Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut "Champion" Barrow were American outlaws who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression, committing a series of criminal acts such as bank robberies, kidnappings, and murders between 1932 and 1934. The couple were known for their bank robberies and multiple murders, although they preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations. Their exploits captured the attention of the American press and its readership during what is occasionally referred to as the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934. On May 23, 1934, they were ambushed and killed on Louisiana Highway 154 in Bienville Parish, Louisiana by a law enforcement posse led by retired Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. They are believed to have murdered at least nine police officers and three civilians.
The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the title roles, despite being highly fictionalized and historically inaccurate, was a critical and commercial success which revived interest in the criminals and glamorized them with a romantic aura. The 2019 Netflix film The Highwaymen depicted their manhunt from the point of view of the pursuing lawmen.
Bonnie Parker
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in 1910 in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father, Charles Robert Parker, was a bricklayer who died when Bonnie was four years old. Her widowed mother, Emma Parker, moved her family back to her parents' home in Cement City, an industrial suburb in West Dallas where she worked as a seamstress. As an adult, Bonnie wrote poems such as "The Story of Suicide Sal" and "The Trail's End", the latter more commonly known as "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde".Parker was a bright child who thrived on attention. She enjoyed performing on stage and dreamt of becoming an actress. In her second year in high school, Parker met Roy Thornton. The couple dropped out of school and married on September 25, 1926, six days before her 16th birthday. Their marriage was marred by his frequent absences and brushes with the law and proved to be short-lived. They never divorced, but their paths never crossed again after January 1929. When she died, Parker was still wearing the wedding ring Thornton had given her. Thornton was in prison when he heard of her death, commenting, "I'm glad they jumped out like they did. It's much better than being caught." Sentenced to five years for robbery in 1933 and after attempting several prison breaks from other facilities, Thornton was killed while trying to escape from the Huntsville State Prison on October 3, 1937.
After she left Thornton, Parker moved back in with her mother and worked as a waitress in Dallas. One of her regular customers was postal worker Ted Hinton. In 1932, he joined the Dallas County Sheriff's Department and eventually served as a member of the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde. Parker briefly kept a diary early in 1929 when she was aged 18, writing of her loneliness, her impatience with life in Dallas, and her love of photography.
Clyde Barrow
Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born in 1909 into a poor farming family in the town of Telico in Ellis County, Texas. He was the fifth of seven children of Henry Basil Barrow and Cumie Talitha Walker. The family moved to Dallas in the early 1920s as part of a wider migration pattern from rural areas to the city, where many settled in the urban slum of West Dallas. The Barrows spent their first months in West Dallas living under their wagon until they got enough money to buy a tent.Barrow was first arrested in late 1926, at age 17, after running when police confronted him over a rental car that he had failed to return on time. His second arrest was with his brother Buck Barrow soon after, for possession of stolen turkeys. Barrow had some legitimate jobs from 1927 through 1929, but he also cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars. He met 19-year-old Parker through a mutual friend in January 1930, and they spent much time together during the following weeks. Their romance was interrupted when Barrow was arrested by Dallas County Sheriff's Deputy Bert Whisnand and convicted of auto theft. He escaped from the McLennan County Jail in Waco, TX, on March 11, 1930, using a gun Parker smuggled into the jail.
Recaptured on March 18, Barrow was sent to Huntsville State Prison in April 1930 and in September he was assigned to the Eastham Prison Farm at the age of 21. He was sexually assaulted while in prison, and he retaliated by attacking and killing his tormentor with a pipe, crushing his skull. This was his first murder. Another inmate who was already serving a life sentence claimed responsibility.
To avoid hard labor in the fields, Barrow purposely had two of his toes amputated in late January 1932, either by another inmate or by himself. Because of this, he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. The amputation slowed him down physically, making it harder to outrun law enforcement and limiting his mobility during his many robberies. However, without his knowledge, his mother had successfully petitioned for his release and he was set free six days after his intentional injury. He was paroled from Eastham on February 2, 1932, now a hardened and bitter criminal. His sister Marie said, "Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison because he wasn't the same person when he got out." Fellow inmate Ralph Fults said that he watched Clyde "change from a school boy to a rattlesnake".
In his post-Eastham career, Barrow robbed grocery stores and gas stations at a rate far outpacing the ten or so bank robberies attributed to him and the Barrow Gang. His favorite weapon was the M1918 Browning automatic rifle. According to John Neal Phillips, Barrow's goal in life was not to gain fame or fortune from robbing banks but to seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses that he had sustained while serving time.
First meeting
There are several different accounts of Parker and Barrow's first meeting. One of the more credible versions is that they met on January 5, 1930, at the home of Barrow's friend, Clarence Clay, at 105 Herbert Street in West Dallas. Barrow was 20 years old, and Parker was 19. Parker was out of work and staying with a female friend to assist her during her recovery from a broken arm. Barrow dropped by the girl's house while Parker was in the kitchen making hot chocolate.Armed robbery and murder
1932: Early robberies and murders
After Barrow's release from prison in February 1932, he and Ralph Fults began a series of robberies, primarily of stores and gas stations. Their goal was to collect enough money and firepower to launch a raid against Eastham prison. On April 19, Parker and Fults were captured in a failed hardware store burglary in Kaufman in which they had intended to steal firearms. Parker was released from jail after a few months, when the grand jury failed to indict her. Fults was tried, convicted, and served time. He never rejoined the gang. Parker wrote poetry to pass the time in Kaufman County jail and reunited with Barrow within a few weeks of her release.On April 30, Barrow was the getaway driver in a robbery in Hillsboro during which store owner J.N. Bucher was shot and killed. Bucher's wife identified Barrow from police photographs as one of the shooters, although he had stayed inside the car.
