rowena, Texas. Despite the popular romantic image of the duo, they and their gang were also responsible for a number of murders. The pair met in 1932. When Barrow first visited Parker's house, he was arrested on seven accounts of burglary and car theft, convicted, and sentenced to two years in jail. Parker smuggled a gun to him and he escaped. With their gang, which included Barrow's brother and wife, they continued to rob and murder until they were betrayed by a friend and shot dead at a police road-block in Louisiana.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were notorious robbers and criminals who travelled the central United States during the Great Depression. Though remembered as bank robbers, Clyde Barrow preferred to rob small stores or gas stations.
Though the public at the time believed Bonnie to be a full partner in the gang, the role of Bonnie Parker in the Barrow Gang crimes has long been a source of controversy. Jones and Ralph Fults testified that they never saw Bonnie fire a gun, and described her role as logistical. Jones' sworn statement was that "Bonnie never packed a gun, out of the five major gun battles I was with them she never fired a gun." Writing with Phillip Steele in The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde, Marie Barrow, Clyde's youngest sister, made the same claim: "Bonnie never fired a shot.
In his article "Bonnie and Clyde: Romeo and Juliet in a Getaway Car", the noted writer Joseph Geringer explained part of their appeal to the public then, and their enduring legend now, by saying "Americans thrilled to their 'Robin Hood' adventures.
Bonnie Parker
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born October 1, 1910, in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father, a bricklayer, died when Bonnie was four, prompting her mother to move with the children to West Dallas, where they lived in poverty.
On September 25, 1926, at age fifteen, she married Roy Thornton.
Bonnie Parker then met Clyde Barrow and the two immediately became enamored with one another. Her fondness for creative writing and the arts found expression in poems such as "Suicide Sal" and "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde."
Jimmy Fowler of the Dallas Observer noted "although the authorities who gunned down the 23-year old in 1934 conceded that she was no bloodthirsty killer and that when taken into custody she tended to inspire the paternal aspects of the police who held her ... there was a mystifying devolution from the high school poet, speech class star, and mini-celebrity who performed Shirley Temple-like as a warm up act at the stump speeches of local politicians to the accomplice of rage-filled Clyde Barrow."
Clyde Barrow
Clyde "Champion" Chestnut Barrow was born on March 24, 1909 in Ellis County, Texas, near Telico just south of Dallas (some sources claim he was born in 1910). Clyde was first arrested in late 1926, after running when police confronted him over a rental car he had failed to return on time. In both of these instances there is the remote possibility that Clyde acted without criminal intent. According to John Neal Phillips, Clyde's goal in life was not to gain fame and fortune from robbing banks, but to eventually seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses he suffered while serving time. Despite the image of Warren Beatty as Clyde in the 1967 film, Clyde actually felt guilty about the people he killed.
The pair meet
There is some disagreement over how Bonnie and Clyde first met, but the most prevalent story is that it was through Clyde's friend Clarence Clay.
By mid-February 1930, Clyde and Bonnie were seeing each other regularly, to the point where the police staked out her mother's house hoping to catch the wanted Barrow. Except for a one-week escape ending with his recapture in Middletown, Ohio, Clyde remained incarcerated in the Texas state prison at Eastham Farm until early 1932. Fellow inmate Ralph Fults said that it was Eastham where Clyde turned "from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake".
After his release in 1932, Clyde moved to Massachusetts, purportedly to make a clean start.
In April, a night watchman saw Barrow and Ralph Fults breaking into a hardware store. They escaped after exchanging fire, rejoined Bonnie, and attempted to leave the "hot" area. The incident followed a pattern for Bonnie and Clyde that persisted until their deaths — desperate evasion at high speed down sometimes impassable roads, stealing cars and swapping stolen plates regularly. Though Clyde's driving skill and ability to evade capture were later grudgingly respected by law enforcement, this situation ended poorly, perhaps because the gang was finally reduced to stealing mules for transportation in the Texas farm country. Clyde escaped, and Bonnie and Fults were arrested. Having spent two months in the Kaufman, Texas jail, Bonnie returned to Dallas in June 1932, and was soon back on the road with Clyde.
