Their names have long become common nouns, and time has cast a gloss on the events of past years, softened compromising details, myths give them a romantic halo of outstanding personalities who challenge "unfair" authorities. Films are made about them, even poems are dedicated to them. And now their names are clearly connected by the phrase "story of one love." People tend to forgive, but what was it, the real life of Bonnie and Clyde, that real life, and not the Hollywood gloss of films?
A homosexual and an adventurer, both of them were obsessed with a passion for violence, longed for the glory of the 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 have been immortalized in movies, 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 until the age of 13 he lived on a farm. He rarely appeared at school, preferring to play with wooden pistols, wander around the district, enviously looking at the cars of wealthy citizens. In 1922, the Barrow family went bankrupt and Clyde's father moved to West Dallas. At the age of 16, Clyde dropped out of school. Already in his youth, his older brother Buck taught Clyde the first lessons in stealing. The police first arrested Clyde for stealing a car in 1926, but could not prove anything. A second arrest soon followed, after Clyde, along with 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 suburban places, you can often get hold of a very small amount, but he understood that it was much safer to rob on trifles.
In his further "exploits" Clyde significantly surpassed his brother, he joined the ranks of the teenage gang "Ruth Square", "undressing" cars.
In 1928, Clyde ran away from home and led his first independent criminal operation. With a broken gun, he broke into the gambling hall, disarmed the guards and seized the proceeds. The next time he tried to commit a night burglary, he nearly got caught. That same year, after an unsuccessful raid on a restaurant 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 the meeting of two future accomplices took place - a pretty waitress served Clyde a hamburger.
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker She was born October 1, 1910 in Rowena, Texas. When Bonnie was four years old, her father, a bricklayer by profession, died, and her mother moved with three children to a suburb of Dallas, where a girl at the age of 14 went to school. Bonnie studied very well, getting high marks in literature, acting. The girl's biggest passion 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, 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 take off her wedding ring until her death. "Little blond lump" (with a height of 150 cm, she weighed 44 kg) - this is how 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 quite law-abiding Clyde Barrow suddenly appears in Bonnie's field of vision, he immediately attracts her attention by the fact that he does not accept the laws of this damn world, preferring to establish his own rules of behavior. She was interested in the exciting stories about the life of a reckless tramp, which Clyde told her. Thus was the beginning of a truly infernal union.
The relationship between the homosexual Barrow and Parker was rather strange. He changed his sexual orientation while still in prison and lost two toes under unclear circumstances. It was a surrogate for love, mixed with threats and violence. As a woman, she was of little interest to the leader of the gang. In the near future, Bonnie will be content with love affairs with other members of the gang.
They fueled their friendship with stories of robberies and violent fights. Bonnie moved with Clyde to a small furnished apartment in Dallas. The all-consuming passion of this strange couple was the weapon. Bonnie admired the pistols her suitor wore in a coat holster and the power that came from the deadly guns. They made regular trips out of town to practice shooting. Soon both of them were shooting with equal accuracy from almost all types of weapons. The couple loved to be photographed with weapons: Bonnie, with a gun in her hands and a cigarette in her mouth, posed in front of the lens. Clyde with a rifle in the photographs looked simpler - he lacked the artistry of his girlfriend.
Over time, Bonnie and Clyde began to "work" together. The robberies followed the same pattern. Bonnie got behind the wheel of a car, and they drove up to the intended object. Clyde burst into the premises and "took the cash register", then rushed to the car, jumped into it on the move and covered the flight with fire.
Perilous Adventures Excited BonnieParker is much more than intimate encounters with Clyde. Three months later, Clyde had a strong "legacy" at the scene of the theft in Texas. He was arrested at an apartment in Dallas and sentenced to two years in prison, but never served the term. His brother Buck escaped from prison, and Clyde gave him an encrypted letter to his accomplice asking him to organize his escape. Through a cursory search, she was able to give Clyde a weapon during a visit in prison. On the same night, the criminal escaped and reached 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 mother of the robber, Cammy 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 "flaming hell", where he was beaten with whips and forced to do gymnastic exercises until the poor fellow fell exhausted.
Bonnie Parker was next in jail. The criminals stole another car and fled from persecution. The car crashed into a tree. Clyde managed to escape, but 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. "Proceeds" amounted to only ten dollars.
When Bonnie was released, they went back to their old ways. The catches are negligible, and Bonnie is indignant. She is a supporter of large-scale actions.Therefore, Bonnie introduced Clyde to her former lover, Raymond Hamilton. Hamilton was worthy of the duo he joined. He slept with Bonnie regularly... and Clyde. Such a sexual triangle suited all three.
On April 27, 1932, they go on a joint business - a robbery of a music store. However, the seller refused to open the cash register, resisted, and had to be shot. The booty was only 40 dollars, but now he is not afraid of anything, since he has already earned the death penalty in case of capture.
On August 5, 1932, Clyde was about to rob a usher at a country holiday in Atoka, Oklahoma. Two law enforcement officers - Sheriff Charles Maxwell and his deputy Eugene Moore - saw him wandering aimlessly around. "Come out into the light, boy, so I can get a better look at you," Sheriff Maxwell said to the suspicious type, and those were his last words. Clyde threw back his coat and, drawing two automatic pistols at once, shot both policemen at point-blank range.
After that, Bonnie told the guys that it was enough to play with toys, it was time to get down to real business. So the criminal gang began their deadly odyssey.
They robbed an armory in Texas and armed themselves to the teeth, then shot a dozen mounted policemen who were blocking the roads. Raiders ransacked liquor stores, gas stations, and grocers, sometimes for just a few dollars. One day, criminals kidnapped the sheriff, stripped him and tied him up, threw him on the side of the road with the words: "Tell your people that we are not a gang of murderers. Get into the position of people trying to survive this damned depression."
