Bonnie and Clyde : the true story

The real outlaws were not glamorous and loveable

By David Cocksedge

THE 1967 CULT motion picture of America 's most famous pair of bank robbers portrayed them as rather na?ve and likeable. In reality, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were not quite the way that movie stars Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty wanted us to see them. The two outlaw lovers were not simple working class youngsters driven by poverty and the great depression of the 1930's to lives of crime. These were two psychopaths who killed and robbed without conscience.

Clyde Barrow was born on 24 March 1909 to a poor farmer in Blacklake , Texas . Even as a young child he displayed sadistic tendencies: he would cheerfully torture farm animals, taking great delight in their pain. Bonnie Parker was born into a devout Baptist family in Rowena , Texas on 1 October 1910. Her father died when she was four and the family moved to Cement City , Texas . She was a petite, very pretty young girl with blue eyes and fair hair. But she was also spoiled and always got her own way with her mother.

By the age of 16 she married a dangerous youth from Dallas named Roy Thornton. The smitten Bonnie even had a tattoo on her right knee inscribed, “Roy & Bonnie”. But the marriage ended when Thornton was sentenced to 99 years in jail for murder in 1928.

Her mother was delighted she met the handsome Clyde Barrow because she felt he would help to get Bonnie over her failed marriage. Bonnie was then 19 years old and Clyde was twenty-one.

Their relationship did not get off to a good start. On the first night that Clyde visited Bonnie's home he was arrested on seven counts of burglary and car theft. He was sent to jail for two years, only to escape when Bonnie smuggled a gun into his cell. He was recaptured after robbing a railway office at gunpoint, only a few days after his escape. This time he was handed a 14 years sentence.

Life in Texas prisons was brutal and extremely tough. Clyde was so desperate to get out that he persuaded another prisoner to cut off two of his toes with an axe. He was released and walked away on crutches – straight back to Bonnie Parker, the new love of his life.

In an effort to please Bonnie's mother, he took a job in Massachusetts in an attempt to make an honest living. But he could not bear to be so far from home and was soon back in West Dallas . Bonnie left home with him just three days later to embark on a life of robbery and murder. The couple was joined by a friend of Clyde 's named Ray Hamilton, and two other men.

The first murder was committed in April 1932 for the paltry sum of 40 dollars. Barrow shot a jeweller named John W Bucher in Hillsboro , Texas , when the man was foolish enough to follow them out of his store, loudly demanding his money back. Ms Parker was in jail at the time on suspicion of grand theft auto, but she was released three months later for lack of evidence. During that time Clyde and his associates brutally gunned down a Sheriff and his deputy outside a dancehall in Dallas .

The Barrow gang's biggest ever haul was 3,500 dollars, stolen from a filling station at Grand Prairie . Bonnie and Clyde decided to celebrate with a motoring holiday around Missouri , Kansas and Michigan , saying at top hotels and eating at expensive restaurants.

Not surprisingly, the money did not last long. The gang soon reverted to petty crime, sometimes murdering for small amounts of money. Barrow coolly shot a Texas butcher three times in the stomach before robbing him, and William Jones, a 16-year-old member of the Barrow gang shot dead the owner of a car they were stealing. Shooting to kill was now an automatic reflex, and something they enjoyed.

In March 1933 the gang was joined in Missouri by Clyde 's brother Buck and his wife Blanche. They narrowly escaped arrest from the apartment they were staying at, killing two policemen during their escape bid.

On Easter Sunday, Patrolman Wayne Ralston stopped their stolen car just outside Austin . As Barrow distracted him by pretending to look for his driver's licence and registration, Bonnie leaned out of the passenger window and shot him twice with a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver. As the lawman lay on the ground bleeding profusely, she finished him off by blasting him in the face with a sawn-off shotgun, and then yelled to her boyfriend, “Look-a-here, Clyde ! His head bounced just like a rubber ball!” Bonnie Parker was now clearly as much a psychopath as Clyde Barrow was.

These actions put them beyond the pale as far as local police were concerned. In future, they would not try and arrest the Barrow gang. The state would not be put to the time and expense of a trial. All members of the gang were marked down for execution. The fact that they were becoming folk heroes in America 's depression-era Deep South would not gain them a reprieve from the officers of law enforcement.

It was now no longer safe for the fugitives to stay anywhere in four states and they fled from town to town in stolen cars, robbing and killing as they went. They were both aware that they would not remain at liberty for much longer and, indeed, Bonnie predicted their deaths in her poem ‘The Story of Bonnie and Clyde' which she sent to a Texas newspaper, which published it on the front page, further embellishing the legend of the outlaw couple. Young love, violence and handguns are a powerful newsworthy mixture that the media cannot resist even today.

Bonnie's greatest fear was that she might not again see her mother, to whom she was deeply attached. They met for the last time in December 1933. Near Wellington , Texas in February 1934, their stolen car plunged to the bottom of a gorge. Clyde and Jones were thrown clear but Bonnie was trapped and seriously burned when the vehicle caught fire. She was rescued, with the help of a local farmer. The gang was sheltered for a few days by the farmer and his family who soon become suspicious and contacted the police. Once again, they escaped after a shootout, and were rejoined by Buck and Blanche. But Bonnie was still seriously injured.

