Who are Bonnie and Clyde, and why are they so famous nowadays? Bonnie and Clyde: the real story of the “scumbags” of the Great Depression How the story of Bonnie and Clyde ended
Bonnie and Clyde in March 1933./Public Domain
Behind the beautiful picture created by journalists and Hollywood, there is a story full of blood...
In the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a tendency in Russian culture to romanticize crime. Bandits and murderers were presented as victims of circumstances, unfortunate, rejected by society, in need of compassion and understanding. “We are not like this, life is like this” - this deceptive thesis has become the leitmotif of an entire era.
It should, however, be recognized: the romanticization of crime has a long history, not only in our country, but also in the world. Often, real villains appear years and decades later in the images of “romantic Robin Hoods”, arousing sympathy rather than rejection.
A classic example is the famous Bonnie and Clyde, American gangsters of the 1930s. Hundreds of books, dozens of songs have been written about them, a lot of films and television series have been made.
The 1967 Hollywood film Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, collected a large number of awards, including two Oscar statuettes.
What were Bonnie and Clyde really like before they became part of popular culture?
Their history is directly related to the Great Depression: an economic crisis that lasted almost a decade, ruining and plunging millions of Americans into poverty. The same period saw the heyday of the gangster era, when gangster groups in the country became a “second power,” sometimes more significant than the first.
However, this has nothing to do with Bonnie and Clyde. They were not part of a powerful mafia structure, but were what in the 1990s in Russia would be called “scumbags”: criminals who did not obey anyone, wreaking havoc and death around them.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were Texas natives. She came from a working-class family, where her father worked as a mason and her mother as a seamstress. He grew up in a large but poor family of farmers.
Bonnie was one of the first students at school, had a rich imagination and, according to teachers, had good acting skills.
Good girls are often attracted to bad boys. And at the age of 15, Bonnie was drawn to Roy Thornton, a hooligan and brawler, to whom those around him promised a place behind bars. Despite this, they got married in September 1926. Bonnie got a job as a waitress.
The marital bond lasted a year. Roy began to disappear from home for weeks at a time, and Bonnie, having suffered with her husband’s behavior for some time, decided to break up with him. Thornton didn't mind. Soon he ended up in prison, where he spent the time when his wife became a criminal legend.
Clyde Barrow, who was a year older than Bonnie, was first jailed at age 16 when he failed to return a rental car on time. He was quickly released, but was soon detained again along with his brother when they were stealing turkeys. Clyde was not frightened by the first arrests: despite the fact that the young man, unlike many around him, had a job, he continued to commit petty thefts and steal cars.
Finally, in April 1930, Clyde, who had just turned 21, was sent not to the local lockup, but to Eastham Prison.
Mary Barrow, Clyde's sister, later recalled: "Something terrible must have happened to him in prison, because he was never the same again." The scoundrel and hooligan turned into a sullen, embittered man who hated everything the world. As those who sat in Eastham with Clyde later said, from a schoolboy he became a “rattlesnake.”
Some biographers of the criminal couple believe that the reason was that Clyde was a victim of sexual abuse in prison. One of the prisoners liked the young man, who raped him several times. As a result, Clyde killed his offender.
However, in 1932 he was released.
In early 1932, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow first met at the house of a mutual friend. He was a 22-year-old criminal embittered by the whole world, she was a 21-year-old bored waitress with a rich imagination, a craving for “bad boys” and “dangerous adventures.” Bonnie kept a diary and wrote poetry. She didn’t dream of a long life and a big family, she wanted to “have fun.” Clyde Barrow liked Bonnie and could provide her with the “fun” she wanted.
Contrary to subsequent legends, the Bonnie and Clyde gang, which included several other people, did not specialize in bank robberies. The main targets of the raiders were small shops and gas stations.
Clyde Barrow dreamed of taking revenge on the prison in which he had to endure terrible humiliation. The revenge was to be a mass escape, which he intended to organize. To get money for it, gangsters began to rob small stores.
On April 30, 1932, during another raid on a store in which Bonnie did not participate, the owner tried to resist, for which he was killed on the spot.
Clyde was not frightened by this outcome, but only provoked. On August 5, 1932, Barrow and his accomplice Raymond Hamilton were drinking in a bar in Stringtown. When the sheriff and his assistants appeared on the threshold of the establishment, the bandits shot them.
On October 11, Clyde dealt with store owner Howard Hall. The killer's loot was $28 and food.
Bonnie was not afraid of murder, but she told Clyde that all these were “toys” and that she needed to get down to serious things. After this, the bandits moved on to raiding banks.
Raymond Hamilton fell into the hands of the police and was sentenced to 60 years in prison. The new accomplice was 16-year-old V.D. Jones, who begged Clyde to accept him into the gang. The boy turned out to be a “worthy student”: the very next day he killed the owner of the car, who tried to prevent it from being stolen.
Bonnie and Clyde's apartment in Joplin. Photo: Public Domain
The bandits set up headquarters in Missouri, in the city of Joplin, which was known as the main “gangster haven” in the United States. First three people lived in a three-room apartment with a garage, and then five people: they were joined by Clyde’s brother Buck, who had been released from prison, and his wife Blanche. It is said that Buck came to his brother to convince him to “stop it”, but then decided that Clyde was “on the right track.”
It so happened that the legend of Bonnie and Clyde was born in Joplin. Bonnie's creative nature haunted her, and she asked her accomplices to photograph her in various images. Clyde also got involved in this game.
The bandits did not observe any precautions. The endless noisy fun began to irritate the neighbors. And when one day a shot was heard in the house (Clyde shot accidentally while cleaning his weapon), they called the police.
Prohibition was in force in the United States at that time, and local police decided that we were talking about persons involved in alcohol smuggling.
In the early morning of April 13, 1933, the police arrived at the house of the criminals, blocking the entrance to the garage. The gangsters were not going to give up, and a fight broke out near the house. After killing one of the policemen and wounding the second, Bonnie, Clyde and their accomplices broke free. And the police got the photo archive of the gang, which the newspapers clung to and began to spin the story about a respectable gangster couple.