Wandering, they lived like robbers in the old days: they slept by the camp fires, ate game. Whiskey was drunk at night, and Bonnie wrote pompous romantic poems in which she lamented 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 went to New Mexico with Roy Hamilton who joined them, but the profit seemed to them not as big as in Texas, and they returned back.
They killed people frequently and indiscriminately. So, Clyde took the life of a butcher who rushed with a knife to protect his 50 dollars; finished off Doyle Johnson at the Temple as he tried to prevent his car from being stolen; shot and killed two policemen who were waiting in an ambush in Dallas for another robber. Joins the gang in DallasWilliam Jones. In the future, he will tell the police the details of the life of a criminal couple.
As gypsies, they traveled around the southwestern United States, robbing stores and garages. Soon Hamilton was 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 society. There, Bonnie first saw a Wanted by Police poster with her picture. The fact that she and Clyde became "celebrities" shocked Bonnie so much that she immediately sent a dozen letters to major newspapers with pictures that she and Clyde took on their criminal path. Bonnie, by all means available to her, supported the version that she and Clyde were fighters for justice. After all, the banks they rob belong to the powerful, not to poor farmers and small businessmen. Bonnie, of course, did not mention the morbid pleasure they both derived 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, the robbers switched mainly to small banks in the provincial towns of Indiana, Minnesota and Texas.
Once they were hiding in rented log cabins in Missouri. The raiders did not draw attention to themselves, but the manager became suspicious when they paid the rent in small coins. He reported his suspicions to the police.
The description of the appearance of the guests matched the description of the criminals, and a hundred "cops" were sent to lay siege to the alleged hideout of the gang.
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 had a bullet caught in the rib, and Buck... Buck got 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.
They were deciding where to leave the dying Buck when Clyde sensed some movement in the undergrowth, and immediately bullets rained down on the camp. The criminals responded with fire. Even the mortally wounded Buck fired several automatic bursts at the police. Bonnie, Clyde and Jones managed to slip into the undergrowth and escape. The tank was riddled with bullets. The police found Blanche sobbing inconsolably over the body of her murdered husband.
Feeling the breath of the chase behind them, the duo hurriedly retreated north to Minnesota, reasonably believing that in a state where they committed fewer crimes, they would not have so many problems. They stole clothes from the ropes and ate garbage.
Jones, who rejoined them, later told police, "It wasn't the same life anymore. We were like ordinary vagrants."
Jones was the first of the gangsters to get fed up with this life and fled from his accomplices to Texas, where he was immediately arrested. He told the police everything he knew about the actions of the gang. "These two are monsters," said the fugitive. "I've never seen anyone else enjoy killing so much."
The following month, Bonnie and Clyde snuck into Texas to meet Clyde's mother at a suburban vacation spot. Then this couple almost got caught - Cammy Barrow was followed by the sheriff's people who surrounded the picnic area. Warned by some kind of sixth sense, Clyde rushed as fast as he could to the car parked nearby. The trunk of the car was riddled with bullets, 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 the guards, freed him and several other prisoners. Joe Palmer and Henry Methvin join the gang. The Barrow gang was gaining strength again. Again, a wave of murders, car thefts, and theft of weapons swept through different towns. Soon, however, after a quarrel in the division of the loot, Hamilton leaves his colleagues.
The wild customs of the raiders, their unbridled passions and base desires terrified people.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation instructed police personnel to shoot to kill before asking questions. It was tantamount to declaring war on the bandits terrorizing the population. The head of the FBI, Edgar Hoover, said: "Clyde is a psychopath. He must be destroyed like a mad animal."
What and with whom did Bonnie and Clyde fight? Why were rivers of human blood shed? Readers who have recently admired Bonnie Parker's romantic poem have already realized that the characters are far from being Robin Hoods. They were greedy, ruthless killers.
Meanwhile, the ring around the Barrow gang was shrinking inexorably. Texas Sheriff Frank Hamer, who neutralized 65 known 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 the years, studied all the places of the raids and the paths they took. "I wanted to penetrate their diabolical designs," he said, "and I did." Several times during the first months of 1934, Hamer and his men followed 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 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.
In April, the remnants of the criminal group headed to Texas, hoping to quietly sit out with Bonnie's relatives, but as they approached the city of Grainwyn, policemen Ernest Wheeler and Harold Murphy rode past on motorcycles. Sensing something was wrong, Clyde stopped the car.
The police, who were suspicious, turned back. When they came abreast, Clyde fired two barrels 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 more fortunate - he was slightly wounded. Thus, the total number of victims was about one and a half dozen.
The police discovered the house where the criminals hid from time to time. What was needed was a key to the door, which could be with 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 capturing Bonnie and Clyde, went for it.
Henry Methvin agreed to act in concert with his father and quietly slipped out of the bandits' lair.
Soon the police surrounded the shelter and blocked the road leading to it. They were armed with machine guns, automatic rifles, a large number of tear gas grenades. This time, the police had every chance to overtake 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 wore dark glasses that protected him from the bright spring sun. Sitting next to Clyde was his inseparable companion, wearing a new red dress that had been 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 side of the road. When Clyde came abreast of him, he asked if his son had appeared. Methvin, seeing the approaching car with the police, trembled with fear and ducked under his truck. The sheriff jumped out of the car and ordered the bandits to surrender. But this team acted on a criminal couple like a red rag on a bull.
With a lightning movement, Clyde opened the car door and grabbed the shotgun. Bonnie pulled out a revolver.
But this time they had no hope. Lead hail hit 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 the criminals were put on public display in the morgue, and those who wished for one dollar could look at them. There were quite a few curious people. 
Ten years later, Roy Hamilton was also sentenced to death. Before his death, he recalled: "They loved to kill people, to see how blood flows, and enjoyed 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 are."
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 dew, so the world becomes brighter thanks to people like you."
Such an epitaph for the one that left behind such an unkind bloody memory sounds somewhat strange.
