The Truth About Bonnie And Clyde D
When Bonnie and Clyde died, people descended on the scene attempting to take souvenirs, but one man took his obsession too far. For any couple, marriage is about being a team and facing everything that life has thrown at them. And this was no different for Bonnie and Clyde.
Even if they never had the most typical marriage. Falling in love at a young age, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow pledged to spend the rest of their lives together. Fully knowing that it would involve danger, heartache, and countless unlawful acts right up until they met their grizzly end. As the two most notorious outlaws in history, it would be easy to assume that both Bonnie and Clyde were rotten to the core since birth.
However, even in Clyde’s case, although he had the more extensive record of the two, he didn’t start on the wrong side of the law. Born in 1909, he wouldn’t have his first brush with the authorities until he was 17. And even then, their only charge against him was his late return of a rental car. Of course, this was just the first of many illicit activities.
Although Clyde’s first arrest may have been for something much milder than his later work, he clearly had gotten a taste of life outside the law, and it wasn’t long before he was in trouble again. This time, the authorities found him and his brother Buck with several stolen turkeys, charging them with theft and taking them into custody.
Even as Clyde got older and entered more lawful lines of work, he couldn’t help but continue stealing on the side. Meanwhile, although Bonnie didn’t suffer the same struggles so early, she would face her own hardships soon enough. While Clyde was stealing cars, Bonnie was busy enjoying her comparatively normal life, although she had already gotten a sense of how unfair it could be.
Born in 1910, her childhood was completely turned upside down when she was just 4 years old as her father suddenly perished and gave Bonnie her first taste of grief. Growing up in Texas, Bonnie went to school just like every other kid, but it seemed that kind of life wasn’t for her, especially after she found something she much preferred to focus on.
Meeting her younger classmate, Roy Thornton, while in her second year, Bonnie had wild dreams of running away with him and leaving everything behind. Roy shared this feeling, so the two chose to quit school and marry in September 1926. However, this wasn’t exactly the fairytale ending she was hoping for. As a preview to the kind of lover Bonnie would spend the rest of her life with, Roy Thornton also began his life as an outlaw. Except he left her out of it.
The couple quickly grew more estranged as he was always away on some illicit business, and eventually they decided to separate. She didn’t seem too heartbroken, especially since someone was about to take his place. With Clyde released from his time behind bars and Bonnie now single in every way but on paper, all that was left was for the couple to meet each other.
Fortunately, their friends appeared to be rooting for them from the beginning as Bonnie met Clyde in 1930 after a mutual friend of theirs introduced the two. Bonnie soon began to see the same pattern of unlawful behavior in Clyde as she had with her ex. But that didn’t sway her, especially since she wanted in on it.
Of course, the authorities caught up to Clyde again and locked him up for stealing cars, but now he had someone he could count on. Thanks to her quick thinking of smuggling a pistol into Clyde’s cell, he was able to brandish it and escape before spending too much longer behind bars. While Bonnie’s plan may have been good enough for Clyde’s immediate escape, he wouldn’t get too far before the authorities found him again and sent him back.
Now 21 years old, he spent a few months in the state facility before they transferred him for incarceration at Eastham Farm, where Bonnie’s ingenious plans were nowhere to be found. By the end of his career as an outlaw, Clyde would take the lives of countless people, but the first one had nothing to do with his illicit activities.
Already experiencing the misery of incarceration, one incident would remain the most traumatizing, in which another inmate forced himself on Clyde. This pushed Clyde past the brink. So, after picking up a nearby pipe, he retaliated and took the life of his aggressor. Although Clyde couldn’t totally control how long his imprisonment would last, he could at least make his stay as easy as possible, no matter the cost.
Building up his courage, Clyde had two of his toes amputated, making him unfit for hard labor. While this may have helped him briefly, his now permanent limp would only make things harder as his life went on. Just 6 days after injuring himself, he was shocked to receive the news that he was free to go.
All thanks to his mother, who had petitioned for his release and succeeded. While Clyde’s mother had successfully freed her son, the damage was already done, and he was now determined to live the life of an outlaw. Not long after his release, he met up with a former inmate pal of his named Ralph Fults, and the two of them continued to rob several small businesses.