Fame created a lot of problems for the gang. They could be recognized, so it became impossible to appear in crowded places, hotels and restaurants. IN best case scenario we spent the night in roadside motels away from big cities, or, at worst, in the forest near a fire.
In June 1933, a car with bandits was involved in an accident. Bonnie suffered the most: due to damage to her right leg, she began to limp severely.
A few days later they stopped at the Red Crown Motel in Arkansas. The vigilant owner of the establishment suspected something was wrong: three people registered, and five got out of the car. The guests covered the windows with newspapers and bought food and alcohol for a large group. In addition, the owner did not like the fact that Blanche Barrow, who was sent to resolve issues with the settlement, appeared before him in trousers. In patriarchal Arkansas of those times, it was believed that a woman in this form could only be a criminal.
The owner reported to the police, and at night law enforcement officers attacked the motel. The criminals managed to escape, but Buck and Blanche Barrow were seriously wounded.
The police were on their heels. They had to stop at an abandoned amusement park in Iowa, but they were noticed there too. The police attacked the bandits' makeshift camp. Three managed to escape, and the Barrow spouses fell into the hands of law enforcement officers. Clyde's brother died of his wounds a few days after his arrest.
Dream come true
On August 20, a criminal trio robbed a gun store in Illinois, adding to its arsenal. After that they went to visit relatives. In Houston, where Jones' mother lived, he was arrested.
In November, the remaining two Bonnie and Clyde arrived in Texas to visit their relatives, making an appointment for them to meet in an abandoned village. The local sheriff, having learned about the meeting, prepared an ambush, but the criminals noticed the catch and again escaped from the trap.
Clyde did not forget about his main goal, and on January 16, 1934, he implemented a plan: gangsters attacked Eastham prison, provoking a mass escape of prisoners, during which a security officer was killed.
This was a challenge to the system, so both the federal government and the Texas authorities threw their best forces into putting an end to the gang.
A man who caused no less consternation was called to fight the criminal “scumbags.” Retired Texas Ranger Frank A. Hamer was a true bounty hunter who arrested dozens of criminals and personally killed more than 50 offenders.
Hamer and his henchmen followed on the heels of the criminals. They behaved like cornered animals: on April 1, 1934, they shot two patrol policemen. In response, the authorities announced a reward for the corpses of Bonnie and Clyde: they were no longer going to catch them alive after everything that had been done.
The last victim of the bandits was Constable William Campbell, who was killed in Commerce, Oklahoma.
Frank Hamer had by that time thoroughly studied the dossier of the bandits and prepared a trap. An ambush awaited Bonnie and Clyde on a rural road in Bienville, Louisiana.
Frank A. Hamer. Photo: Public Domain
On May 23, 1934, Hamer's group, consisting of six people, opened heavy fire on the Ford in which the bandits were located. 167 bullets hit the car, most of them went to the criminals. Forensic experts counted more than 50 bullets in Clyde Barrow's body, and over 60 in Bonnie Parker's body.
After the death of the criminals, they began to do business with them immediately: in order to look at the dead, you had to pay a dollar, and there were a lot of people willing. The gangsters' personal belongings were taken by people from Hamer's group, who then sold them at auction through third parties. Hamer took for himself the gangster's weapons and fishing gear, with the help of which the bandits obtained food for themselves in their worst days.
Bonnie and Clyde's car. The shooting was so loud that Hamer's squad suffered from temporary deafness all day. Photo: Public Domain
Bonnie and Clyde were not buried together, as they themselves wanted, but their graves almost immediately became tourist attractions, which they remain to this day.
Bonnie and Clyde forced an overhaul of the US insurance system. The fact is that at that time, life insurance guaranteed payments to relatives even if the insured were criminals and were killed by the police. When the Parker and Barrow families received the money, they rushed to change the system.
In 1934, twenty friends and relatives of Bonnie and Clyde were convicted of harboring criminals. Even Clyde's teenage sister Mary Barrow was given a symbolic hour of arrest.
Bonnie's husband Roy Thornton, from whom she did not have time to officially divorce, upon learning of his wife's death, said: “I'm glad they had so much fun. It's much better than getting caught." Three years later, Thornton would be killed while attempting to escape from prison.
Historians have been grappling with the question for many years: why did Bonnie and Clyde gain popularity among the mass of criminals of the Great Depression era? Most agree that Bonnie's artistic nature, the press and the Puritan morals of America of that era played a major role.
Staged photographs of Bonnie, absolutely harmless from the point of view of today, then seemed the height of depravity and debauchery. The challenge for society was not only the crimes of Bonnie and Clyde, but also their extramarital sexual relationship, which, thanks to the efforts of the press, awakened secret desires in many Americans.
About the fact that behind this beautiful picture there are ruined human lives, blood and dirt, the public did not want to think. Just as he doesn’t want to now.
Watch the documentary: "Famous robbers of the 20th century"
The most famous and romanticized criminals in American history were perhaps Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, a young couple from Texas. They became famous in the early 1930s, and their names were synonymous with chic and mayhem during the Great Depression. Their life was like an exciting Western, where women smoke cigars and brandish rifles, and men rob banks and steal luxury cars. True, for Bonnie and Clyde the film called life turned out to be very short-lived. In our review there are 13 little known facts about this bloodthirsty couple.
1. Bonnie wore her wedding ring until her death.
Six days before she turned 16, Bonnie married classmate Roy Thornton. The marriage ended within months, and Bonnie never saw her husband again after he was jailed for robbery in 1929. Soon after, Bonnie met Clyde, and although they fell in love, Bonnie never really did not divorce Thornton. On the day Bonnie and Clyde were killed in 1934, she was still wearing Thornton's wedding ring and had a tattoo on the inside of her right thigh - two interconnected hearts with the words "Bonnie" and "Roy".