Victims of the Great Depression. Lost generation. This can somehow explain the end, but it cannot justify the means to achieve it. Time leaves its marks on everything. On the lives of Bonnie and Clyde, it left the stamp of a myth. And numerous stories, true and not quite, give the robbers a romantic halo of outstanding personalities who challenge the authorities, but in reality, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Burrow turned out to be just ruthless killers.
When eighty years ago, on May 23, 1934, at about 9:20 am, on a forest road in the US state of Louisiana, the echo of more than half a mountain of hundreds of shots died down, each of the police shooters thought with relief that everything was finally over with the bandits. A two-year hunt for elusive robbers and murderers ended in success. The criminals, alas, will not be brought to justice, but they are dead and will no longer cause problems for the locals, the police of several states and the FBI. And the short human memory will quickly get rid of the memories of a strange couple who acted either as ruthless sadists or as noble robbers. Everything turned out the other way around. After the death of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow became celebrities, and not only in America. Books and songs have been written about them, films have been made. Many consider them rebels who challenged an unjust world.
These police flyers feature photos taken by Bonnie and Clyde themselves. Law enforcement officers found films shot by criminals and forgotten by them at the site of one of the overnight stays.
Surprisingly, despite the rich bibliography and film library, little is known for sure about Bonnie and Clyde. Both Texans are from poor families, he was 25 at the time of his death, she was 24. Both he and she did not differ in athletic physique: Bonnie was about 150 centimeters tall, weighed 44 kilograms, Clyde was slightly taller, but also not a giant. It is known for sure that before they met, the guy was engaged in petty theft, robbery of shops, car theft. He received a term, during his term he committed his first murder. He left early in 1932.
Bonnie, when her family life with a certain Roy did not work out, lived with her mother and worked as a waitress in a cafe. She wrote poetry and loved the newly emerging sound film. Obviously, she was tired of loneliness. As it turned out later, at the height of the robbery epic, just like Clyde, she adored weapons.
Famous posthumously
If Clyde, who had never worked and had already served time, quite naturally chose the gangster path, then the “romantic” Bonnie leaned against her friend rather than dreamed of a criminal career. And at first everything in their new common life developed safely and not too dangerously. They stole cars suitable for the craft, employees of gas stations and shops gave money without resistance. And if they resisted, they got a bullet. And it did not seem that the killers - Clyde himself and his partners - were tormented by remorse and did not sleep at night. If anyone poured alcohol into melancholy, it was Bonnie. Clyde, according to other members of the gang, drank very little.
The situation around themselves, as well as the 16-year-old scumbag William Jones, who joined the couple in 1932, was heated up by Bonnie and Clyde themselves. In an abandoned house where the gang spent the night, they forgot undeveloped films with their own images. The very picturesque pictures show bandits with weapons in their hands against the background of stolen cars. One shows Bonnie, frozen in a graceful pose, smoking a hefty cigar.
Having found and developed the films, the police issued a leaflet-advertising "Criminals Wanted" with a photo of the hijackers. Which, on the one hand, pleased those: how, we are now famous! On the other hand, Bonnie was upset, because she picked up a cigar, which, of course, does not suit a decent girl, only for shooting. And she found a way to notify the police that she was smoking Camel cigarettes.
The turning point in the fate of the gang was January 1934. Although there was already a real hunt for her with shootouts and chases, the patience of the authorities snapped when Clyde decided to raid Eastham prison, where he himself once sat. And the action was a success, however, it was not the prison itself that was attacked, but not such a guarded farm where the prisoners worked. The released prisoners - Clyde's sidekick Raymond Hamilton and a certain Henry Metvin, who did not miss his chance to be released ahead of schedule - joined the gang. And Barrow decided that the hour had struck, there was nothing to continue to get by with small shops and gas stations, it was time to take cans.
It is quite obvious that the fame of a provincial raider on rural shops no longer suited Clyde also because a criminal of a much larger caliber, John Dillinger, shone in the American sky. Always elegantly dressed, he did not exchange for trifles and took cans, for which he was honored with the front pages of leading US newspapers.
Two details that very clearly characterize Clyde's epigonic habits. Preparing for a bank benefit, he changed from a battered suit to a fine plaid coat and put on a Stetson hat. Hamilton's accomplice donned a tailored overcoat. In the financial institution itself, Barrow played a scene designed to show that he was not an enemy of people, but of a vicious society. After snatching a cashed $27 check from one of the customers, Clyde asked:
You probably worked like hell for this money?
Yes, sir. Digging ditches.
Well, then hold on. We don't need your salary. We only rob banks.
At the time of the raids on the shops, Clyde fearlessly shot the owner who dared to resist. The booty was 40 dollars.
Having learned from the newspapers that Dillinger thanked Henry Ford in writing for the excellent cars that helped the robber get away from the police, Clyde exactly repeated the act of his idol, but added in a message that he intended to steal only Fords. He really preferred these cars and in general did not conceive of a gang without reliable and fast transport. What, it is important to emphasize, was the specificity of American crime in those years.
Although the first car robber to go down in history was a Frenchman who took a bank in 1915, his experience was successfully developed in 1921 by the American Henry Starr.
And his compatriot, an emigrant from Germany, Hermann Lamm, brought to perfection. This one developed a whole theory of bank robberies: spying on guards and cashiers, dividing the "labor" of the raiders, one of whom did not leave the car with the engine running during the action. But most importantly, Lamm had previously explored escape routes over a distance of tens of miles. He wrote down landmarks, timed the time needed to overcome each distance. I attached the diagrams to the dashboard of the car and instantly chose the right one, depending on the situation.
In the 1920s, Lamm's gang committed dozens of robberies until he died in 1930. Two of his accomplices, who landed in prison, taught the craft of John Dillinger.
“Seventy-five per cent of all crime today involves a car,” wrote one police analyst as early as 1924. “Cars and good roads have greatly increased the number of certain types of crime. We now have a type of “bandit in a car”, acting only with the help of a car, regardless on whether he is going to rob a bank, an apartment building, or just rob a pedestrian."