Buck joins the gang, life on the highway
During Bonnie's time in jail, Clyde had been the driver in a store robbery. The wife of the murder victim, when shown photos, picked Clyde as one of the shooters. In August 1932, while Bonnie was visiting her mother, Clyde and two associates were drinking alcohol at a dance in Oklahoma (illegal under Prohibition). When they were approached by the local sheriff and his undersheriff, Clyde opened fire, killing the undersheriff Eugene C.
On March 22, 1933, Clyde's brother Buck was granted a full pardon and released from prison. Jones, Clyde, and Bonnie in a temporary hideout in Joplin, Missouri—according to some accounts, merely to visit and attempt to talk Clyde into giving himself up. As was common with Bonnie and Clyde, their next brush with the law arose from their generally suspicious behavior, not because their identities were discovered. Though caught by surprise, Clyde, noted for remaining cool under fire, was gaining far more experience in gun battles than most lawmen.
Between 1932 and 1934, there were several incidents in which the Barrow Gang kidnapped lawmen or robbery victims, usually releasing them far from home, sometimes with money to help them get back. Stories of these encounters may have contributed to the mythic aura of Bonnie and Clyde; Clyde was a probable shooter in approximately ten murders.
The Barrow Gang escaped the police at Joplin, but W.D. Afterward, Bonnie and Clyde used coats and hats to cover the license plates of their stolen vehicles when taking pictures.
Despite the glamorous image often associated with the Barrow Gang, they were desperate and discontent. Clyde was a machine behind the wheel, driving dangerous roads and searching for places where they might sleep or have a meal without being discovered.
Platte City
In June 1933, while driving with W.D. Jones and Bonnie, Clyde missed some construction signs, dropping the car into a ravine. It rolled, and Bonnie was trapped beneath the burning car, suffering third degree burns to her left leg. After making their escape, Clyde insisted that Bonnie be allowed to convalesce.
When Blanche went into town to purchase bandages and atropine sulfate to treat Bonnie's leg the druggist contacted Sheriff Holt Coffee, who put the cabins under watch.
On July 24, 1933, the Barrow Gang was at Dexfield Park, an abandoned amusement park near Dexter, Iowa. Clyde, Bonnie, and W.D.
Bonnie and Clyde regrouped, and on November 22, 1933, again escaped an arrest attempt, while meeting family members at an impromptu rendezvous near Sowers, Texas.
Final run
In January 1934, Clyde finally made his long awaited move against the Texas Department of Corrections. In the famous "Eastham Breakout" of 1934, Clyde's lifetime goal appeared to come true, as he masterminded the escape of Henry Methvin, Raymond Hamilton and several others. The Texas Department of Corrections received national negative publicity over the jailbreak, and Clyde appeared to have achieved what Phillips describes as the burning passion in his life — revenge on the Texas Department of Corrections.
It was an expensive revenge, as the killing of a guard (by Joe Palmer) brought the full power of the Texas and federal governments to bear on the manhunt for Bonnie and Clyde, ultimately resulting in their deaths. He kept his word, except for Henry Methvin, whose life was exchanged in return for betraying Bonnie and Clyde. He accepted the assignment immediately, though not as a Ranger but as a Texas Highway Patrol officer seconded to the prison system as a special investigator, tasked specifically to hunt down Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barrow Gang.
Clyde and Henry Methvin killed two young highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas, on April 1, 1934; John Treherne exhaustively investigated this shooting, and found that Methvin fired the first shot, after assuming Clyde wanted them killed (though Treherne found, and Melvin later admitted Clyde did not intend to kill them, but had been preparing to capture them and take them on one of his famous rides). Having little choice once Methvin had begun a gun battle with law officers, Clyde then fired at the second officer, but Methvin is believed to have been the primary killer of both. At the time, there were questions about who exactly among the gang had fired the fatal shots, Methvin's later confession, and Treherne's investigation revealed that Methvin had been the killer, and that Bonnie had actually approached the dying officers to try to help them. Ted Hinton's son states that Bonnie was actually asleep in the back seat when Methvin started the gun battle and took no part in it. But these particularly senseless killings shocked and outraged the public, which to this point had tended to idolize Bonnie and Clyde. Another policeman Constable William Campbell was killed five days later near Commerce, Oklahoma, which further turned public sentiment against Bonnie and Clyde.
