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
Caily Torres
I found this article interesting because I have only heard stories about Bonnie and Clyde’s love story, not about their struggles as robbers. Bonnie and Clyde weren’t successful as robbers, leaving with little to no money after robbing banks and sleeping in their stolen cars. They lived in fear, yet, this didn’t stop them from continuing their life as criminals. In the end, it was their love not only for each other, but for their former criminal friends that got them killed. Bonnie and Clyde will forever be known as the cliché criminal lovers.
Luis Jaen
Before reading this article I never knew much about Bonnie and Clyde, other than a few stories here and there. Although this wasn’t the full information about the lovers, this was a really cool story to hear being that it was the story of their demise. It seems as if their life was meant for a movie, most of the acts they committed and the struggles they had to go through classifies them in that category. With all that said, Bonnie and Clyde will remain crime legends due to their swift escapes.
Jose Chaman
I remember watching a movie about the process of capturing Bonnie and Clyde. This article, however, does an excellent job summarizing the facts. I think it’s really incredible that these events have happened, as a couple could have terrified almost half the country and became so famous stealing and murdering. The way Bonnie and Clyde were captured seems really brutal to me, but I suppose at that time such punishment was normal after so many murders they committed.
Pablo Ruiz
Wow this article is very informative about Bonnie and Clyde. I have always known the name but never knew the details about these famous criminals. It is very interesting to read how to cops went on a shooting spree in order to kill them. Traditionally the cops want to capture criminals instead of kill but Bonnie and Clyde were different. They were the best of their kind.
Amanda Quiroz
Wow that is crazy how it all went down. I had never heard about Bonnie and Clyde before reading this article. It is amazing how the managed to escape the police so many times yet got caught in the end. Although so much had happened, I do kind of wish that Bonnie and Clyde’s families would have filled out their wish to be buried together.
Brianna Trevino
This article was well written and very informative about the lives of Bonnie and Clyde. I had heard of there names in the past but always thought it was just some cheesy romantic story but after reading this article I was defiantly wrong. Bonnie and Clyde were young run away lovers committing petty crimes and killing 13 people. Bonnie and Clyde were defiantly not Romeo and Juliet.
Marco Montes de Oca
I knew about Bonnie and Clyde before reading this but I never really knew that much. It was interesting to find out how these two would make their escapes and I was shocked to find out that they didn’t gain much from their crimes. The fact that the rangers shot 130 bullets when they saw them shows how dangerous and how badly the police wanted them caught. That is some way to die, by a hailstorm of bullets.
Shea Slusser
I had never really known who Bonnie and Clyde were, and this story most definitely brings things to light. Their story is very interesting and it was clever for the cops to capture them by setting up Henry’s dads car on the side of the rode. I find it interesting the police went on a shooting spree to kill them instead of capture them, but I do realize how many people the couple killed during the crimes they committed.
Samantha Bonillas
This was a very interesting article. Before reading it, I had heard of Bonnie and Clyde but never really paid attention to their story. The many ways that they would escape the police set ups was really fascinating to read. Although they were criminals, they didn’t really gain much out of their crimes They stole cars but they lived in one in order for the police not to catch them. 130 bullets is what had to stop them, which is crazy. Great article.
Mitchell Yocham
Luckily for Bonnie and Clyde, back then the police force didn’t have the advanced technology that we are privileged to today. Most of their criminal cases were cold cases because there wasn’t ever enough evidence to find the perpetrator. However if you were as good of a criminal as Bonnie and Clyde were, then you could more or less escape from any crime that you commit.