To clarify, not only high mobility saved criminals. The prohibition of the local police to cross state lines helped them to escape from the chase. And therefore, the zone where the states of Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and some other places similar in configuration converged, received notoriety in America.
It is not known whether Bonnie and Clyde used the technique of Lamm and his follower Dillinger, but for two whole years they managed to get away from the police. Considering that the matter was only in the speed qualities of the cars, the police changed standard cars to the most powerful ones at that time, but this did not bring success. According to both Clyde's partners and the police, "he was a damn good driver." And if he didn’t take out the car, he was an intrepid and well-aimed shooter.
Only when Bonnie and Clyde, left alone, were caught in the Louisiana woods, did they approach Dillinger in all-American glory. Finally, newspapers in the north of the United States dedicated the front pages to the dead couple. After all, until now, provincial robbers have received messages only in the media of the southern states, where they operated. While Dillinger was trumpeted by newspapers from Chicago to London, calling him an international phenomenon.
Reality and myths
Hundreds of contemporary articles refer to Clyde as a homosexual and Bonnie as a nymphomaniac. And he allegedly committed the murder in prison as revenge on an abusive sexual partner. Since from time to time other people joined the couple, in the gang, as they say, something like the so-called Swedish family turned out: everyone supposedly slept with each other. What gives the situation a special flavor - if not pathology, then certainly sexual promiscuity.
But William Jones, who joined the gang, said decades later: “I personally know a lot of prisoners who were sitting with me, some of them were sitting in Eastham just when Clyde was doing time there. Not one of them heard that Clyde homosexual. Fact is fact: no one - neither the police, who interrogated me for hours, nor the press, which was present in prison - never touched on the topic of Clyde's orientation. Only recently, after thirty years, I first heard this bike. "
In general, no serious researcher pays attention to such delicate details. Because, probably, there is no clear evidence of the homosexuality of Clyde and his gang mates.
There is not even complete clarity about who exactly was in charge of the criminal gang. According to one version, the conceited Bonnie. According to the categorical statement of many affiliated members, Clyde was in charge, it was his word that was always the last.
Even today, Bonnie and Clyde are called the most terrible criminal couple of the past 20th century. It seems to be a very strong exaggeration. Yes, they and their accomplices hang at least thirteen dead, including nine policemen. It is true that not all massacres are caused by situations that are hopeless for the killers.
It is possible that, depriving someone of life, Barrow and Parker simply asserted themselves. But compared to other criminal couples that have gone down in history, Barrow and Parker look like sedate law-abiding citizens. And not vile sadistic perverts like the Americans Ramon Fernandez and Martha Beck, on whose conscience in the 1940s only 17 proven victims. Or Charlie Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caryl Ann, whose pathological addictions, which unfolded in the 1950s, are disgusting to say. And the so-called "swamp killers", the British Ian Brady and Mira Hindley, who were fond of Hitler and the Marquis de Sade in the 1960s and killed five children aged ten to sixteen just for the sake of interest!
Another riddle. Did Bonnie and Clyde see any other future for themselves than robberies and constant conflict with the law? Everything seems to be saying that no, they haven’t seen it. A couple of weeks before her death, Bonnie told her mother: "When they kill us, don't give us to the funeral home. It will happen soon. And you know it, and I know it. All of Texas knows it."
But here is the testimony of Blanche Barrow, Buck's wife, Clyde's brother: the couple, surprisingly, dreamed of buying their own house, about how they would fish, swim, and relax. From the endless persecution, according to Blanche, Bonnie and Clyde felt completely exhausted. Maybe, indeed, the initial optimism of novice criminals, who hoped to make capital and retire, was replaced by a clear understanding that this is the end?
There seem to be no special secrets in organizing the ambush on Bonnie and Clyde, which led to their death. True, for many years it was believed, and this is emphasized in any modern article, that former ranger Frank Hamer played a decisive role in the successful pursuit of the couple. It was he who was hired to catch criminals by Lee Simmens, the head of Texas prisons, deeply offended by the attack on the Eastham institution entrusted to him. And the tall, imperturbable Hamer, who was said to have accounted for more than fifty smugglers and rustlers killed, set to work with ardor. And, as often happens, he got on the trail with the help of a traitor - Henry Metvin, whom Bonnie and Clyde took with them just a few months ago, freeing Ray Hamilton from Eastham.
Almost a day after being in the gang, a "shy" country boy managed to kill a Texas policeman. He was well aware that he was no longer risking just freedom, but his life, which he would lose in the electric chair. In general, Henry's father, Quince, negotiated with the ex-ranger Hamer, as well as his people. For forgiveness of sins from the police, the son had to inform Bonnie and Clyde about the route of travel, and dad had to put his truck on the road with an allegedly punctured wheel.
As the capture team believed, Clyde would not pass by, slow down to inquire about the problem, or, ideally, stop. What happened.
The mystery is not even that decades later it turned out that the key figure was not Hamer at all, but Sheriff Henderson Jordan, it was he who led the long and nervous negotiations with the Metvins. But it so happened that exactly fifteen years later the body of Henry Metvin, who nevertheless served time for the murder of another policeman, from Oklahoma, was found on the railroad tracks, and he certainly did not die from the train. And his father died earlier in an accident. Coincidence? Rock? Or someone's belated revenge for Bonnie and Clyde? No answer.
Cards, money, two barrels
Two years ago in Nashua, New Hampshire, RR Auction held an auction that would have made Bonnie and Clyde extremely happy. Under the hammer, weapons and personal belongings of famous gangsters were offered: Al Capone, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde. And although Dillinger called the latter "kids who robbed to buy groceries," the couple finally fully caught up in glory not only with their idol, but also with America's most legendary criminals. However, even earlier, in 2007, Dillinger's car, once bloodied and pierced by bullets, was sold for 134 thousand dollars, while the Ford V8 in which Bonnie and Clyde died was sold for 250 thousand back in 1988 -m.
