Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut "Champion" Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) were an outlaw couple who roamed the Central United States with their criminal gang during the Great Depression, committing a series of criminal acts such as store robberies, bank robberies, kidnappings and murders between 1932 and 1934. The couple were particularly infamous for their bank robberies and multiple murders, although they preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations, and are believed to have murdered at least nine police officers and three civilians. 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. On May 23, 1934, the couple were ambushed and killed on Louisiana Highway 154 in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, by a law enforcement posse led by retired Texas Ranger Frank Hamer.
The film Bonnie and Clyde (1967), directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the title roles, despite being highly fictionalized and historically inaccurate, was a critical and commercial success which revived interest in the criminals and glamorized them with a romantic aura. The Netflix film The Highwaymen (2019) depicted their manhunt from the point of view of the pursuing lawmen.
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born on October 1, 1910, in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father, Charles Robert Parker (1884–1914), was a bricklayer who died when she 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, Parker 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".
Parker was a bright child who thrived on attention. She enjoyed performing on stage and dreamt of becoming an actress. In her second year in high school, Parker met Roy Thornton (1908–1937). The couple dropped out of school and married on September 25, 1926, six days before her sixteenth birthday. Their marriage was marred by his frequent absences and brushes with the law and proved to be short-lived. They never divorced, but their paths never crossed again after January 1929. When she died, Parker was still wearing the wedding ring Thornton had given her. Thornton was in prison when he heard of her death, commenting, "I'm glad they jumped out like they did. It's much better than being caught." Sentenced to five years for robbery in 1933 and after attempting several prison breaks from other facilities, Thornton was killed while trying to escape from Huntsville State Prison on October 3, 1937.
After she left Thornton, 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 County 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 aged 18, writing of her loneliness, her impatience with life in Dallas and her love of photography.
Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born March 24, 1909, into a poor farming family in the town of Telico, Texas, near 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 as part of a wider migration pattern from rural areas to the city, where many settled in the urban slum of West Dallas. The Barrows spent their first months there 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 his brother Buck Barrow soon after, for possession of stolen turkeys. Barrow had some legitimate jobs from 1927 through 1929, but he also cracked safes, robbed stores and engaged in auto theft. He met nineteen-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 in Henrietta, Texas, by Deputy Bert Whisnand after officers spotted him driving a stolen vehicle. After the arrest, he confessed not only to stealing the vehicle but also to two burglaries. Barrow plead guilty to the auto theft and burglary charges in court and was sentenced to two years imprisonment following his conviction. On March 11, 1930, while awaiting transfer to Huntsville State Prison, Barrow, along with his cellmates Willie Turner and Emery Abernathy, escaped from the McLennan County jail in Waco, Texas, using a gun Parker had smuggled into the jail.
The three men continued to evade the authorities, stealing various vehicles and looting businesses while they fled north. The police were alerted to the crimes, and on March 18, 1930, all three men were recaptured. The very next month, During April, 1930, Barrow was sent to Huntsville to begin serving his now 14-year sentence. In September, after five months at Huntsville, Barrow was assigned to the Eastham Prison Farm at the age of 21. He was sexually assaulted while in prison. Ed Crowder, who was employed as an authority figure charged with keeping order for the inmates of the prison, raped twenty one year old Barrow over and over and over, month after month. Barrow survived these repeated assaults by the much larger man. One day, Barrow fought back. He waited for Crowder in one of the spots that Crowder regularly raped him, this time armed with a pipe. This resulted in the end of Barrow's victimization, as well as the end of Crowder. Another inmate who was already serving a life sentence claimed responsibility.
To avoid hard labor in the fields, Barrow purposely had two of his toes amputated in late January 1932, either by another inmate or by himself. Because of this, he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. The amputation slowed him down physically, making it harder to outrun law enforcement and limiting his mobility during his many robberies. However, without his knowledge, his mother had successfully petitioned for his release and he was set free six days after his intentional injury. He was paroled from Eastham on February 2, 1932, now a hardened and bitter veteran of a justice system that failed to provide protection or rehabilitation. 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 school boy 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 had sustained while serving time.
There are several different accounts of Parker and Barrow's first meeting. One of the more credible versions is that they met on January 5, 1930, at the home of Barrow's friend, Clarence Clay, at 105 Herbert Street in West Dallas. Barrow was twenty years old, and Parker was aged 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.
1932: Early robberies and murders
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 Farm. 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 after a few months, when the grand jury failed to indict her. Fults was tried, convicted and served time. He never rejoined the gang. Parker wrote poetry to pass the time in Kaufman County jail and reunited with Barrow within a few weeks of her release.