Bonnie and Clyde’s days were slowly getting numbered. Their last few robberies occurred in Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. They had to be extremely careful, realizing that they can get recognized, as had happened in Missouri and Iowa that left multiple casualties. The couple would sleep in their car during the night and drive during the day to avoid scrutiny. With bad luck, the couple were setup in Grand Prairie, Texas in November 1933 by the Dallas Texas Rangers and deputies. They escaped the officers’ bullets and reached an attorney on the freeway. They held him up at gunpoint and fled with his car, towards Louisiana. The couple were already accustomed to their situations, always too close for comfort.1
Bonnie and Clyde met in Texas in January, 1930. Before that time, Clyde was born into a family of a poor farmer. Clyde had a passion for music and at one point was considering to pursue a career in music. Influenced negatively by his older brother Buck, and a shady family friend, Clyde went from learning how to play instruments to stealing cars. Bonnie was very similar to Clyde when growing up, as she also had a love for music and acting. She always had a dream of performing on the silver screen. When Bonnie was nineteen, she was married to Roy Thornton, who was just another criminal. Clyde who was twenty-one and unmarried, was already sent to prison a little while after the couple met. He was able to escape with the help of Bonnie, who had snuck him a gun, but he was later recaptured and sent back to prison. Clyde was paroled in February 1932, and rejoined Bonnie to resume their life of crime with each other.2
With the capture of the couple’s friend “Jones” (who rode with the couple for eight months) on November 16, 1933, law enforcement learned of the close ties Bonnie and Clyde had with their families. This resulted in another ambush attempt, which led to putting their mothers in danger. Clyde was furious and decided to retaliate by being focused on the East Ham Prison Farm.3 In January 1934, Clyde broke out an old friend, Raymond Hamilton, who had previously been a part of the Barrow gang. A guard was killed and multiple prisoners escaped. Among those prisoners was Henry Methvin, who had begun riding with Bonnie and Clyde. The crime spree began once again, to include the brutal murder of two motorcycle cops, who were parked and waiting for an Easter meeting with family members. Henry Methvin got spooked and shot at the first cop, then Clyde shot the second cop. By mid-afternoon they played dead by their motorcycle on what was then a country road off Texas 114. But the end was near.
Referring to the importance of values Bonnie and Clyde had with their families, the Rangers once again set up another ambush. This ambush would involve Methvin’s family this time. When police learned that Methvin had split up from the couple on the evening of May 19, 1934, they realized this was a huge opportunity. Police assumed they would search for Henry at his father’s farm, so they planned an ambush along the road that the outlaws were expected to take. The six rangers confiscated Iverson Methvin’s truck (Henry Methvin’s father) and removed one of its tires, then placed it alongside highway 164, which is between Sailes and Gibsland, LA. They figured if Clyde saw the truck, they would slow down and want to investigate. Sure enough, they were right. At 9:15 am on May 23, 1934, they saw Clyde’s stolen Ford v8 slow down while approaching the truck. The officers opened fire at the car, killing Bonnie and Clyde instantly. About 130 bullets were fired at the car, blowing a hole in the back of Clyde’s head and shooting off Bonnie’s right hand.4
Bonnie’s wish was to be buried next to Clyde, but their families had different wishes. Although they created a romantic image of two young lovers running from the big, bad cops, Clyde’s driving skills, Bonnie’s poetry, and her beauty, it was destroyed by the truth. Though they often captured police who caught up to them and let them off unharmed hours and hundreds of miles later, they killed thirteen people, some bystanders slain during bungled robberies.5 They really never got away with much money when they robbed banks. Bonnie and Clyde were desperate criminals, sleeping in their most recently stolen car and constantly fearing death in a hail of bullets from a police ambush. Still, they were the stuff of legends.