2. Bonnie and Clyde were short
Bonnie was only 150 cm tall and Clyde was 162 cm tall, at a time when the average height for women and men was 160 cm and 172 cm, respectively.
3. Bonnie was an exemplary student and wrote poetry.
During school years Bonnie was distinguished by her imagination and creativity. While imprisoned in 1932 after a failed burglary at a hardware store, she wrote a collection of 10 odes called Poetry on the Other Side of Life.
4. Bonnie never smoked cigars
In her most famous photograph, Bonnie Parker holds a revolver with one foot on the bumper of a car and a cigar clutched between her teeth. In fact, this is part of a collection of comic photographs that Bonnie and Clyde took for their own amusement. They were found at the gang's secret apartment during a police raid. In one photo, Bonnie aims a rifle at a smiling Clyde's chest, and in another, Clyde kisses Bonnie in an exaggerated movie-star manner. These photographs, as well as Bonnie's poems found in the apartment, greatly influenced Bonnie and Clyde's fame. Newspapers across the country reprinted the photo with the cigar. In fact, Bonnie smoked cigarettes, as did Clyde (Camel was their favorite brand). Bonnie also loved whiskey, and Clyde hardly drank alcohol.
5. Clyde wasn't accepted into the Navy.
As a young man, Clyde tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy, but was rejected due to having suffered a serious illness as a child (possibly malaria or yellow fever). It was a hard blow for Clyde, who already had "USN" (U.S. Navy) tattooed on his left arm.
6. First arrest for failure to return a rental car
The notorious outlaw was first arrested in 1926 for car theft after failing to return a car he had rented in Dallas to visit his girlfriend. The car rental agency dropped the charges, but the incident remained on Clyde's file. Just three weeks later, he was arrested again along with his older brother Marvin "Buck" Barrow for having stolen turkeys in the back of their truck.
7. Banks are not their specialty
Although they are often portrayed as Depression-era Robin Hoods who stole from rich and powerful financial institutions, Bonnie and Clyde were much more likely to rob gas stations and grocery stores. Many times their loot was only $5 or $10.
8. Clyde chopped off two of his fingers
While serving a 14-year sentence in Texas for robbery and car theft in January 1932, Clyde decided he had had enough of hard labor on a prison farm. To be transferred to a less harsh facility, Clyde cut off his left thumb and part of the second toe with an axe. The self-mutilation that always left him limping afterwards ultimately proved unnecessary as Clyde was released early after six days.
9. Bonnie and Clyde are caring children
No matter what happened, Bonnie and Clyde did not lose touch with their families and regularly visited their loved ones. This is what helped law enforcement officers to ambush and kill the criminals.
In fact, it was because they were predictable (and constantly visiting their families) that Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed.
10. Bonnie was lame
On the night of June 10, 1933, Clyde, with Bonnie in the passenger seat, was driving quickly along a country road in North Texas. He did not notice the warning about detour of the bridge, which is under repair. The Ford V-8 broke through the barrier at a speed of 112 km/h and fell into a dry river bed. The acid leaked from the broken car battery and severely burned Bonnie's right leg, eating away the flesh to the bone in some places. As a result, Bonnie suffered third-degree burns and (like Clyde) walked with a limp for the rest of her life. She had such difficulty walking that she would sometimes hop on one leg or lean on Clyde.
11. Souvenir hunters
On May 23, 1934, a six-man ambush led by former Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer gunned down Bonnie and Clyde in their car, firing a total of more than 130 bullets (110 hitting the bandits). The acrid smell of gunpowder still hung in the air when onlookers rushed to the holed car, trying to grab something as a souvenir. One man tried to cut off Clyde's ear with a pocket knife, and another tried to rip off his finger. Before the police intervened, one of the onlookers managed to cut off strands of Bonnie's hair and wrap it around her blood-soaked dress.
12. A car riddled with bullets can be seen in a casino.
Following the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde, the riddled Ford V-8 sedan (which had been stolen) was returned to its former owner, Ruth Warren of Topeka, Kansas. Warren sold the car to Charles Stanley, who towed the “car of death” and drove it around the country, showing it off as a tourist attraction. Today this car can be found in the lobby of the Whiskey Pete`s casino in Primm, Nevada.
13. Bonnie and Clyde are buried separately
Despite the fact that they were always close during their lives, after death the couple was separated. Although they once stated that they wanted to be buried nearby, Bonnie's mother, who did not approve of her relationship with Clyde, insisted that her daughter be buried in a different Dallas cemetery. Clyde was buried next to his brother Marvin. His tombstone reads: “Gone but not forgotten.”
Bonnie Parker's grave, on which is written: "As all flowers become more fragrant with sunshine and dew, so is this one old world made brighter by the lives of people like you"
Such a famous port city as Odessa also had its criminals. became not only the talk of the town, but also a movie hero.
Their names have long become household names, and time has brought gloss to the events of past years, softened compromising details, myths give them a romantic aura of extraordinary personalities who challenge “unjust” authorities. Films are made about them, poems are even dedicated to them. And now their names are clearly connected by the phrase “the story of one love.” People tend to forgive, but what was it like, the real life of Bonnie and Clyde, the one real life, and not the Hollywood gloss of films?
A homosexual and an adventurer, both of them were obsessed with a passion for violence, thirsted for the glory of great gangsters, numerous high-profile newspaper publications and photographs.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who roamed America in the early 1930s, were ruthless killers but found themselves immortalized in films, songs and legends. They never became great gangsters - most of the thefts and robberies were committed at gas stations, in small shops and eateries in small towns. But cruelty and reckless audacity, and most importantly, the complete senselessness of the murders committed, made them truly legendary.