There are more than one and a half hundred bullet holes on the V8 Ford that has survived to this day. But Bonnie and Clyde themselves, armed to the teeth, including these "Colts" of concealed carrying, did not have time to resist.
Today's fans of the crime couple, well aware of their habits, are waiting for the poker deck that Clyde Barrow especially treasured to pop up in auctions. He was passionately fond of cards from childhood, learned poker in prison and received a deck as a gift, which became a protective talisman for him. She did not help on May 23, 1934, but she probably survived, was saved and is somewhere waiting in the wings. As expected, a silver dollar coin from Clyde's pocket, which went for 32 thousand dollars, his watch, valued at 36 thousand, Bonnie's wooden cosmetic bag and even her bank book, which served as a notebook for the gangster for five poems and one poem.
The auction of 2012 once again convincingly confirmed who is who in the criminal rankings. Bonnie and Clyde's weapons came at the highest price. And there was a lot of it, because the couple always carried with them dozens of pistols, revolvers, rifles, machine guns, pump-action shotguns and about three thousand rounds of ammunition. Clyde loved and knew all the systems very well, he did not keep bad ones in his arsenal. Moreover, he acquired army cartridges with steel-tipped bullets for some samples of rifles and easily ripped up police cars with them.
Only two examples of the Colt brand, owned by Bonnie and Clyde, were sold in 2012 for more than half a million dollars. A pistol of the 45th caliber went for 249 thousand, a short-barreled revolver of the 38th - for 264 thousand. Both barrels were received as a reward for a successful ambush by Frank Hamer. And for many years after the death of the ex-ranger, his son, also Frank, who reported, transferring weapons to auctioneers, kept a very curious detail.
“My father seized this weapon from the dead Bonnie Parker, which was bandaged with a medical white bandage to the inside of her thigh. My father said that one of the reasons she carried the weapon in this way was that no officer, being gentleman, in those days would not allow himself to search a woman in such places.
Neither Clyde nor Bonnie had time to use such a lovingly selected arsenal on May 23, 1934. What is not very liked by the numerous fans of bandits who annually come to the festival in her memory on the day of the death of a couple. They visit the museum "Ambush on Bonnie and Clyde", drive along an abandoned forest road to a fatal place, where again and again the actors play the scene of the execution. Only criminals "die" not like cattle in a slaughterhouse, without a hint of resistance, but with weapons in their hands, as befits real idols.
I think each of us at least half of the ear heard about this couple. She was highly romanticized as two lovers fighting the system. It's hard to say who they really were, but in general, it's interesting to read about them. If only because there were really not many such bright couples.
Bonnie and Clyde are famous American robbers active during the Great Depression. Killed in 1934 by FBI agents. Bonnie was 24 at the time of the murder, Clyde was 25.
Bonnie was born into a poor mason and seamstress family with three children. Clyde comes from a family of poor farmers with seven children. Bonnie studied well, was a fashionista, wrote poetry. Clyde, apparently, did not shine with education.
Everything in their life happened extremely quickly and concentrated.
Bonnie left school at the age of 15. She got married at 16. At 17, she got a job as a waitress. At 18, she separated from her husband. At 22, she met Clyde, and away we go…
In the photo: Bonnie and her first husband, whom she, by the way, never divorced.
Clyde stole a car at the age of 17 (rented and did not return), for which he was arrested. A little later, he stole turkeys, and was arrested again. At the age of 18-20, he began to crack safes, rob shops and steal cars, for which he was sent to prison at the age of 21. There he was raped. Clyde killed the rapist. In the same place, Clyde lost two toes, which he chopped off in protest against the orders that prevailed in this institution.
It is believed that it was in prison that Clyde finally "ripened". His sister Mary said, "Something terrible must have happened to him in prison, because he was never the same." Ralph Fults, who served his sentence at the same time as Clyde, said that before his eyes he turned from a schoolboy into a rattlesnake. At 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 to have time to become famous as frostbitten killers and robbers, about whom many legends would then be made, films would be made, and their names would become household names.
Bonnie and Clyde are usually represented as romantic lovers who were devoted to each other to the end. But, there are also some other opinions.
According to some sources, it is believed that Clyde was a homosexual. According to others, it is stated that Bonnie and Clyde were lovers, but at the same time entered into sexual relations with other members of the gang. For example, it is known that Roy Hamilton (pictured) was the lover of both.
And then Roy also brought a girlfriend to the gang, because of which relations within the team escalated to the limit.
By the way, Raymond Hamilton was sentenced to 264 years in prison for drunkenly shooting the sheriff and his deputies.
In the photo: Hamilton's girlfriend, whom he, by his own admission, loved more than anyone in the world, with the exception of his mother.
Based on such "free" relationships and Clyde's difficult orientation, some people believe that there was no unearthly love between Bonnie and Clyde by definition. Although there was no doubt that they were really very devoted to each other: Bonnie at one time pulled Clyde out of prison by handing him weapons on a date, and Clyde later, when the police detained Bonnie, repulsed her friend by impudently attacking the police station .
Yes, and Bonnie's mother, Emma Parker, said: “I immediately knew that there was something between them when Bonnie introduced him to me. I saw it in her eyes, in the way she held onto his jacket sleeve.”
It is believed that Bonnie became the think tank of the gang and thanks to her, the 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 "struggle against the system."
Here, for example, are Bonnie's poems that she wrote during that period:
"Now Bonnie and Clyde - the famous duo,
All the newspapers are talking about them.
After their "work" there are no witnesses,
Only the stench of death remains.
But there are many false words about them,
And they are not so cruel.
They hate snitches and liars
And the law is their mortal enemy.”
One day, the criminals kidnapped the sheriff, stripped him and, having tied him up, threw him on the side of the road with the words: “Tell your people that we are not a gang of murderers. Get into the position of people trying to survive this damn depression."
“The country shuddered from cold murders,
And their cruelty is a grave sin,
But I knew Clyde back then
When he was like everyone else.
