It was never stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Whatever money they stole went mostly to family, their gang, and to cover expenses. They never made the big bucks like other Depression Era gangsters like Al Capone, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Ma Barker, Lucky Luciano and others, but they had charisma and caught the public’s interest. They preferred robbing small businesses and gas stations that were low risk but they also robbed a few banks - taking a bank in Lawrence, Kan., for $33,000.īesides Bonnie and Clyde, there were eight others in their gang.Īs their crime exploits became more publicized, some saw Clyde as a sort of Robin Hood. She excelled in school - especially in poetry.Ĭlyde Champion Barrow was born in 1909 into a poor farming family in Ellis County, Texas, southeast of Dallas - fifth of seven children. The Great Depression was in full swing and the news media was looking for stories that would take everyone’s mind off their troubles.īonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in Rowena, Texas, in 1910 into a poor family. Then reunited with Bonnie, they began their two-year crime spree across the U.S. Then he chopped off two toes to avoid hard labor, not knowing that his mother had arranged for him to be released on parole six days later. Clyde then killed his rapist, crushing his skull with a pipe, with the blame taken voluntarily by a lifer. They were never divorced and she had Bonnie and Roy hearts tattooed on her thigh and wore her wedding ring the rest of her short life.Īt Eastham, Clyde was abused and repeatedly raped by another inmate until he escaped using a gun smuggled to him by Bonnie on a visit, freeing five others with him. She was already married to Roy Thornton from her high school, but he was in prison for murder and she never saw him again. The relationship began when the two met at a party, but shortly after that, Clyde was arrested and convicted of burglary and auto theft and sentenced to two years in Eastham Prison Farm in eastern Texas. Bonnie was only 4-foot-11 tall and Clyde 5-foot-3. Neither one of them looked like gangsters. Then the Texas Rangers got on their trail and 102 days later, the couple was shot to death on a Louisiana country road - their bodies and car riddled by bullets.īonnie and Clyde had become legends in their own time.īoth Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were born into hardscrabble families in Texas and wanted something better in life.īonnie had a gift for poetry and wanted to be a poet and actress.Ĭlyde taught himself to play the guitar and saxophone and hoped to be a musician.Īfter they met, they chose a yellow-brick road to crime that unwittingly led them to a violent death. For two years, the outlaw couple Bonnie and Clyde held up mom and pop stores, gas stations and banks, using a stolen car, building a small criminal gang and getting help from Clyde’s mom.
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