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
Saira Locke
I have always heard of Bonnie and Clyde my whole life. They are seen and the ultimate love story in crime romance This article was very informative in their lives and also very interesting. I loved the image choice because it allowed me to really visualize their story. It is crazy to me how many times Bonnie and Clyde almost got caught. It is also so sad how many people they killed for their own pleasures.
Hannah Hennon
I always hear people referencing Bonnie and Clyde, but I never actually knew what they were known for. I only knew they were criminals. I think it is sad that Clyde wanted to pursue music, but his family influenced him into being a criminal. I also think it is disappointing that Bonnie also had a chance at a good life, but she ended up marrying a criminal.
Jose Maria Llano Aranalde
I have heard of Bonny and Clyde but never actually looked into the story too much. I just knew the basics of the story. It was really interesting to read this article. It completed the story for me. There were a lot of parts that I did not know about. All the things that they had to do in order to run away from the police. It seemed like they belonged together because they loved each other but they also loved the thrill of being wanted by the police.
Jacob Silva
I have always heard the names Bonnie and Clyde through out the media and pop culture, but I never knew who Bonnie and Clyde even were. After learning that Bonnie and Clyde spent their lives together as criminals and even killers. Now that I know this about these two makes me wonder why pop culture has decided to overly romanticize these people.
Cristianna Tovar
Before reading this article, I had always heard the names Bonnie and Clyde, but I never knew the history of them. I thought it was disheartening that Clyde had a passion for music and wanted to pursue a career in music but was negatively influenced by his older brother. I thought it was interesting how a couple could commit crime together yet be so committed to each other. Great article!
Trinity Casillas
It’s interesting to see how the media have romanticized and played up the story of Bonnie and Clyde. They were always portrayed as a couple who worked alone to achieve their fortune and success but that clearly wasn’t the case. I also didn’t know Bonnie was already married to another criminal before she went to be partners in crime with Clyde so that was interesting to learn about.
Kathryn Martinez
It’s interesting to see the number of people that didn’t know the true story of Bonnie and Clyde. Nowadays people tend to over-romanticize their story or their lives. In reality, the couple is just infamous and weren’t very good criminals to begin. However, their love story made for dramatization and it leaves a shadow over the lives of the people they killed. This article was interesting to read and I’m glad the writer took the time to write a more accurate representation of the couple’s criminal history.
Vania Gonzalez
I had heard about Bonnie and Clyde, they are seen as a couple who was so in love but your story makes it seem like they just put on an act for the money. Maybe they were in love but they seem to be more in love with the life of crime; I mean if they were not getting much money from these robberies why do them? It was more of a love for the thrill that kind of life gives you when you do something you are not supposed to but you like the feeling that it gives you when you get away with it. They are stuff of legends I mean surviving shoot outs and escaping multiple times but all things come to and end. Great article I really enjoyed reading it.
Doan Mai
The article is well written and informative. I have known about the love story of Bonnie and Clyde. To this day, we can still hear a lot of lyrics reference for this couple. The couple together robbed a considerable number of cars, yet they had to live in a car with the fear that the police would find them. That fear then came true as they were killed by “the Rangers.”
Judy Reyes
This was a very interesting article. It was interesting to read the many ways that Bonnie and Clyde would escape from all the police set ups. They were criminals yet they never really gained much from their crimes. It was crazy that the only way they could be stopped was by having 130 bullets being shot at them. All those bullets caused them both to die right next to each other.