He was a good Texas guy simple,
Nothing to blame him for
But life was harsh with him
And pushed on the devil's path.
After meeting, Bonnie and Clyde immediately became close. They often went out of town and learned to shoot accurately. Perhaps, marksmanship from all types of weapons has become the only science in which they have reached perfection.
They also liked to be photographed with weapons: with a pistol or rifle in their hands, they often posed in front of the lens. In fact, they took pictures all the time. And in 1933, fleeing from the police, the criminals left some things on the site of their dwelling - a series of photographs and Bonnie's poems about the difficult fate of highway robbers. The evidence was left "accidentally", but here's what's interesting. The photographs were extremely poser: Bonnie and Clyde appeared as daring thugs with huge guns, cigars, fashionable outfits and a cool car in the background.
Bonnie's poems told about love and the expectation of an 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.
Once in Kansas, Bonnie first saw a Wanted by Police poster with her image. The fact that she and Clyde became "celebrities" shocked Bonnie so much that she immediately sent a dozen letters to major newspapers with pictures that she and Clyde took on their criminal path.
In general, they loved to promote. Actually, that's why they eventually became so famous.
“If suddenly a policeman is killed in Dallas
And the "cops" have no clue,
The real killer will not be revealed
Bonnie and Clyde carry the answer.
If suddenly the couple decides to calm down
And rent an apartment
In a couple of days they will get tired of life,
And again with a gun in his hand.
And he somehow confessed bitterly to me:
“I won’t see an age of freedom.
My life will end on a hellish fire,
And there will be retribution!”
Everything is darker and more terrible unreliable way,
More and more senseless struggle.
Let's get rich someday
But never free!
They didn't think they were the strongest
After all, the law cannot be defeated!
And that death will be retribution for sin,
They both knew for sure.
They started by robbing an arms depot in Texas. There they were armed to the teeth. After that, they began to rob eateries, shops, gas stations. By the way, in those days there was not much money to be made from robbing banks - the Great Depression raked all the big money out of the banks, and the gang sometimes received more by robbing some roadside shop.
The robbery scenario was usually as follows: Bonnie was driving a car, Clyde broke in and took the proceeds, then jumped into the car on the go, shooting back. If someone tried to resist, then he immediately received a bullet. However, they ruthlessly removed innocent bystanders. They were not just robbers, they were murderers, and on their account were both ordinary people like owners of small shops and gas stations, and policemen, whom Clyde preferred to kill in order to avoid arrest.
After the murder of the first policeman who decided to check the documents of a suspicious couple in a car, there was nothing to lose: now they were probably waiting for a death sentence. Therefore, Bonnie and Clyde went all out and, without hesitation, fired at people in any situation, even when they were practically not in danger. On August 5, 1932, two policemen spotted Clyde at a village feast. When they asked him to come up, the bandit put both of them down on the spot. A month later, breaking through the police posts on the road, the gang shot twelve guardians of the law.
Of course, they were constantly hunted by the police. However, for the time being they were incredibly lucky. However, they had absolutely nothing to lose, so any attempts by the police to get this gang ran into shooting.
However, the father of one of the gang members, in exchange for pardoning his son, offered his help in catching 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 officers, all the 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. Two thousand cartridges, three rifles, twelve pistols, two pump-action shotguns and ... a saxophone were hidden in the car. It was Bonnie and Clyde. Apparently, they still hoped to escape.
However, they did not succeed. Without having time to 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.
“Let you suffer from the pains of the heart,
And death will carry away the decrepit.
But with the misfortunes of Bonnie and Clyde fate
Do not compare your petty adversities!
The day will come and they will fall into eternal sleep
In the unmourned loose earth.
And the country and the law will breathe a sigh of relief,
Sending them into oblivion."
The mutilated bodies of the criminals were put on public display in the morgue, and those who wished for one dollar could look at them. There were quite a few curious people ... Photos of the killed bandits were published by all the newspapers.
After death, they became real symbols, like moths, who lived their lives in the fight against the law and poverty. And even on Bonnie's grave they wrote:
“As flowers bloom under the rays of the sun and the freshness of dew, so the world becomes brighter thanks to people like you.”
What kind of alternatively gifted person guessed to write this on the killer's grave - one can only guess. But it is very revealing in the sense that 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, it is unlikely that you can see something interesting there. At least, judging by this photo, it shows nothing more than glamorous gangsters in love with each other.
American robbers Bonnie and Clyde were villainous during the economic crisis in the United States - the Great Depression. These names are now often used to refer to any lovers involved in criminal activities, although in fact there was little tenderness in the relationship between Bonnie and Clyde.
Raider with a broken gun
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born October 1, 1910 in Rowena, Texas. When Bonnie was four years old, her father, a bricklayer by profession, died, and her mother moved to the suburbs of Dallas with three children. The family lived in poverty. And on September 25, 1926, 15-year-old Bonnie, an attractive petite girl (with a height of 150 cm, she weighed only 41 kg), married a certain Roy Thornton.
In 1927, Bonnie began working as a waitress in a cafe in East Dallas. Relations between the spouses did not work out. A year after his marriage, he began to regularly disappear for long weeks, and already in January 1929 they broke up. Shortly after the breakup (there was no official divorce, and Bonnie wore a wedding ring to her death), Thornton went to prison for five years.
Clyde Chestnut Barrow was 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. At 16, Clyde leaves school. He starts to work, but does not stay in one place for a long time. He is becoming more and more interested in cars. Plays the saxophone. The police first arrested Clyde for stealing a car in 1926. A second arrest soon followed - after Clyde, along with his brother Buck, committed the theft of turkeys.
In 1928, he leaves home and settles with a friend. A few months later, Clyde decides to organize the thefts on his own. His first raid is on a gambling hall in Fort Bend County, where he disarms two guards at gunpoint with a broken gun. This is followed by a failed nighttime burglary attempt. In late 1929 and early 1930, Clyde and Buck are wanted by the police in many cities, that's when he meets Bonnie Parker.