Clyde Chestnut Barrow born March 24, 1909 near Telico, Texas. He was the fifth child in a family of seven or eight children, his parents were poor farmers, and he lived on a farm until he was 13 years old. He rarely appeared at school, preferring to play with wooden pistols and wander around, enviously looking at the cars of wealthy citizens. In 1922, the Barrow family went bankrupt and Clyde's father moved to West Dallas. Having reached the age of 16, Clyde dropped out of school. Already in his youth, his older brother Buck taught Clyde his first lessons in theft. The police first arrested Clyde for car theft in 1926, but could not prove anything. A second arrest soon followed, after Clyde and his brother Buck stole turkeys. After several petty thefts, the teenager was placed in a juvenile reform school, but the school could not fix anything, and Clyde ended up robbing roadside restaurants and small gas stations. In such country places you can most often get hold of a very small amount, but he understood that it was much safer to rob in small things.
In his further “exploits”, Clyde significantly surpassed his brother; he joined the ranks of the teenage gang “Root Square”, which “stripped” cars.
In 1928, Clyde ran away from home and carried out his first independent criminal operation. With a broken pistol, he burst into the gaming room, disarmed the guards and seized the proceeds. The next time he tried to commit a burglary at night and almost got caught. That same year, after a failed raid on a dining car, Buck was convicted and Clyde, pursued by the police, went to Texas. In January 1930, hungry, he went into one of the Dallas cafes, where a meeting of two future accomplices took place - a pretty waitress served Clyde a hamburger.
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker born October 1, 1910 in Rowena, Texas. When Bonnie was four years old, her father, a mason by profession, died, and her mother and three children moved to the suburbs of Dallas, where the girl went to school at the age of 14. Bonnie studied very well, receiving high marks in literature and acting. The girl's greatest hobby is photography, but after two years she got bored with her studies, and on September 25, 1926, Bonnie married a young man named Roy Thornton. Family life did not work out, and after leaving her husband, seventeen-year-old Bonnie got a job as a waitress at Marco's Cafe in East Dallas. Despite the breakup with her husband, Bonnie did not film wedding ring until his death. “A little blonde bundle” (with a height of 150 cm, she weighed 44 kg) - this is what Bonnie wrote about herself in her diary.
America, 30s, Great Depression. Bonnie Parker works as a waitress in a creepy outback and, not without reason, assumes that her future life will be boring, poor and hopeless. Therefore, when the charming, although not entirely law-abiding Clyde Barrow suddenly appears in Bonnie’s field of view, he immediately attracts her attention by the fact that he does not accept the laws of this damn world, preferring to establish his own own rules behavior. She was interested in the exciting stories about the life of a reckless tramp that Clyde told her. This was the beginning of a truly hellish union.
The relationship between the homosexual Barrow and Parker was quite strange. He changed his sexual orientation while in prison and lost two toes under unclear circumstances. It was a surrogate of love, mixed with threats and violence. As a woman, she was of little interest to the gang leader. In the near future, Bonnie will be content with love affairs with other gang members.
They fueled their friendship with stories of robberies and brutal fights. Bonnie moved with Clyde into a small furnished apartment in Dallas. The all-consuming passion of this strange couple was weapons. Bonnie admired the pistols that her suitor carried in a holster under his coat, and the power that came from the death-carrying barrels. They made regular trips out of town to practice shooting. Soon both were shooting with equal accuracy from almost all types of weapons. The couple loved to be photographed with weapons: Bonnie posed in front of the lens with a pistol in her hands and a cigarette in her teeth. Clyde with a rifle looked simpler in the photographs - he lacked the artistry of his girlfriend.
Over time, Bonnie and Clyde began to "work" together. The robberies followed the same scenario. Bonnie got behind the wheel of the car, and they drove up to the intended object. Clyde would burst into the room and “take the cash register,” then rush to the car, jump into it while it was moving, and cover the escape with fire.
Risky adventures excited BonnieParker is much more than intimate encounters with Clyde. Three months later, Clyde got into trouble at the scene of a theft in Texas. He was arrested at an apartment in Dallas and sentenced to two years in prison, which he never served. His brother Buck escaped from prison, and Clyde sent an encrypted letter with him to his accomplice asking him to organize his escape. Thanks to a cursory search, she was able to give Clyde the weapon during a visit in prison. That same night, the criminal escaped and traveled to Ohio on freight trains.
But Clyde Barrow was only free for a week. He was arrested again and this time sent to a maximum security federal prison.
The robber's mother, Cammie Barrow, bombarded the state governor with requests for leniency. On February 2, 1932, Clyde was released on parole. After leaving prison, he swore to Bonnie that he would rather die than go back to jail. For the rest of his life, this villain remembered the dungeons of the “burning hell”, where he was beaten with whips and forced to do gymnastic exercises until the poor fellow fell exhausted.
Bonnie Parker was the next to go to jail. The criminals stole another car and fled from pursuit. The car crashed into a tree. Clyde managed to escape, and his accomplice was captured and sentenced to two months in prison. While Bonnie sat, Clyde continued to rob stores in small towns and gas stations on highways. In Hillsboro, Texas, he killed 65-year-old John Bacher, the owner of a jewelry store. The "revenue" was only ten dollars.
On August 5, 1932, Clyde planned to rob an usher at a country festival in Atoka, Oklahoma. Two law enforcement officers - Sheriff Charles Maxwell and his deputy Eugene Moore - saw him wandering around aimlessly. “Come into the light, boy, so I can get a better look at you,” Sheriff Maxwell addressed the suspicious type, and these were his last words. Clyde threw back his coat and, grabbing two automatic pistols at once, killed both policemen with point-blank shots.
After that, Bonnie told the guys that it was enough to play with toys, it was time to get down to real business. Thus the criminal gang began its deadly odyssey.
They robbed an arms warehouse in Texas and armed themselves to the teeth, then shot a dozen mounted police who were blocking the roads. The raiders ransacked liquor stores, gas stations, and groceries, sometimes just for a few dollars. One day, criminals kidnapped the sheriff, stripped him, tied him up, and left him on the side of the road with the words: “Tell your people that we are not a gang of murderers. Put yourself in the position of people trying to survive this damn depression.”