Death
Bonnie and Clyde were killed May 23, 1934, on a desolate road near their Bienville Parish, Louisiana, hideout. They were shot by a posse of four Texas and two Louisiana officers (the Louisiana pair added solely for jurisdictional reasons — an aspect of pre-FBI America that Clyde had exploited to its fullest when selecting robbery and hideout locations).
The posse was led by Hamer, who began tracking the pair on February 10, 1934. Having never before seen Bonnie or Clyde, he immediately arranged a meeting with a representative of Methvin's parents in the hope of gaining a lead.
Hamer studied Bonnie and Clyde's movements and found they swung in a circle skirting the edges of five midwest states, exploiting the "state line" rule that prevented officers from one jurisdiction from pursuing a fugitive into another. Bonnie and Clyde were masters of that pre-FBI rule but consistent in their movements, allowing them to see their families and those of their gang members.
On May 21, 1934, the four posse members from Texas were in Shreveport, Louisiana when they learned that Bonnie and Clyde were to go there that evening with Methvin. Clyde had designated Methvin's parents' Bienville Parish house as a rendezvous in case they were later separated. Methvin was separated from Bonnie and Clyde in Shreveport, and the full posse, consisting of Capt. Hamer, Dallas County Sheriff's Deputies Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton (who had met Clyde in the past), former Texas Ranger B. They were in place by 9:00 p.m. and waited through the next day (May 22) but saw no sign of Bonnie and Clyde.
At approximately 9:10 a.m. on May 23, the posse, concealed in the bushes and almost ready to concede defeat, heard Clyde's stolen Ford V-8 approaching. The posse's official report has Clyde stopping to speak with Henry Methvin's father — planted there with his truck that morning to distract Clyde and force him into the lane closest to the posse — the lawmen opened fire, killing Bonnie and Clyde while shooting a combined total of approximately 130 rounds. Clyde was killed instantly from Oakley's initial head shot. Bonnie did not die as easily as Clyde.
When later asked why he killed a woman who was not wanted for any capital offense, Hamer stated "I hate to bust the cap on a woman, especially when she was sitting down, however if it wouldn't have been her, it would have been us".
Bonnie and Clyde wished to be buried side by side, but the Parker family would not allow it. Clyde Barrow is buried in the Western Heights Cemetery, and Bonnie Parker in the Crown Hill Memorial Park, both in Dallas, Texas. The bullet-riddled Ford in which Bonnie and Clyde were killed, and the shirt he was wearing the last day of his life, here are currently on display (February 2006) at the Primm Valley Resort in Primm, Nevada.
Controversy and aftermath
Controversy lingers over certain aspects of the ambush, and the way Hamer conducted it. FBI files contain only one warrant, for aiding Clyde in the interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle. The only claim that Bonnie ever fired a weapon during one of the gang's crimes came from Blanche Barrow, and is backed by an article from the Lucerne, Indiana newspaper on May 13, 1933. By this account, Bonnie would have been firing a "machine gun" - the only "machine gun" (fully automatic firing weapon) Clyde or any of the Barrow Gang were ever known to use was the Browning Automatic Rifle (B.A.R.) M1918. This weapon, stolen from an armory Clyde raided, weighed 18.5 pounds unloaded, and with loaded 20 round magazine it weighed over 25 pounds, nearly a third of Bonnie's weight.
Historians and writers have questioned whether Hamer should have given the order to fire, without warning, prior to the car's arrival. By Hinton and Alcorn's account, (and the official report made by Hamer on the ambush), Prentiss Oakley's initial shot killed Clyde, and the officers on the scene on Hamer's orders then fired automatic rifles, shotguns, pistols, until the car was on fire." Personal items such as Bonnie's clothing and a saxophone were also taken, and when the Parker family asked for them back, Hamer refused.
In a grisly aftermath, the men who were left to guard the bodies (Gault, Oakley, and Alcorn) allowed people to cut off bloody locks of Bonnie's hair and tear pieces from her dress, which were sold as souvenirs. Hinton returned to find a man trying to cut off Clyde's finger, and was sickened by what was occurring. The coroner, arriving on the scene, saw the following: "nearly everyone had begun collecting souvenirs such as shell casings, slivers of glass from the shattered car windows, and bloody pieces of clothing from the garments of Bonnie and Clyde. One eager man had opened his pocket knife, and was reaching into the car to cut off Clyde's left ear."