Tired of vegetating in a lousy cafe
January 13, 1930 Clyde Barrow, shortly after being released from prison, enters a Dallas diner. He is served by a pretty blond waitress, as yet unknown to anyone, Bonnie Parker. What happened between them? What unknown force pulled them to each other? Love at first sight or sudden passion? Hardly. Or did Clyde seduce Bonnie with stories about the romance of robbery, about the unlimited freedom and power that can be achieved with weapons in hand? This is closer to the truth.
Bonnie was sick and tired of living in a lousy cafe, she had long hated boorish customers and trays of dirty dishes. Working hard for a penny in a cheap eatery, being married to a poor worker, having children who then would have nothing to feed - Bonnie did not want to. I wanted to bring other colors into the faded everyday life. Diversity did not work out: Bonnie's life still remained monotonous, however, the gray color changed to scarlet - the color of human blood ...
“Little blond lump,” as Bonnie wrote about herself in her diary, excited the exciting stories about the life of a reckless tramp that Clyde told her. As a woman, she was of little interest to the leader of the gang. He changed his sexual orientation while in prison. Bonnie was content with love affairs with other members of the gang. They fueled their friendship with stories of robberies and violent fights.
But we would err on the side of truth if we said that Clyde and Bonnie were cold and impassive. They were passionate about weapons. Together, they often went out of town and set up a shooting range. Perhaps, marksmanship from all types of weapons became the only science (Bonnie and Clyde were illiterate and did not even complete their primary education) in which they achieved perfection.
The sweet couple loved to be photographed with weapons: Bonnie, with a gun in her hands and a cigarette in her mouth, posed in front of the lenses. Clyde with a rifle in the photographs looked simpler - he lacked the artistry of his girlfriend. Bonnie admired the pistols her suitor wore in a coat holster and the power that came from the deadly guns.
Ruthlessly removed witnesses
They soon began working together. Their deadly journey began with the robbery of an armory in Texas in the spring of 1930. There they armed themselves to the teeth. The legend of the noble robbers, facilitating the wallets of moneybags, is untenable: the couple mainly robbed eateries, shops, gas stations. By the way, it was impossible to make big money on bank robberies in those days - the Great Depression raked all the big money out of the banks, and Clyde's gang sometimes got more by robbing some roadside shop. But sometimes even 10 dollars was not collected at the box office.
The robbery scenario was usually as follows: Bonnie was driving a car, Clyde broke in and took the proceeds, then jumped into the car on the go, shooting back. If someone tried to resist, then he immediately received a bullet. However, they ruthlessly removed innocent bystanders. Bonnie and Clyde were not just robbers, they were murderers, and on their account there were both ordinary people like owners of small shops and gas stations, and policemen, whom Clyde preferred to kill in order to avoid prison. One day, the criminals kidnapped the sheriff, stripped him and, having tied him up, threw him on the side of the road with the words: “Tell your people that we are not a gang of murderers. Get into the position of people trying to survive this damn depression."
After the murder of the first policeman who decided to check the documents of a suspicious couple, there was nothing to lose: now they were probably waiting for a death sentence. Therefore, Bonnie and Clyde went all out and, without hesitation, fired at people in any situation, even when they were practically not in danger.
On August 5, 1932, two policemen spotted Clyde at a village feast. When they asked him to come up, the bandit put both of them down on the spot. A month later, breaking through police posts on the road, the gang shot 12 guardians of the law.
Devotion without love
Pretty soon, more people joined their gang: Clyde's older brother Buck with his wife Blanche and a young boy S. W. Moss, whom they picked up at some gas station, seducing the "free life" of romantics from the main road. And also Bonnie's lover Raymond Hamilton, to whom Clyde also showed special feelings ...
Therefore, no unearthly love arose between Bonnie and Clyde, but there was no doubt that they were really very devoted to each other: Bonnie at one time pulled Clyde out of prison, passing him weapons on a date, and Clyde later, when the police apprehended Bonnie, recaptured her friend by brazenly attacking the police station. The murders excited the bloody couple more than sex or alcohol.
At night they drank whiskey, and Bonnie wrote pompous romantic poems in which she lamented her fate and had fun with accomplices. They were united by the desire to live life cheerfully and brightly, and also brought together by a pathological passion for murder: that Bonnie, that Clyde killed people because they liked to do it. One of the gang members, a certain Jones, said during interrogation: “These two are monsters. I've never seen anyone enjoy killing so much."
Once in Kansas, Bonnie first saw a Wanted by Police poster with her image. The fact that she and Clyde became "celebrities" shocked Bonnie so much that she immediately sent a dozen letters to major newspapers with pictures that she and Clyde took on their criminal path. Bonnie, by all means available to her, supported the version that she and Clyde were fighters for justice. After all, the banks they rob belong to the powerful, not to poor farmers and small businessmen.
The wild customs of the raiders, their unbridled passions and base desires terrified people. Of course, the police were constantly hunting for the gang. However, for the time being, the Barrow gang was incredibly lucky, and they managed to slip out of the most ingenious police traps. However, it wasn't just luck. Bonnie and Clyde had absolutely nothing to lose, so any attempt by the cops to get this gang ran into a terrible lead shower of pistols.
500 bullets in the bodies of gangsters
In 1933, when photographs of Bonnie and Clyde adorned the streets of cities in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, the owner of the house they rented identified the gangsters. All police forces of the city of Lawton were thrown to capture the gang, but after a fierce shootout in which Clyde's brother Bob was killed, the criminals managed to hide in the nearby forest. The bloody couple miraculously escaped from the encirclement and moved to Texas to meet with Clyde's mother. Here they were ambushed: the sheriff's people had been watching Cammy Barrow for a long time. Bonnie and Clyde received only scratches, but the car in which they fled from the cops became like a sieve from bullets.
