Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) and
Clyde Chestnut Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) was an American criminal
couple who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great
Depression, known for their bank robberies although they preferred to rob small
stores or rural gas stations. Their exploits captured the attention of the
American press and its readership during what is occasionally referred to as
the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934. They are believed to
have murdered at least nine police officers and four civilians. They were
killed in May 1934 during an ambush by police near Gibsland, Louisiana.
The press' portrayal of Bonnie and Clyde was sometimes at
odds with the reality of their life on the road, especially for Parker. She was
present at 100 or more felonies during the two years that she was Barrow's
companion, although she was not the cigar-smoking, machine gun-wielding killer
depicted in newspapers, newsreels, and pulp detective magazines of the day.
Nonetheless, numerous police accounts detail her attempts to murder police
officers (although gang member W.D. Jones contradicted them at trial). The
picture of Parker smoking a cigar came from an undeveloped roll of negatives
that police found at an abandoned hideout, and the snapshot was published
nationwide. Parker did chain smoke Camel cigarettes, although she never smoked
cigars. According to historian Jeff
Guinn, the photos found at the hideout resulted in Parker's glamorization and
the creation of myths about the gang.
The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn and
starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the title roles, revived interest in
the criminals and glamorized them with a romantic aura.
Bonnie Parker
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in 1910 in Rowena, Texas,
the second of three children. Her father Charles Robert Parker (1884–1914) was
a bricklayer who died when Bonnie was four years old. Her widowed mother Emma (Krause) Parker
(1885–1944) moved her family back to her parents' home in Cement City, an
industrial suburb in West Dallas where she worked as a seamstress. As an
adult, Bonnie wrote poems such as "The Story of Suicide Sal" and "The Trail's End", the latter
more commonly known as "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde".
In her second year in high school, Parker met Roy Thornton.
The couple dropped out of school and was married on September 25, 1926, six days
before her 16th birthday. Their marriage
was marred by his frequent absences and brushes with the law, and it proved to
be short-lived. They never divorced, but their paths never crossed again after
January 1929. She was still wearing his wedding ring when she died. Thornton was in prison when he heard of her
death. He commented, "I'm glad they went out like they did. It's much better
than being caught."
After the end of her marriage, Parker moved back in with her
mother and worked as a waitress in Dallas. One of her regular customers was
postal worker Ted Hinton. In 1932, he joined the Dallas Sheriff's Department
and eventually served as a member of the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde. Parker briefly kept a diary early in 1929 when
she was 18, in which she wrote of her loneliness, her impatience with life in
Dallas, and her love of talking pictures.
Clyde Barrow
Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born in 1909 into a poor farming
family in Ellis County, Texas, southeast of Dallas. He was the fifth of seven children of Henry
Basil Barrow (1874–1957) and Cumie Talitha Walker (1874–1942). The family moved
to Dallas in the early 1920s, part of a migration pattern from rural areas to
the city where many settled in the urban slum of West Dallas. The Barrows spent
their first months in West Dallas living under their wagon until they got
enough money to buy a tent.
Barrow was first arrested in late 1926, at age 17, after
running when police confronted him over a rental car that he had failed to
return on time. His second arrest was with brother Buck soon after for
possession of stolen turkeys. Barrow had some legitimate jobs during 1927
through 1929, but he also cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars. He met
19 year-old Parker through a mutual friend in January 1930, and they spent much
time together during the following weeks. Their romance was interrupted when
Barrow was arrested and convicted of auto theft.
Clyde was sent to Eastham Prison Farm in April 1930 at the
age of 21. He escaped the prison farm shortly after his incarceration using a
weapon Parker smuggled to him. He was recaptured shortly after and sent back to
prison. Barrow was repeatedly sexually
assaulted while in prison, and he retaliated by attacking and killing his
tormentor with a lead pipe, crushing his skull. This was his first killing. Another inmate,
who was already serving a life sentence, claimed responsibility.
In order to avoid hard labor in the fields, Barrow had
another inmate chop off two of his toes with an axe in late January 1932.