Wandering around, they lived like bandits in the old days: they slept by camp fires and ate game. At night they drank whiskey, and Bonnie wrote pompous romantic poems in which she bemoaned her fate. Persecuted by the law, in reality they were a new generation of heroes - this is how the failed poetess presented her “exploits.” In the fall of 1932, Bonnie and Clyde headed to New Mexico with Roy Hamilton joining them, but the profit did not seem as great to them as in Texas, and they returned back.
They killed people frequently and indiscriminately. Thus, Clyde took the life of a butcher who rushed with a knife to defend his 50 dollars; killed Doyle Johnson in Temple while he was trying to prevent his car from being stolen; shot and killed two police officers who were waiting in ambush for another robber in Dallas. In Dallas he joins the gang
William Jones. In the future, he will tell the police the details of the life of the criminal couple.Like gypsies, they traveled around the southwestern United States, robbing shops and garages. Hamilton was soon arrested and sentenced to 264 years in prison.
Robbery attacks became more frequent when Buck and his wife Blanche reappeared in the gang. In Kansas, they robbed the office of a loan and credit society. There, Bonnie first saw a "Police Wanted" poster with her image on it. The fact that she and Clyde had become "celebrities" shocked Bonnie so much that she immediately sent a dozen letters to major newspapers with pictures that she and Clyde had taken along their criminal path. Bonnie supported by all means available to her the version that she and Clyde were fighters for justice. After all, the banks they rob belong to the powers that be, not poor farmers and small businessmen. Bonnie, of course, did not mention the pathological pleasure that both received from killing the same farmers.
During this time, Bonnie was working on a bombastic autobiographical poem. In the future this opus was published in newspapers.
In 1933, robbers turned their attention mainly to small banks in small towns in Indiana, Minnesota and Texas.
One day they were hiding in rental log cabins in Missouri. The raiders did not attract attention, but the manager became suspicious when they paid the rent in small coins. He reported his suspicions to the police.
The guests' physical descriptions matched those of the criminals, and a hundred "cops" were sent to lay siege to the gang's suspected hideout.
To everyone's surprise, the criminals disappeared again, leaving three dead officers.
Blanche was shot in the leg, Clyde was slightly wounded in the head, Bonnie was hit in the rib by a bullet, and Buck... Buck received his last bullet in his life.
In the wooded area of Iowa, the bandits licked their wounds and did everything to save Buck, but they could no longer help him.
Feeling the pursuit, the duo quickly retreated north to Minnesota, reasonably believing that in a state where they had committed fewer crimes, they would not have as many problems. They stole laundry from the lines and ate garbage.
Jones, who rejoined them, later told police: “It wasn’t the same life. We were like ordinary tramps.”
Jones was the first of the bandits to become fed up with this life and ran away from his accomplices to Texas, where he was immediately arrested. He told the police everything he knew about the gang's activities. “These two are monsters,” said the fugitive. “I have never seen anyone else who enjoys killing so much.”
The following month, Bonnie and Clyde snuck into Texas to meet Clyde's mother at a suburban rest area. Here this couple almost got caught - Cammy Barrow was being followed by the sheriff's people who surrounded the picnic site. Warned by some sixth sense, Clyde rushed as fast as he could to the car that had been left nearby. The trunk of the car was riddled with bullets, and he and Bonnie were slightly injured, but they were lucky.
In January 1934, Clyde launched a daring attack on the prison farm where Hamilton was being taken to work, and after a shootout with guards, he freed him and several other prisoners. Joe Palmer and Henry Methvin join the gang. The Barrow gang was growing in strength again. Again, a wave of murders, car thefts, and weapons thefts swept through different towns. Soon, however, after a quarrel over the division of the loot, Hamilton leaves his colleagues.
The wild morals of the raiders, their unbridled passions and base desires terrified people.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has instructed police personnel to shoot to kill and ask questions later. This was tantamount to declaring war on the bandits terrorizing the population. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover said: "Clyde is a psychopath. He must be destroyed like a rabid animal."
What and who did Bonnie and Clyde fight against? Why were rivers of human blood shed? Readers who recently admired romantic poem Bonnie Parker, we have already realized that the heroes are far from Robin Hood. These were greedy, ruthless killers.
Meanwhile, the ring around the Barrow gang was inexorably shrinking. Texas Sheriff Frank Hamer, who had neutralized 65 notorious criminals during his career, was tasked with tracking down Bonnie and Clyde. Hamer analyzed each of their attacks, created maps and diagrams of their movements over all these years, studied all the raid sites and the paths they chose. “I wanted to penetrate their diabolical plans,” he said, “and I did it.” Several times during the first months of 1934, Hamer and his men were on the trail of the bandits, but the police were constantly unlucky - they were always late.
At this time, Hamilton was detained in Texas, and in order to avoid death penalty, he attributes all the crimes to Bonnie and Clyde. Having learned about this from the newspapers, Clyde writes a mocking letter to the judge, fully confirming Hamilton's testimony.
In April, the remnants of the criminal group headed to Texas, hoping to sit quietly with Bonnie's relatives, but as they approached the town of Grainwine, police officers Ernest Wheeler and Harold Murphy rode past on motorcycles. Sensing something was wrong, Clyde stopped the car.
The police, who became suspicious, turned back. When they drew level, Clyde fired from both guns at once.
The criminals managed to escape again. Two weeks later in Oklahoma, when Clyde's car got stuck in the mud, two "cops" approached them. One of them received a bullet in the head, the second was luckier - he was slightly wounded. Thus, the total number of victims became about one and a half dozen.
The police discovered a house where criminals were hiding from time to time. They needed a key to the door, which could be in the possession of the third member of the gang, Metvin. His father promised to help lure the gang into an ambush if Hamer spared his son. The sheriff, who was primarily interested in catching Bonnie and Clyde, went for it.
