Before the days of television, criminals were not nearly as famous as they are today. But, there were a few who managed to gain notoriety in spite of far less media. Two of the most famous were Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who went on a crime spree in the southern United States during the 1920s.
It’s thought that it was the presence of the young Bonnie Parker who made Bonnie and Clyde and their game so famous. When pictures (which were gag pictures) surfaced of Parker toting a gun and smoking a cigar, tongues wagged. That, combined with the fact that the two were unmarried lovers, gave the story a mystique that the crimes alone would not have garnered.
In fact, Bonnie and Clyde’s crime spree was only mediocre by crime standards, particularly in this age of prohibition and organized crime, run by the likes of Al Capone.
Bonnie Parker met Clyde Barrow at the home of a girlfriend, reportedly before his first incarceration. They were immediately smitten with each other, and began their crime spree together once Barrow was paroled from prison after serving time for petty theft.
In 1932, Barrow and his friend Ralph Fults assembled a small gang and began robbing small stores and gas stations. Though Bonnie and Clyde would be remembered primarily for robbing banks, Barrow preferred robbing stores. Their goal was to steal enough money to liberate the Eastham Prison. Bonnie was jailed after her first attempt to rob a hardware store with Fults in April of that year. She was not indicted but remained in jail until June, when she reunited with Barrow.
By the time Bonnie was released from jail, Clyde and his gang had been involved in a robbery where the store owner was shot and killed. Though Clyde never left the car, he was identified as the shooter by the store owner’s wife, who was shown a mug shot.
In August of that year, Clyde Barrow and two of his friends were drinking at a dance in Oklahoma while Bonnie visited her mother in Dallas. When two officers approached them for drinking (which was illegal at the time) they shot and killed one and wounded the other.
Over the next two years, Bonnie and Clyde, along with the rest of their gang would rob banks and stores from Texas to Minnesota. For a time, particularly after the pictures of Bonnie Parker were released, the couple became celebrities. But eventually, as their crimes became more violent, the public lost sympathy for them.
On May 23, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde were killed in their car on a desolate road in Louisiana, when police, who had been tracking them for some time, opened fire. Clyde Barrow was killed quickly with a shot to the head, before the fire opened on Bonnie. Some say that more than 50 rounds were fired at the pair.
In total, Bonnie and Clyde are believed to have killed nine police officers and several civilians. It remains unclear whether Bonnie Parker ever fired a gun in any of their killings or robberies.
P. Zerkle blogs about getting a Master in Criminology.