Because of this, he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. However,
Barrow was set free six days after his intentional injury. Without his
knowledge, Barrow's mother had successfully petitioned for his release. He was paroled on February 2, 1932 from
Eastham as a hardened and bitter criminal. His sister Marie said,
"Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison because he
wasn't the same person when he got out." Fellow inmate Ralph Fults said that he watched
Clyde "change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake".
In his post-Eastham career, Barrow robbed grocery stores and
gas stations at a rate far outpacing the ten or so bank robberies attributed to
him and the Barrow Gang. His favorite weapon was the M1918 Browning Automatic
Rifle (BAR). According to John Neal
Phillips, Barrow's goal in life was not to gain fame or fortune from robbing
banks but to seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses that
he suffered while serving time.
First meeting
Several accounts describe Parker and Barrow's first meeting.
The most credible states that they met on January 5, 1930 at the home of
Barrow's friend Clarence Clay at 105 Herbert Street in the neighborhood of West
Dallas. Barrow was 20 years old, and
Parker was 19. Parker was out of work and staying with a female friend to
assist her during her recovery from a broken arm. Barrow dropped by the girl's
house while Parker was in the kitchen making hot chocolate. Both were smitten immediately; most historians
believe that Parker joined Barrow because she had fallen in love with him. She
remained his loyal companion as they carried out their many crimes and awaited
the violent death which they viewed as inevitable.
Armed robbery and
murder
1932: Early robberies
and murders
Parker's pose with a cigar and gun gained her an image in
the press as a "cigar-smoking gun moll" after police found the
undeveloped film in the Joplin house
After Barrow's release from prison in February 1932, he and
Fults began a series of robberies, primarily of stores and gas stations; their
goal was to collect enough money and firepower to launch a raid against Eastham
prison. On April 19, Parker and Fults
were captured in a failed hardware store burglary in Kaufman in which they had
intended to steal firearms. Parker was
released from jail in a few months, after the grand jury failed to indict her;
Fults was tried, convicted, and served time. He never rejoined the gang.
On April 30, Barrow was the getaway driver in a robbery in
Hillsboro during which store owner J.N. Bucher was shot and killed. Bucher's wife identified Barrow from police
photographs as one of the shooters, although he had stayed outside in the car.
Parker wrote poetry to pass the time in jail. She reunited with Barrow within a few weeks of
her release from the Kaufman County jail.
On August 5, Barrow, Raymond Hamilton, and Ross Dyer were
drinking alcohol at a country dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma when Sheriff C.G.
Maxwell and Deputy Eugene C. Moore approached them in the parking lot. Barrow
and Hamilton opened fire, killing Moore and gravely wounding Maxwell. Moore was
the first law officer that Barrow and his gang had killed; they eventually
murdered nine. On October 11, they allegedly killed Howard Hall at his store
during a robbery in Sherman, Texas, though some historians consider this
unlikely.
W. D. Jones had been a friend of Barrow's family since
childhood. He joined Parker and Barrow on Christmas Eve 1932 at the age of 16,
and the three left Dallas that night. The next day, Jones and Barrow murdered Doyle
Johnson, a young family man, while stealing his car in Temple. Barrow killed Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis
on January 6, 1933 when he, Parker, and Jones wandered into a police trap set
for another criminal. The gang had murdered five people since April.
1933: Buck Barrow
joins the gang
The gang's Joplin hideout; photos and Bonnie's
"Suicide Sal" poem were published in newspapers nationwide
On March 22, 1933, Clyde's brother Buck was granted a full
pardon and released from prison, and he and his wife Blanche set up
housekeeping with Bonnie, Clyde and Jones in a temporary hideout at 3347 1/2
Oakridge Drive in Joplin, Missouri. According to family sources, Buck and
Blanche were there to visit;
they attempted to persuade Clyde to surrender to law
enforcement. The group ran loud, alcohol-fueled card games late into the night
in the quiet neighborhood; Blanche recalled that they "bought a case of
beer a day". The men came and went noisily at all hours, and Clyde
accidentally fired a BAR in the apartment while cleaning it. No neighbors went to the house, but one
reported suspicions to the Joplin Police Department.