But this wasn’t just about money. Clyde now had a vendetta against the system, and he was gearing up for something big. As for Bonnie, the time had come for her first brush with the law. Although she had more luck on her side. Reunited with her beloved Clyde, Bonnie was eager as ever to help him. So, it was only a matter of time before she had a record of her own.
Partnering with Ralph Fults as well, she tried to hold up a hardware store and secure some firepower, but things didn’t go according to plan. The authorities stopped them in their tracks and took her into custody, but the grand jury couldn’t seem to indict her. So, her incarceration lasted only a few months. Now that he had become a full-time outlaw, Clyde was constantly on edge in case he needed to make a getaway.
But, this only got him into worse trouble. On the night of August 5th, 1932, he and a couple of friends were attending a country dance in Oklahoma when they suddenly noticed the sheriff and his deputy walking up to them. As expected, Clyde didn’t respond well to their presence. And he was a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy.
Before the officers could get a word out, Clyde and another friend opened fired beginning a quick shootout that resulted in the demise of both the sheriff and deputy. Luckily for them, the couple had a place where they could lay low, but they wouldn’t be alone. While Clyde had managed to get an early release, his brother Buck wasn’t so lucky.
And it wasn’t until 1933 that he received a full pardon. For several weeks, Buck and his wife Blanche hosted Bonnie and Clyde at their home in Missouri. Also allowing their childhood friend W.D. Jones to stay with them. Perhaps because he felt so safe with his older brother, Clyde began to let down his guard to the point where the law was seemingly no longer a concern to him.
Due to this, he and his brother often hosted card games with several friends, usually causing such a ruckus that it kept the neighbors up well into the night. Aside from all the obnoxious revelry coming from their hideout, one accident would ruin their whole situation. As Clyde accidentally fired off his weapon while cleaning it one day, the consequences were disastrous.
Hearing this from one of the neighbors, the authorities descended upon Buck and Blanche’s home resulting in a firefight where Clyde and his brother would take the lives of two more men. Bonnie at least kept a level head, and they likely wouldn’t have made it out alive without her. This shootout wasn’t like the one in Oklahoma, and the gang of outlaws soon realized how outnumbered they were.
So, they needed an escape plan. Thinking on her feet, Bonnie grabbed a weapon and began firing it at the officers to cover everyone as they fled. Clyde and the other men jumped in their car and sped off, picking up Bonnie and Blanche on the way. The latter of whom was busy trying to catch their loose dog.
Since the gang hadn’t expected law enforcement to find them so soon, they had nothing prepared for a quick getaway. So, they ended up leaving most of their belongings back at the house. While some of these were less incriminating, such as Bonnie’s poetry, the officers also discovered a whole arsenal and an undeveloped roll of film with some intriguing photos.
With this, the authorities had everything necessary to paint their own story, and America ate it up. Believing the film roll might hold some invaluable evidence, the authorities brought it to the Joplin Globe to develop it, and they sure hit the jackpot. While there weren’t exactly any photos of them committing their thefts, there were images of Bonnie and Clyde posing with various items from their arsenal.
The press ran with this and pasted the photos across the front pages, turning the couple into infamous celebrities overnight. As a result, the gang thought it was best not to remain in one place too long. Though flying under the radar still wasn’t their strong suit. With their faces plastered all over major newspapers in the country, and the authorities hot on their trail, Bonnie and Clyde knew they couldn’t settle down anywhere.
Instead, the couple and their small gang of outlaws spent the next few months on the run, traveling all over America and holding up several banks along the way. On several occasions, the gang would rob someone and then hold them captive for a while. But they weren’t completely merciless. Most of the time, they would let their hostages go, and they even gave a few of them money to get back home.
Bonnie and Clyde and the gang tried their best to stay away from any large populations. This meant that typical inns and restaurants were off the table, and they had no choice but to remain out in the wild. While driving across a bridge one day, Clyde missed the sign saying it was under construction, and he ended up driving off into a ravine.