On August 5, Barrow, Raymond Hamilton, and Ross Dyer were drinking moonshine at a country dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma, when Sheriff C.G. Maxwell and Deputy Eugene C. Moore approached them in the parking lot. Barrow and Hamilton opened fire, killing Moore and gravely wounding Maxwell. Moore was the first law officer whom Barrow and his gang killed. They eventually murdered nine. On October 11, they allegedly killed Howard Hall at his store during a robbery in Sherman, Texas, though some historians consider this unlikely.
W. D. Jones had been a friend of Barrow's family since childhood. He joined Parker and Barrow on Christmas Eve 1932 at the age of 16, and the three left Dallas that night. The next day, Christmas Day 1932, Jones and Barrow murdered Doyle Johnson, a young family man, while stealing his car in Temple. Barrow killed Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis on January 6, 1933, when he, Parker, and Jones wandered into a police trap set for another criminal. The gang had murdered five people since April.
1933: Buck and Blanche Barrow join the gang
On March 22, 1933, Clyde's brother Buck was granted a full pardon and released from prison, and he and his wife Blanche set up housekeeping with Bonnie, Clyde and Jones in a temporary hideout at 3347 1/2 Oakridge Drive in Joplin, Missouri. According to family sources, Buck and Blanche were there to visit; they attempted to persuade Clyde to surrender to law enforcement. The group ran loud, alcohol-fueled card games late into the night in the quiet neighborhood; Blanche recalled that they "bought a case of beer a day". The men came and went noisily at all hours, and Clyde accidentally fired a Browning automatic rifle in the apartment while cleaning it. No neighbors went to the house, but one reported suspicions to the Joplin Police Department.The police assembled a five-man force in two cars on April 13 to confront what they suspected were bootleggers living at the Oakridge Drive address. The Barrow brothers and Jones opened fire, killing Detective Harry L. McGinnis outright and fatally wounding Constable J. W. Harryman. Parker opened fire with a BAR as the others fled, forcing Highway Patrol Sergeant G.B. Kahler to duck behind a large oak tree. The.30 caliber bullets from the BAR struck the tree and blasted wood splinters into the sergeant's face. Parker got into the car with the others, and they pulled in Blanche from the street where she was pursuing her dog Snow Ball. The surviving officers later testified that they had fired only fourteen rounds in the conflict; one hit Jones on the side, one struck Clyde but was deflected by his suit-coat button, and one grazed Buck after ricocheting off a wall.
The group escaped the police at Joplin but left behind most of their possessions at the apartment, including Buck's parole papers, a large arsenal of weapons, a handwritten poem by Bonnie, and a camera with several rolls of undeveloped film. Police developed the film at The Joplin Globe and found many photos of Barrow, Parker, and Jones posing and pointing weapons at one another. The Globe sent the poem and the photos over the newswire, including a photo of Parker clenching a cigar in her teeth and a pistol in her hand. The Barrow Gang subsequently became front-page news throughout the United States.
The photo of Parker posing with a cigar and a gun became popular. In his book Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, writer Jeff Guinn noted:
The group ranged from Texas as far north as Minnesota for the next three months. In May, they tried to rob the bank in Lucerne, Indiana, and robbed the bank in Okabena, Minnesota. They kidnapped Dillard Darby and Sophia Stone at Ruston, Louisiana, in the course of stealing Darby's car; this was one of several events between 1932 and 1934 in which they kidnapped police officers or robbery victims. They usually released their hostages far from home, sometimes with money to help them return.
Stories of such encounters made headlines, as did the more violent episodes. The Barrow Gang did not hesitate to shoot anyone who got in their way, whether it was a police officer or an innocent civilian. Other members of the gang who committed murder included Hamilton, Jones, Buck Barrow, and Henry Methvin. Eventually, the cold-bloodedness of their murders opened the public's eyes to the reality of their crimes and led to their ends.
The photos entertained the public for a time, but the gang was desperate and discontented, as described by Blanche in her account written while imprisoned in the late 1930s. With their new notoriety, their daily lives became more difficult as they tried to evade discovery. Restaurants and motels became less secure; the gang resorted to campfire cooking and bathing in cold streams. The unrelieved round-the-clock proximity of five people in one car gave rise to vicious bickering. Jones was the driver when he and Barrow stole a car belonging to Darby in late April, and he used that car to leave the others. He stayed away until June 8.
Barrow failed to see warning signs at a bridge under construction on June 10 while driving with Jones and Parker near Wellington, Texas, and the car flipped into a ravine. Sources disagree on whether there was a gasoline fire or if Parker was doused with acid from the car's battery under the floorboards, but she sustained third-degree burns to her right leg, so severe that the muscles contracted and caused the leg to "draw up". Jones observed: "She'd been burned so bad none of us thought she was gonna live. The hide on her right leg was gone from her hip down to her ankle. I could see the bone at places."
Parker could hardly walk; she either hopped on her good leg or was carried by Barrow. They got help from a nearby farm family, then kidnapped Collinsworth County Sheriff George Corry and City Marshal Paul Hardy, leaving the two of them handcuffed to a tree outside Erick, Oklahoma. The three rendezvoused with Buck and Blanche and hid in a tourist court near Fort Smith, Arkansas, nursing Parker's burns. Buck and Jones bungled a robbery and murdered Town Marshal Henry D. Humphrey in Alma, Arkansas. The criminals had to flee, despite Parker's grave condition.