The police assembled a five-man force in two cars on April
13 to confront what they suspected were bootleggers living in the garage
apartment. The Barrow brothers and Jones opened fire, killing Detective Harry
L. McGinnis outright and fatally wounding Constable J. W. Harryman. Parker opened fire with a BAR as the others
fled, forcing Highway Patrol Sergeant G.B. Kahler to duck behind a large oak
tree. The .30 caliber bullets from the BAR struck the tree and forced wood
splinters into the sergeant's face. Parker got into the car with the others, and
they pulled in Blanche from the street where she was pursuing her dog Snow
Ball. The surviving officers later
testified that they had fired only fourteen rounds in the conflict; one hit
Jones on the side, one struck Clyde but was deflected by his suitcoat button,
and one grazed Buck after ricocheting off a wall.
W.D. Jones committed two murders in his first two weeks with
Barrow at age 16. The cut-down shotgun is one of his "whippit" guns.
The pistol on the hood is Officer Persell's.
Bonnie with a shotgun reaches for officer Persell's pistol
in Clyde's waistband.
The group escaped the police at Joplin, but left behind most
of their possessions at the apartment, including Buck's parole papers (three
weeks old), a large arsenal of weapons, a handwritten poem by Bonnie, and a
camera with several rolls of undeveloped film. Police developed the film at The
Joplin Globe and found many photos of Barrow, Parker, and Jones posing and pointing
weapons at one another. The Globe sent
the poem and the photos over the newswire, including a photo of Parker
clenching a cigar in her teeth and a pistol in her hand, and the gang of
criminals became front-page news throughout America as the Barrow Gang.
The photo of Parker posing with a cigar and a gun became
popular:
John Dillinger had
matinee-idol good looks and Pretty Boy Floyd had the best possible nickname,
but the Joplin photos introduced new criminal superstars with the most
titillating trademark of all—illicit sex. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were
wild and young, and undoubtedly slept together.
The group ranged from Texas as far north as Minnesota for
the next three months. In May, they tried to rob the bank in Lucerne, Indiana,
and robbed the bank in Okabena, Minnesota. They kidnapped Dillard Darby and Sophia Stone
at Ruston, Louisiana in the course of stealing Darby's car; this was one of
several events between 1932 and 1934 in which they kidnapped police officers or
robbery victims. They usually released
their hostages far from home, sometimes with money to help them return home.
Stories of such encounters made headlines, as did the more
violent episodes. The Barrow Gang did not hesitate to shoot anyone who got in
their way, whether it was a police officer or an innocent civilian. Other
members of the Barrow Gang who committed murder included Hamilton, Jones, Buck,
and Henry Methvin. Eventually, the cold-bloodedness of their murders opened the
public's eyes to the reality of their crimes and led to their ends.
The photos entertained the public for a time, but the gang
was desperate and discontented, as described by Blanche in her account written
while imprisoned in the late 1930s. With
their new notoriety, their daily lives became more difficult, as they tried to
evade discovery. Restaurants and motels became less secure; they resorted to
campfire cooking and bathing in cold streams. The unrelieved, round-the-clock proximity of
five people in one car gave rise to vicious bickering. Jones was the driver when he and Barrow stole
a car belonging to Darby in late April, and he used that car to leave the
others. He stayed away until June 8.
Barrow did not see warning signs at a bridge under
construction on June 10, while driving with Jones and Parker near Wellington,
Texas and the car flipped into a ravine.
Sources disagree on whether there was a gasoline fire or if Parker was
doused with acid from the car's battery under the floorboards, but she
sustained third-degree burns to her right leg, so severe that the muscles
contracted and caused the leg to "draw up". Jones observed: "She'd been burned so bad
none of us thought she was gonna live. The hide on her right leg was gone, from
her hip down to her ankle. I could see the bone at places."
Parker could hardly walk; she either hopped on her good leg
or was carried by Barrow. They got help from a nearby farm family, and then
kidnapped two local police officers. The three rendezvoused with Buck and
Blanche, and hid in a tourist court near Fort Smith, Arkansas, nursing Parker's
burns. Buck and Jones bungled a robbery and murdered Town Marshal Henry D.
Humphrey in Alma, Arkansas. The
criminals had to flee, despite Parker's grave condition.
Platte City and
Dexfield Park
Two-unit Red Crown Tourist Court, where the gang's
conspicuous behavior drew police; Buck was killed in the ensuing gunfight.