The effects of this were devastating. After the accident, the gang was desperate to find somewhere to treat their injuries. Eventually posting up in an Arkansas motel, all they needed then were supplies. So, while Clyde stayed behind, Buck and W.D. Jones went to town. This was a mistake, however, as the two men tried to rob a grocery store and ended up taking the life of the town marshal.
By some miracle, Bonnie and Clyde’s gang managed to elude law enforcement for about a month, but they could only stay hidden for so long. Checking into the Red Crown Tourist Court in Missouri, none of them seemed concerned about anyone recognizing them. Perhaps they had grown tired of running, or maybe they just had bigger things to worry about, but whatever the case may be, the gang was getting sloppy again.
Blanche had already drawn some strange looks due to her unusual dress, but the rest of them weren’t any better. Undoubtedly wanting to avoid detection, they taped newspapers over their cabin windows, but this only made the owner, Neil Houser, more wary of them. Clyde knew that going into town would practically be asking for history to repeat itself, but Bonnie needed medicine, and they were out of options.
Taking Jones with him, he stopped only briefly at the drug store to pick up necessities, but that wasn’t enough to raise some alarms. The druggist alerted the authorities, and Highway Patrol Captain William Baxter sprang into action, calling for reinforcements to besiege the outlaws’ makeshift hideout.
Thanks to Neil Houser, Captain Baxter knew exactly where to look. so with an armed car in tow, a flurry of gunfire erupted causing a massive shootout. However, in what seemed like divine intervention, stray round hit the armored car in just the right spot to cause the horn to malfunction, tricking the officers into a ceasefire and allowing the outlaws to escape.
Although the gang had managed to escape the authorities once again, they weren’t all in one piece. Buck had taken a round to the forehead leaving a hole that went straight to his brain. But despite this, he was reportedly still talking and eating normally. Still, Clyde had to accept that his brother’s time was almost up and even dug a grave to prepare for Buck’s inevitable passing.
With such a loss on the horizon, Clyde would need some time to grieve, but he didn’t even have that. Beaten, bloody, and on the run, the gang didn’t have the luxury of picking and choosing their next camp. So they settled on a park that they had thought would be the safest spot. They were sorely mistaken and they hardly had time to catch their breath before bystanders noticed the sorry state of the group and the authorities received a tip.
Suddenly, the outlaws were right back in the middle of a firefight and had no choice but to flee once again. With the law bearing down on them, there was little chance of everyone making it out alive, but Bonnie and Clyde’s story wasn’t over yet. Instead, Clyde tragically lost his brother, who suffered six more shots before the officers took Kim and Blanche into custody.
Even after the rest of the outlaws got away, Jones decided he had become fed up with this lifestyle and parted ways with the couple once they had recovered from their wounds. By this time, Bonnie and Clyde had stolen a lot of money and slain several law enforcement officers, but it wasn’t until November 1933 that the government decided to take things truly seriously.
At the beginning of the year, the couple had taken the life of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis, and the Dallas Grand Jury finally decided to use that to deliver an indictment against them, marking the first of its kind for Bonnie. This may have scared others into laying low for a while, but Bonnie and Clyde had bigger plans in motion.
Finally, as 1934 began, Bonnie and Clyde had everything they needed to execute the plan Clyde had been working towards from the start. Raiding the farm on January 16th, Bonnie and Clyde managed to free several inmates, and although most wound up recaptured eventually, the damage to the lockup’s reputation was done.
A few Eastham escapees managed to evade the authorities long-term, and as a result, Bonnie and Clyde were happy to have their own gang again. However, these new additions brought more than the couple bargained for, since one of them, Joe Palmer, had slain Major Joe Crowson during the raid. At this point, Bonnie and Clyde had survived no shortage of assaults by law enforcement, so the Department of Corrections knew they would have to bring out the big guns, calling up formerly retired Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer. They explained the gravity of the situation and that his commission was still active, so he had little choice but to accept. Now, with a full gang again, Bonnie and Clyde continued to terrorize the Texas justice system. On April 1st, 1934, when two patrolmen stopped at what they thought was a vehicle in distress, they were caught by surprise as Clyde and new gang member Henry Methvin open fired, ending both officers’ lives. This only turned
them into even bigger household names, and not in a good way. Vowing to track down Bonnie and Clyde and bring them to justice, Captain Hamer knew he could leave no rock unturned, especially since Clyde now had 16 warrants against him. Leading up to May 1934, Hamer spent every waking moment following the gang’s actions and alleged sightings, until he finally knew where they could be next and assembled a posse to catch them.