Henry Methvin agreed to act in concert with his father and quietly slipped out of the bandit's lair. Soon the police surrounded the shelter and blocked the road leading to it. They were armed with machine guns, automatic rifles, and large quantities of tear gas grenades. This time the police had every chance to catch the criminals.
On the morning of May 23, 1934, a Ford appeared on the road, which the couple had stolen a week earlier. Clyde was driving. He was wearing dark glasses to protect him from the bright spring sun. Next to Clyde sat his inseparable companion in a new red dress, stolen along with other things a few weeks ago. Two thousand rounds of ammunition, three rifles, twelve pistols and two gas guns were hidden in the car.
Methvin Sr.'s truck was parked at the edge of the road. When Clyde caught up with him, he asked if his son had appeared. Metvin, seeing the approaching police car, shook with fear and dived under his truck. The sheriff jumped out of the car and ordered the bandits to surrender. But this command acted on the criminal couple like a red rag on a bull.
With lightning speed, Clyde opened the car door and grabbed the shotgun. Bonnie pulled out her revolver.
But this time they had nothing to hope for. Lead hail fell on their car. 167 bullets pierced the car, of which 50 hit the bandits. The front pages of American newspapers were filled with reports of the death of Bonnie and Clyde. The mutilated bodies of criminals were put on public display in the morgue, and anyone could look at them for one dollar. There were quite a lot of curious people.
Ten years later, Roy Hamilton was sentenced to death. Before his death, he recalled: “They loved to kill people, see how blood flows, and took pleasure in this spectacle. And they never missed the opportunity to enjoy the sight of someone else’s death. These people did not know what pity and compassion were.”
The family of the deceased criminal tried to create a different, romantic image of Bonnie. The inscription on her gravestone reads: “As flowers bloom under the rays of the sun and the freshness of the dew, so the world becomes brighter thanks to people like you.”
Such an epitaph for someone who left behind such an unkind bloody memory sounds somewhat strange.
Victims of the Great Depression. Lost generation. This may somehow explain the goal, but it cannot justify the means to achieve it. Time leaves its traces on everything. It left the stamp of myth on the lives of Bonnie and Clyde. And numerous stories, true and not entirely true, give the robbers a romantic aura of extraordinary personalities who challenge the authorities, but in reality Bonnie Parker and Clyde Burrow turned out to be just ruthless killers.
Bonnie and Clyde are famous American robbers who operated during the Great Depression. Killed in 1934 FBI agents. Bonnie was 24 years old at the time of the murder, Clyde was 25 years old.
Bonnie was born into a poor family of a mason and seamstress with three children. Clyde comes from a family of poor farmers with seven children. Bonnie studied well, was a fashionista, and wrote poetry. Clyde, apparently, did not shine with education.
Everything in their lives happened extremely quickly and concentratedly.
Bonnie dropped out of school at age 15. She got married at 16. At 17 I got a job as a waitress. At 18 I separated from my husband. At 22, I met Clyde, and away we go...
(pictured is Bonnie and her first husband, whom she, by the way, never divorced)
At the age of 17, Clyde stole a car (rented it and did not return it), for which he was arrested. A little later he stole turkeys and was arrested again. At the age of 18-20 he began cracking safes, robbing stores and stealing cars, for which he was sent to prison at the age of 21. There he was raped. Clyde killed the rapist. There, Clyde lost two toes, which he chopped off as a sign of protest against the rules that prevailed in this establishment.
It is believed that it was in prison that Clyde finally “matured.” His sister Mary said, “Something terrible must have happened to him in prison, because he was never the same again.” Ralph Fults, who was incarcerated at the same time as Clyde, said he saw him go from being a schoolboy to rattlesnake. At the age of 23, Clyde was released early, after which he met Bonnie, and away we go...
They had only two years of life left, during which they had time to become famous as frostbitten murderers and robbers, about whom many legends would later be created, films would be made, and their names would become household names.
Bonnie and Clyde are usually portrayed as romantic lovers who were devoted to each other to the end. But, there are also slightly different opinions.
According to some sources, it is believed that Clyde was homosexual. Others claim that Bonnie and Clyde were lovers, but at the same time had sexual relations with other gang members. For example, it is known that Roy Hamilton was the lover of both.
(Pictured - Raymond Hamilton)
And then Roy also brought a girlfriend into the gang, which is why relations within the team became tense to the limit.
(Hamilton's girlfriend, whom he, by his own admission, loved more than anyone in the world, with the exception of his mother)
By the way, what is noteworthy is that Raymond Hamilton was sentenced to 264 years in prison for shooting the sheriff and his deputies while drunk.
Based on such “free” relationships and Clyde’s difficult orientation, some people believe that by definition there was no unearthly love between Bonnie and Clyde. Although there was no doubt that they were really very devoted to each other: Bonnie at one time pulled Clyde out of prison, giving him a weapon on a date, and Clyde later, when the police detained Bonnie, fought off his friend, brazenly attacking the police station .
And Bonnie’s mother, Emma Parker, said: “I immediately realized that there was something between them when Bonnie introduced him to me. I saw it in her eyes, in the way she held onto the sleeve of his jacket.”
It is believed that Bonnie became the brain center of the gang and thanks to her, crimes reached a new level.
Nevertheless, they explained their crimes, of course, not by their bloodthirstiness or passion for profit, but by “hard fate” and “fight against the system.”
Here, for example, are the poems Bonnie wrote in those two years:
“Nowadays Bonnie and Clyde are a famous duet,
All the newspapers are trumpeting about them.
There are no witnesses after their “work”,
All that remains is the stench of death.
But there are a lot of false words about them,
And they are not that cruel.
They hate informers and liars,
And the law is their mortal enemy."
One day, criminals kidnapped the sheriff, stripped him, tied him up, and threw him on the side of the road with the words: “Tell your people that we are not a gang of murderers. Put yourself in the shoes of people trying to get through this damn depression.”
“The country shook from cold murders,
And their cruelty is a grave sin,
But I knew Clyde in those days,
When he was like everyone else.