- Encyclopedia Brittanica, 2019, s.v. “Bonnie and Clyde,” by John Phillip Jenkins. ↵
- Jeff Guinn, “The Irresistible Bonnie Parker,” Smithsonian (website), April 2009. ↵
- Pauline Kael, “ Bonnie and Clyde,” The New Yorker, October 1967. ↵
- John Treherne, The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde ( New York: Stein and Day, 1985) 143-151. ↵
- Karen Blumenthal, Bonnie and Clyde: The making of a legend (New York: Vikings Children Books, 2018), 51-56. ↵
70 comments
Julia Aleman
This was a very good article. I feel like I would’ve enjoyed reading a little more about the love story on Bonnie and Clyde rather than reading about the people they helped escape from prison. I never really knew about Bonnie and Clyde but their names were always something that sounded familiar. One day I would like to read more about this topic of how they came to be criminals and what motivated this story.
Celeste Loera
I find it very interesting at how they only portrayed bonnie and clyde’s capture and not their whole crime life story but still it intrigued me a lot. I have always heard about them and how they were the best criminal couple but i never even got to read what they did especially how they got captured. I didn’t even know the police fired 130 rounds in the car! This article was very interesting and straight to the point.
Evangelina Villegas
I’ve heard about Bonnie and Clyde many times, but I never knew the specific details of their lives before crimes and what they did during their crimes. It was interesting to know that there were other people that rode with Bonnie and Clyde before their deaths. The fact that one of those people who rode with them was what eventually led to their deaths is so interesting. The thing that bugs me the most is that despite them being known as the couple that robbed together, I just can’t seem them as actual lovers for some reason. Overall, this article was both informative and interesting to read.
Desiree Arizmendez
This article did a very well job on explaining Bonnie and Clyde’s lives together. It is so crazy how their love kept going to the very end. I had no idea that their story began in Texas, i thought it was maybe in colorado. That sounded more likely than texas. It is insane how these two people commited crimes just for the rush, they never really got anything out of it. It was like a game of cat and mouse.
Nadia Manitzas
Bonnie and Clyde were hopeless romantics who lived to kill. This article provided a great amount of information and their lives together. I never knew their lives were ended by the police shooting 130 rounds at their car. To know that they were set up shows that they were on the run and the police knew. Very informative article and would recommend to someone interested in this case.
Nicolas Llosa
I have heard of Bonnie and Clyde before and have seen the movie, but this article touched on very interesting details about them. This article touched on many of Bonnie and Clyde’s different stories and was entertaining to read. It is crazy how they managed to escape from law enforcement so many times and for so long. Overall this article was informative and interesting to read and I really enjoyed it.
Tavion Varela
I had always found Bonnie and Clyde to be an interesting couple in the history. I did not know that they met in Texas which is kind of a cool detail. This article did a great job of telling the story of their capture and deaths. I never knew how they died but shooting 130 rounds into a car at them was not what I had in mind. The image of the their bodies left a solid impact on the article and Bonnie and Clyde’s relationship as a whole.
Madeline Emke
This article provided brief and vague information surrounding the life and crimes of Bonnie and Clyde, mostly focusing on the day they were captured. While the author wrote the article beautifully, I wish there was more information surrounding the early life and crimes of Bonnie and Clyde, rather than just focusing on their final day. Overall, the article was fun to read and provided basic information on a topic I was not very familiar with.
Alexis Lopez
I enjoyed reading this article about Bonnie and Clyde. There was a lot that I didn’t know about either person. Sebastian Portilla gave a lot of great background information into the lives of Bonnie and Clyde. I didn’t know that Bonnie and Clyde originated in Texas, and were being followed for a while by authorities. Overall, this article was such a fun read and it was interesting to get more insight about their life.
Reagan Clark
I have heard about Bonnie and Clyde before but have never heard specific details. This article did a good job portraying the capture and deaths of Bonnie and Clyde. I wonder what made the officers fire 130 rounds into the car. There must have been an easier way to capture them. The image of their bodies was impactful to the story. It really added a lot to the story. I wish that the article highlighted how Bonnie and Clyde met. This article was vague on that point. Overall, this article was very informative.