In July, the Barrow gang decided to rest up at a tourist camp in Missouri . Once again, they were spotted and a police ambush set up. Although they shot their way to freedom Buck was hit in the head and Blanche was blinded by flying glass. Desperately hungry, and with two women injured, Clyde decided to stop and buy food. Within minutes the police were on them again and Buck was shot in the hip, shoulders and back. Clyde drove off, leaving him to die. The police found Buck with his wife crouched over him, sobbing hysterically. Buck died in prison six days later and Blanche was put on trial and given a ten-year prison term.

As Bonnie slowly recovered from her burns, the gang spent the following three months desperately running from the law, but their luck could not hold out. On 23 May 1934, their Ford V-8 Sedan was ambushed by six police officers near Gibsland , Louisiana . Lawmen hiding in bushes by the roadside opened up with Thompson sub-machine guns and 12-guage shotguns, and the car was riddled with 87 rounds. The couple died immediately, their bodies bloody and broken. Clyde was aged twenty-five and Bonnie just twenty-three.

Incredibly, the glamorous legend of the two ruthless lovers did not die out – it was only just getting into full drive. Vast crowds flocked to their joint funeral in Dallas . People snatched flowers from the coffins as souvenirs. Time has done nothing to erase the memory of Bonnie and Clyde , and the 1967 movie only enhanced their reputation worldwide. Despite their callous and cruel deeds, they are remembered by many as modern day versions of Robin Hood. There is little evidence, however, that they robbed from the rich to give to the poor like England 's mythical 13th century outlaw from Nottingham . Bonnie and Clyde lived by the gun and they died by the gun – together.

(Research, ‘The World's Worst Murders', Chancellor Press, 2001)

IF YOU need a check on my True Crime series of stories, published in the Hua Hin Observer, here is a complete list to date:
April 2002 -The Green Bicycle case, 1921. May 2002 - The Craig/Bentley Case, 1952. June 2002 - The A6 Murder Case, 1961. July 2002 - Murder of the Earl of Errol, 1941. August 2002 - The O J Simpson murder trial, 1995. September 2002 - The Aileen Wuornos case, 1989. October 2002 - The Ronald Opus case, 1993. November 2002 - Madame X, 1929. December 2002 - The Spree Killer, 1984. January 2003 - Shootout at Smiths' Club, 1966. February 2003 - The Christine Dryland case, 1991. March 2003 - Poisoned Pie in Essex, 1982. April 2003 - The Heydrich assassination, 1943. May 2003 - The Diana Davidson Murder case, 1969. June 2003 - The death of Alkibiades, 404 BC. July 2003 - The headsman of Colmar, 1780. August 2003 - The Ruth Ellis case, 1955. September 2003 - The Mel Jones Murder case, 1975. October 2003 - The Bluebeard of the bath, 1915. November 2003 - Murder in a combat zone, 1966. December 2003 - The Barn Restaurant murder case, 1972. January 2004 - The assassination of JFK, 1963. February 2004 - Judge Falcone and the Mafia, 1992. March 2004 - Gilles de Rais/Bluebeard, 1404-1440. April 2004 - The hand in the sand case, 1885. May 2004 - The body in the bag, 1979.

MAKES YOU THINK 

When an old lady died in the geriatric ward of a small hospital near Dundee , Scotland , it was believed that she had nothing left of any value.

Later, when the nurses were going through her meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital. One nurse took her copy to Ireland.

The old lady's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the North Ireland Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on her simple, but eloquent, poem. And this little old Scottish lady, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this “anonymous” poem winging across the Internet:

What do you see, nurses, what do you see?

What are you thinking when you're looking at me?

A crabby old woman, not very wise,

Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles her food and makes no reply

When you say in a loud voice, "I do wish you'd try!"

Who seems not to notice the things that you do,

And forever is losing a stocking or shoe.....

Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will,

With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill....

Is that what you're thinking?

Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes, nurse; you're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still,

As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.

I'm a small child of ten ...with a father and mother,

Brothers and sisters, who love one another.

A young girl of sixteen, with wings on her feet,

Dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet.

A bride soon at twenty -- my heart gives a leap,

Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.

At twenty-five now, I have young of my own,

Who need me to guide and a secure happy home.

A woman of thirty, my young now grown fast,

Bound to each other with ties that should last.

At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,

But my man's beside me to see I don't mourn.

At fifty once more, babies play round my knee,

Again we know children, my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead;

I look at the future, I shudder with dread.

For my young are all rearing young of their own,

And I think of the years and the love that I've known.

I'm now an old woman ... and nature is cruel;

'Tis jest to make old age look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles, grace and vigor depart,

There is now a stone where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,

And now and again, my battered heart swells.

I remember the joys, I remember the pain,

And I'm loving and living life over again.

I think of the years ... all too few, gone too fast,

And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, people, open and see,

Not a crabby old woman; look closer ... see ME!!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an old person who you might Brush aside without looking at the young soul within...we will all, one day, be there, too! “Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.”

Thanks to Gary at GDL pools for this one.

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