While this information would have been enough on its own, the law still had one ace in the hole. Throughout all their time as outlaws, Bonnie and Clyde’s gang never forgot about their families and tried to see them as much as possible. And Henry Methvin was no different. Unfortunately, this would spell their doom. After he became separated from the rest of the gang, he decided to meet up with his father.
During this reunion, Methvin let slip that the plan was to meet back up with Bonnie and Clyde on a stretch of highway near Arcadia. Once again, it all came down to the couple trusting the wrong people. While divulging their plans to anyone would have been unwise, Methvin’s father, Ivan, was one of the worst people he could have confided in.
Not only had the law been breathing down Ivan’s neck, but they had also promised leniency for Henry if Ivan helped them catch Bonnie and Clyde. Seeing no better option, Ivan help allegedly relayed the gang’s plans to the authorities, which was all that Captain Hamer needed. While Hamer had narrowed down where Bonnie and Clyde would be, he still didn’t know exactly when they would make an appearance.
Therefore, he stationed his posse alongside Louisiana State Highway 154 on May 21st and settled in for a stakeout. Arriving there at 9:00 p.m., they watched the road the whole night and all of the next day, but no one showed up. Even so, their plan was practically foolproof, but they almost threw it all away.
Pulling another all-nighter to hopefully catch Bonnie and Clyde driving by, Hamer and his posse reached the morning of March 23rd, now exhausted and losing hope. However, just as they were thinking of calling it quits and packing up, they heard the unmistakable sound of a vehicle speeding toward them.
Ivan Methvin’s betrayal of Bonnie and Clyde ran deeper than just giving up sensitive information. As he allegedly parked his truck near the hidden officers and staged a flat tire. Hamer’s persistence had paid off and sure enough, Bonnie and Clyde came barreling down the highway only to slow down as they recognized Methvin’s truck.
Bonnie and Clyde had spent years getting the drop on law enforcement, but this time they were completely unaware of what was in store. Slowing down to check out the situation, the couple barely had time to think before Hamer and his men jumped out and began firing. While it later became clearer that Clyde perished almost immediately with Bonnie joining him shortly after, the lawmen were clearly trigger-happy on that particular day refusing to cease-fire until they had to.
Neither Hamer nor any man under him had anything left in his weapon by the end. By the end of their lives, Bonnie and Clyde had earned a substantial bounty of about $2,000. But even though Hamer and his posse were the ones to take the couple down, they didn’t get one penny. Instead, they received permission to take whatever they wanted from the car.
So the officers scavenged anything they could find. In fact, they took everything from Clyde’s saxophone to Bonnie’s clothes and of course their stolen arsenal. Whatever Bonnie did before meeting Clyde, he had become the love of her life and she clearly remained dedicated to him right till the end, but her heart may have still had room for another.
As the authorities examined her body after the ambush, they discovered that on her left hand, she still wore a wedding ring from her estranged husband Roy Thornton. The public was infatuated with the couple. When word got out about their deaths, people descended on the scene attempting to take souvenirs.
Later, when the bodies were taken to the coroner’s office, the people went there too just to get their hands on anything they could. There were those who wanted to cut off Clyde’s ear or fingers and some wanted to cut off pieces of Bonnie’s dress, blood-soaked and all. One man offered Clyde’s father cash money for his body.
This man offered $30,000, which today would be well over $600,000. Thanks to the press, many saw Bonnie and Clyde as thieves who only targeted banks, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, while they held up the odd bank every so often, they mostly took money from gas stations or small stores.
According to historians, it was never Clyde’s intention to make it big as a notorious outlaw. His one true goal had always been to pay the justice system back for the horrors he endured while locked up. Thanks for watching History Xposé. If you love uncovering the best stories in history, hit like and subscribe to keep exploring with us.
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