In July 1933, the gang checked in to the Red Crown Tourist
Court south of Platte City, Missouri. It consisted of two brick cabins joined
by garages, and the gang rented both. To the south stood the Red Crown Tavern,
a popular restaurant among Missouri Highway Patrolmen, and the gang seemed to
go out of their way to draw attention. Blanche
registered the party as three guests, but owner Neal Houser could see five
people getting out of the car. He noted that the driver backed into the garage
"gangster style" for a quick getaway. Blanche paid for their cabins with coins
rather than bills, and did the same later when buying five dinners and five
beers. The next day, Houser noticed that
his guests had taped newspapers over the windows of their cabin; Blanche again
paid for five meals with coins. Her outfit of jodhpur riding breeches also
attracted attention; they were not typical attire for women in the area, and
eyewitnesses still remembered them forty years later. Houser told Captain William Baxter of the
Highway Patrol, a patron of his restaurant, about the group.
Barrow and Jones went into town to purchase bandages,
crackers, cheese, and atropine sulfate to treat Parker's leg. The druggist
contacted Sheriff Holt Coffey, who put the cabins under surveillance. Coffey
had been alerted by Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas law enforcement to watch for
strangers seeking such supplies. The sheriff contacted Captain Baxter, who
called for reinforcements from Kansas City, including an armored car. Sheriff Coffey led a group of officers toward
the cabins at 11pm, armed with Thompson submachine guns.
In the gunfight which ensued, the .45 caliber Thompsons
proved no match for Barrow's .30 caliber BAR, stolen on July 7 from the
National Guard armory at Enid, Oklahoma. The gang escaped when a bullet short-circuited
the horn on the armored car and the police officers mistook it for a cease-fire
signal. They did not pursue the retreating Barrow vehicle.
Blanche is captured at Dexfield Park, Iowa, still in her
jodhpurs with husband Buck lying mortally wounded nearby
Jones' confession
triggered murder warrants against the gang
The gang had evaded the law once again, but Buck had
sustained a bullet wound that blasted a large hole in his forehead skull bone
and exposed his injured brain, and Blanche was nearly blinded by glass fragments
in both her eyes.
The Barrow Gang camped at Dexfield Park, an abandoned
amusement park near Dexter, Iowa, on July 24.[5][74] Buck was sometimes
semiconscious, and he even talked and ate, but his massive head wound and loss
of blood were so severe that Barrow and Jones dug a grave for him. Local residents noticed their bloody bandages,
and officers determined that the campers were the Barrow Gang. Local police
officers and approximately 100 spectators surrounded the group, and the Barrows
soon came under fire. Barrow, Parker, and
Jones escaped on foot. Buck was shot in
the back, and he and his wife were captured by the officers. Buck died of his
head wound and pneumonia after surgery five days later at Kings Daughters
Hospital in Perry, Iowa.
For the next six weeks, the remaining perpetrators ranged
far afield from their usual area of operations, west to Colorado, north to
Minnesota, and southeast to Mississippi; yet they continued to commit armed
robberies. They restocked their arsenal
when Barrow and Jones robbed an armory at Plattville, Illinois on August 20, acquiring
three BARs, handguns, and a large quantity of ammunition.
By early September, the gang risked a run to Dallas to see
their families for the first time in four months. Jones parted company with
them, continuing to Houston where his mother had moved. He was arrested there
without incident on November 16, and returned to Dallas. Through the autumn,
Barrow committed several robberies with small-time local accomplices, while his
family and Parker's attended to her considerable medical needs. On November 22,
they narrowly evaded arrest while trying to meet with family members near
Sowers, Texas. Dallas Sheriff Smoot Schmid, Deputy Bob Alcorn, and Deputy Ted
Hinton lay in wait nearby. As Barrow drove up, he sensed a trap and drove past
his family's car, at which point Schmid and his deputies stood up and opened
fire with machine guns and a BAR. The family members in the crossfire were not
hit, but a BAR bullet passed through the car, striking the legs of both Barrow
and Parker. They escaped later that
night.
On November 28, a Dallas grand jury delivered a murder
indictment against Parker and Barrow for the killing – in January of that year,
nearly ten months earlier – of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis; it was
Parker's first warrant for murder.
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