Having licked their wounds, the Barrow gang again took up dirty deeds. And the criminal terror began again: murders, car thefts, robberies. The FBI took over the raiders. The head of the department, Edward Hoover, called Clyde a mad animal, all forces were ordered to fire to kill. The hunt has begun...
Texas Sheriff Frank Hamer analyzed each of their attacks, created maps and diagrams of their movements over the years, studied all the places of the raids and the paths that the bandits chose. "I wanted to penetrate their diabolical plans," he said, "and I did it." For several months, he and his assistants tracked down Bonnie and Clyde. But the criminals left right from under the nose.
Finally, the father of one of the gang members, Henry Metvin, offered his help in the capture in exchange for pardoning his son. Henry Methvin gave the police the key to the house where the criminals were hiding. The house was surrounded by two dense rings of policemen, 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. Two thousand rounds of ammunition, three rifles, 12 pistols, two pump-action shotguns and ... a saxophone were hidden in the car. Still, they had no hope.
The sheriff's car drove towards them. Hamer got out of the car and ordered the bandits to surrender. Clyde immediately grabbed his rifle, Bonnie - for a revolver. But they hardly managed to fire at least one shot. Lead hail hit the car. 500 bullets pierced the bodies of the gangsters, and they were literally torn apart, and the police continued to pour deadly fire on the riddled car ...
The front pages of American newspapers were filled with reports of the death of Bonnie and Clyde. The mutilated bodies of the criminals were put on public display in the morgue, and those who wished for one dollar could look at them. There were quite a few curious people ... Photos of the killed bandits were published by all the newspapers. America breathed a sigh of relief.
However, the inscription on Bonnie's gravestone, left by her mother, is not at all reproachful: "As flowers bloom under the rays of the sun and the freshness of dew, so the world becomes brighter thanks to people like you."
Both of our heroes, whose names have become household names, come from Texas. Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in Rowena, and after the death of her father, she moved with her mother and sisters to Dallas. If I hadn't turned onto a crooked path, I could have become a poetess. Even in prison, she wrote a small collection of poems.
Few people know that Bonnie was officially married - and not at all to Clyde! On September 25, 1926, at almost 16, she married Roy Thornton and got a job as a waitress in a café. In early 1929, they separated, but did not divorce, and Thornton was soon imprisoned for robbery. Nevertheless, Bonnie continued to wear her wedding ring, and she had a tattoo on her thigh: two hearts with the names "Bonnie" and "Roy".
Clyde Chestnut Barrow was a little older, he was born on May 24, 1909 in the city of Teliko into a poor farmer's large family. As a preschooler, he suffered from malaria.
From the age of 15, he, along with his older brother Marvin, began to trade in petty thefts. But the first drive to the police was not at all for this: he rented a car and did not have time to return it in time. However, the charges were soon dropped.
A little later, he wanted to join the Navy, but was commissioned for health reasons - due to an illness suffered in childhood.
Acquaintance
The exact date of his acquaintance with Bonnie is unknown. Most likely, this happened in early 1930, when he came to the cafe where she worked. They quickly found a common language, and Clyde, who by that time was an experienced robber, turned the head of a miniature waitress (his height is only 162 cm, and Bonnie was shorter - 150 cm). And not in the literal sense - he was gay, but stories of criminal acts that they could commit together in order to become rich and free.
Obviously, the criminal path promised a much more interesting life than offering visitors coffee and scrambled eggs!
They were united by a passion for weapons. Even during her short marriage, Bonnie loved to hold Roy's gun in her hands, and when he was in a good mood, he taught his wife how to shoot. Bonnie then developed this skill together with Clyde: they even went out into the field just to shoot.
Three months later, Clyde was arrested for robbery, and he spent almost two years in prison. And when he left, Bonnie invited him to work together.
Solid crime
Now Bonnie and Clyde are often presented as sort of Robin Hoods of the Great Depression: they supposedly robbed only the rich. Nothing like that: they robbed everyone. The first raid was on an armory in Texas, and then indiscriminately attacked gas station stores, roadside motels, and banks. The revenue was sometimes quite small, but they seemed to enjoy the process itself. The number of their crimes, according to various estimates, ranges from 70 to more than a hundred.
It will also not be possible to imagine them in the halo of holy robbers: both did not disdain to kill those who stand in the way. In order not to go to jail, Bonnie and Clyde even shot back from the police: after killing one of them for trying to check documents, they had nothing to lose. True, when they began to look for them all over the country, Bonnie took several photographs that they were fighters for justice, and sent them to various newspapers. But it did not help. In total, the couple killed about two dozen ordinary people and at least nine police officers.
In total, the couple killed about two dozen ordinary people and at least nine police officers.
By the time he met Bonnie, Clyde had a whole gang of robbers, but they often worked together. Sometimes they were joined by one of the older Barrow brothers, mutual acquaintances and one of Bonnie's many lovers - Reynold Hamilton. According to rumors, Clyde also liked him ...
Both hijackers periodically went to jail for robbery (if the police had found out about the massacres, they would have been immediately executed). But usually they were able to free themselves quickly, either because of a lack of evidence or because they helped each other out. It’s unimaginable these days that guns could be handed over to a prison on a date, but in the 30s everything was possible, and Bonnie took advantage of it. Once Clyde was released at all after the request of his mother!
Lame criminals
Interestingly, at the end of their short lives, both began to limp.
When Clyde was sent to prison, he wanted to be sent to easier work - and cut off one and a half fingers on his left foot. True, he was soon released, but it was not possible to sew the severed back.
In 1933, Bonnie and Clyde had an accident - he lost control, and the car flew into a ditch. Bonnie's leg was severely burned by acid from the battery, and for the last year of her life she had difficulty moving.
End of story
Their criminal journey ended two years after it began. And ruined a couple ... sentimentality. Despite the fact that both left the parental home quite early, they periodically visited their families (who, of course, suspected something, but did not know for sure). So the police had the opportunity to track their routes.