After Ted Hinton's death, his son published an account of the ambush radically different from anything stated before.
Blanche Barrow's injuries left her permanently blinded in her left eye.
Remembering
Every year near the anniversary of the ambush, a "Bonnie and Clyde Festival" is hosted in the town of Gibsland, Louisiana.
Bonnie and Clyde death scene (file info) A video clip of Bonnie and Clyde, shot to death by officers in an ambush near Sailes, Louisiana. See media help.Popular culture
Bonnie and Clyde were among the first celebrity criminals of the modern era, and their legend has proven durable. Certainly Bonnie knew how to enhance the pair's popular appeal by manipulating the media, and newspapers were quick to publish her poem "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde".
The advertising industry took note of the pair's appeal. When a letter signed "Clyde Champion Barrow" was sent to the Ford Motor Company, praising their "dandy car", Ford used it in car advertisements.
Hollywood has treated the pair's story several times, starting with You Only Live Once, a 1937 film loosely based on Bonnie and Clyde and made only three years after their deaths.
Dorothy Provine starred in the 1958 movie The Bonnie Parker Story, directed by William Witney.
In 1967, Arthur Penn directed a romanticized film version of the tale.
In the 1992 TV film, Bonnie & Clyde: The True Story, Tracey Needham played Bonnie while Clyde was portrayed by Dana Ashbrook.
The lead characters of Mickey and Mallory in the 1994 Oliver Stone film, Natural Born Killers bear many similarities to Bonnie and Clyde, particularly in the media attention that the pair received for their crimes.
In Highlander: The Series, two immortal characters named Amanda and Cory are portrayed as Bonnie and Clyde in the episode entitled "Money No Object", which aired November 4, 1996.
In a 1994 second season episode of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, entitled "That Old Gang of Mine", a scientist brings Bonnie and Clyde back from the dead and the two commit crime in modern-day Metropolis.
Popular music has also done much to keep the legend of the outlaw pair alive. In 1967 Serge Gainsbourg recorded his song "Bonnie and Clyde" as a duet with Brigitte Bardot (this song would be covered in the 1990s by the bands Stereolab, Luna and MC Solaar). In 1968, Merle Haggard had a hit single with his song "Legend of Bonnie and Clyde", and Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames had a hit on both sides of the Atlantic with "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde."
In his 1996 song "Me and My Girlfriend," rapper Tupac Shakur says that he and his gun are the "'96 Bonnie and Clyde." Clyde". The duo is also referenced in The Tears' song "Refugees" and "'03 Bonnie and Clyde" by Beyonce and Jay-Z. In 2002, country singer Travis Tritt recorded "Modern Day Bonnie And Clyde", about a man and woman on a crime spree. The song "Demolition Lovers" by My Chemical Romance describes a Bonnie and Clyde type crime couple shot down in the desert. Clyde," which depicts a more idealistically romantic couple in comparison to the original pair. The German punk band Die Toten Hosen have a song entitled Bonnie Und Clyde that details their exploits (in German). In 2006, British indie-pop band Johnny Boy released a song titled "'Bonnie Parker's 115th Dream'" on their self-titled debut album.
In the 2003 movie Stuck On You, there is a play called Bonnie and Clyde, a play that Walt produces.
The Lilo and Stitch TV series had an episode featuring a pair of genetic experiment criminals named Bonnie and Clyde voiced by Tress MacNeille and Jeff Bennett.
A popular Indian movie inspired by Bonnie & Clyde, Bunty Aur Babli, was released in 2005, starring Abhishek Bachchan (son of Amitabh Bachchan) and Rani Mukerji.
Japanese pop superstar Utada Hikaru's first album, First Love, has a track on it called "B&C". In it, Bonnie and Clyde are referred to simply as a couple that stayed together forever.
Also, as of 2006, Cypress Moon Productions have announced that a remake of Bonnie & Clyde is in development.
Finally trying to put the duo's appeal to the public during the depression in perspective, and their enduring appeal to those who consider themselves outsiders, or oppose the existing system, "The country’s money simply declined by 38 percent," explains E.R. Milner, author of The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde. By the time Bonnie and Clyde became well known, many had felt the capitalistic system had been abused by big business and government officials... Now here were Bonnie and Clyde striking back."
User Comments Add a comment…