He was a good, simple Texas boy,
There was nothing to blame him for,
But life dealt him harshly
And pushed me onto the devilish path.”
After meeting, Bonnie and Clyde immediately became close. They often went out of town and learned to shoot accurately. Perhaps accurate shooting from all types of weapons became the only science in which they achieved perfection.
They also loved to be photographed with weapons: with a pistol or rifle in their hands, they often posed in front of the lens. In general, they were constantly photographed. And in 1933, fleeing from the police, the criminals left some things at the site of their home - a series of photographs and poems by Bonnie about the difficult fate of highwaymen. The evidence was left “by accident,” but here’s what’s interesting. The photographs were extremely posing: Bonnie and Clyde appeared as daring thugs with huge guns, cigars, in fashionable outfits and against the backdrop of a cool car.
Bonnie's poems talked about love and the expectation of imminent death under police bullets. After all this was published in the newspaper, the popularity of Bonnie and Clyde skyrocketed - they became the main characters of gossip columns.
One day in Kansas, Bonnie first saw a “Police Wanted” poster with her image on it. The fact that she and Clyde had become "celebrities" shocked Bonnie so much that she immediately sent a dozen letters to major newspapers with pictures that she and Clyde had taken along their criminal path.
In general, they loved PR. Actually, that’s why they eventually became so famous.
“If a police officer is suddenly killed in Dallas
And the "cops" have no clue,
The real killer will not be revealed
Bonnie and Clyde are responsible.
If the couple suddenly decides to calm down
And he will rent an apartment for himself,
In a couple of days they will get tired of everyday life,
And again with a machine gun in his hand.
And he once confessed to me bitterly:
“I cannot see a century of freedom.
My life will end on the fire of hell,
And there will be retribution!"
The unreliable path is getting darker and more terrible,
The struggle becomes more and more pointless.
May we become rich someday
But never free!
They didn't think they were stronger than everyone else
After all, the law cannot be defeated!
And that death will be the payment for sin,
They both knew for sure.”
They started with the robbery of a weapons warehouse in Texas in the spring of 1930. There they armed themselves to the teeth. After that, they began to rob eateries, shops, and gas stations. By the way, in those days there was no way to make much money by robbing banks - the Great Depression raked out all the big money from the banks, and the gang sometimes received more by robbing some roadside store.
The robbery scenario was usually like this: Bonnie was driving the car, Clyde broke in and took the proceeds, then jumped into the car while shooting back. If someone tried to resist, they immediately received a bullet. However, they mercilessly removed innocent witnesses as well. They were not just robbers, they were murderers, and they had as many as ordinary people like the owners of small shops and gas stations, and the police officers whom Clyde preferred to kill in order to avoid prison.
After the murder of the first policeman who decided to check the documents of the suspicious couple from the car, there was nothing left to lose: now they were probably facing a death sentence. Therefore, Bonnie and Clyde went to great lengths and, without hesitation, fired at people in any situation, even when they were practically in no danger. On August 5, 1932, two police officers spotted Clyde at a village festival. When they asked him to come up, the bandit killed them both on the spot. A month later, breaking through police checkpoints on the road, the gang shot twelve guards of the law.
Of course, the police were constantly hunting for them. However, for the time being they were incredibly lucky. However, they had absolutely nothing to lose, so any attempts by the police to get at this gang were met with shooting.
However, the father of one of the gang members, in exchange for pardoning his son, offered his help in capturing the criminals. He gave the police the key to the house where Bonnie and Clyde were hiding. The house was surrounded by two dense rings of police, all entrances to it were blocked.
On the morning of May 23, 1934, a stolen Ford appeared on the road. The driver was wearing dark glasses, and a woman in a new red dress was sitting next to him. Hidden in the car were two thousand rounds of ammunition, three rifles, twelve pistols, two pump-action shotguns and... a saxophone. It was Bonnie and Clyde. Apparently they still hoped to get away.
However, they did not succeed. Before they could fire a single shot, they were shot dead by the police. They write that more than five hundred bullets pierced the bodies of the gangsters, and they were almost torn to pieces.
“May you suffer from heartaches,
And death will take away those who are decrepit.
But with the misfortunes of Bonnie and Clyde fate
Don't compare your small adversities!
The day will come and they will fall into eternal sleep
In the unsorrowful loose earth.
And the country and the law will breathe a sigh of relief,
Sending them into oblivion."
The mutilated bodies of criminals were put on public display in the morgue, and anyone could look at them for one dollar. There were quite a lot of curious people... All newspapers published photographs of the killed bandits.
After death, they became natural symbols, like moths, who lived their lives in the fight against the law and poverty. And they even wrote on Bonnie’s grave:
“Just as flowers bloom under the rays of the sun and the freshness of the dew, the world becomes brighter thanks to people like you.”
What kind of alternatively gifted person thought of writing this on the killer’s grave – I can only guess. But this is very revealing in the sense of how much crime can be romanticized. People even make tattoos with their images. So you can imagine their popularity.
By the way, several films have been made about Bonnie and Clyde. But I don’t think you can see anything interesting there. At least, judging by this photograph, it shows nothing more than glamorized gangsters in love with each other.
Bonnie Parker was born in 1910 in the small Texas town of Rowina. When the girl was 4 years old, her father (a mason by profession) died, and her mother and three children moved to relatives in Ciment City. At school, Bonnie was an excellent student, with a rich imagination, a penchant for acting and improvisation. And she was also a dandy - as much as family wealth allowed. Primary school She graduated at the age of 14, then entered secondary school, showed literary abilities, but after two years she dropped out of school. The world of textbooks, school desks, and bells for class suddenly became small for her. I wanted a beautiful adult life. And at the age of 16, having fallen in love with a certain Roy Thornton, Bonnie married him.
Alas, family happiness did not work out. My husband kept disappearing somewhere. I had to say goodbye to dreams of a sweet life. In 1927, Bonnie got a job as a waitress in a cafe, but two years later the great economic depression began and the cafe closed.
Clyde Chestnut Barrow is also a Texas native. He was born in 1909 into the family of an illiterate farmer with seven children, and lived on a farm until he was 13 years old. He rarely appeared at school, preferring to play with wooden pistols and wander around, enviously looking at the cars of wealthy citizens. In 1922, the Barrow family went bankrupt and Clyde's father moved to West Dallas. He began working at a gas station, and forced Clyde to attend school regularly. But, like Bonnie, when he reached the age of 16, Clyde dropped out of school and went to work. Another Bonnie analogy is that Clyde also liked to dress smartly.
Clyde worked diligently, but did not stay in any one place for long. In 1926, the police suspected him of stealing a car, but could not prove anything. Meanwhile, together with his younger brother Buck, Clyde joined the ranks of the teenage gang "Root Square", stripping cars. In 1928, Clyde ran away from home and carried out his first independent criminal operation. With a broken pistol, he burst into the gaming room, disarmed the guards and seized the proceeds. The next time he tried to commit a burglary at night and almost got caught.
One day at the end of 1929 a fateful meeting took place. The little red-haired girl struck Clyde at first sight. Love. Big, immense, romantic. And if you love, how can you not share the views of your beloved? And when Clyde is arrested for armed robbery, Bonnie helps him escape from prison by handing over a weapon during a tryst. A week later, the police captured Clyde again, and the court sentenced him to 14 years in prison. In protest, Clyde cuts off two of his toes, but this does not help. Then, on the contrary, he turns into a model prisoner and in 1932 earns parole.
Upon release, Clyde continued petty robberies and thefts. The catches are insignificant, and Bonnie is indignant. She is a proponent of big action. Therefore, Bonnie introduced Clyde to her former lover, Raymond Hamilton. On April 27, 1932, they go on a joint mission - to rob a music store. However, the seller refused to open the cash register, resisted, and had to be shot.
This was Clyde Barrow's first murder. The profit was only 40 dollars. But now he is not afraid of anything, since he has already earned the death penalty if caught. Five months later, while Clyde and Hamilton were drinking whiskey at a dance hall in Atoka, Oklahoma, the local sheriff and his deputy demanded that they put away the bottle and received bullets instead. The deputy died and the sheriff was wounded.
After that, Bonnie told the guys that it was enough to play with toys, it was time to get down to real business. And car thefts, robberies of banks, gas stations and stores began. But the work of the three of us did not last long. Hamilton was soon arrested and sentenced to 264 years in prison.
Best of the day
“After Hamilton’s arrest, Bonnie learned to shoot,” writes biographer of the criminal couple John Chevy, “showing a real passion for firearms. Their car turned into an excellent arsenal: several machine guns, rifles and hunting rifles, a dozen revolvers and pistols, thousands of cartridges. With Bonnie’s help Clyde masters the art of snatching a rifle from a specially sewn pocket along his leg in a matter of seconds.This kind of virtuosity greatly amuses both of them, and they develop their own elegant style of killing.
In all this, Bonnie is attracted primarily by the romantic-heroic side of the matter. She understands that she chose death. But this is more pleasant for her than the boredom she experienced earlier. With monotony measured life those around her are finished forever. She will be famous in her own way. At least they will talk about her."
From now on, Bonnie and Clyde commit murders with extraordinary ease. Together with a new gang member, 17-year-old William Jones, they steal a car and shoot at point-blank range the owner, who was trying to block their way. Clyde's next victim is Fort Wood Sheriff Malcolm Davis, who wanted to check the documents for the car. Clyde literally cut him in half with a burst of machine gun fire. This is his principle - to shoot without thinking, at the slightest feeling of danger.
In 1933, Buck Barrow was released from prison and also joined the gang.
The method of “work” is the same. Bonnie sits in the car with the engine running, and the guys burst into the bank and loudly shout: “Robbery!” In most cases, weapons do not even have to be used. Sometimes the police are nearby, but the gang's cars are always more powerful and reliable than police cars.
There is no point in retelling in detail all the many adventures of the gang, the incredible luck of Bonnie and Clyde, who many times got out of the most seemingly hopeless situations. One day, when the police almost caught the criminals, an unfinished poem “A Dirty Murder” was found in their temporary shelter. Its author was Bonnie. Her other hobby is photography.
During endless shootouts and chases, Buck Barrow died, and Jones, unable to withstand the tension, deserted and surrendered to the police. Then, in January 1934, Clyde launched a daring attack on the prison farm where Hamilton was being taken to work, and after a shootout with the guards, he freed him and several other prisoners. Among them was a shy peasant boy, Henry Methvin, who joined the gang with Hamilton. Soon, however, after a quarrel over the division of the loot, Hamilton leaves his colleagues. At the end of February, Clyde kills two policemen, and another in April. Thus, the total number of his victims approached one and a half dozen.
At this time, Hamilton was detained in Texas, and in order to avoid the death penalty, he attributes all the crimes to Bonnie and Clyde. Having learned about this from the newspapers, Clyde writes a mocking letter to the judge, fully confirming Hamilton's testimony. Bonnie, by the way, also periodically sent letters to newspapers, including with her poems.
In May of the same year, after many failures, Sheriff Frank Hamer, vowing to find and neutralize Bonnie and Clyde, managed to organize an ambush on a country road. The sheriff used the old farmer Methvin, father of Henry Methvin, as a decoy, promising him leniency in relation to his son, an accomplice of the couple. On May 22, 1934, Clyde and Bonnie's Ford was shot in an ambush by six police officers. 167 bullets pierced the car, of which 50 hit the bandits.
Frank Hamer told reporters: “It’s a pity that I killed the girl. But it was like this: we are them, or they are us.”
Among " creative heritage"Bonnie Parker left a poem, "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde", which ends like this:
And if ever
will have to die
Of course, we should lie down
alone in the grave.
And the mother will cry
and the bastards laugh.
For Bonnie and Clyde
Loading...
