Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910-May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut Barrow (March 24, 1909-May 23, 1934) were an American criminal couple who travelled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression, known for their bank robberies, although they preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations.
Their exploits captured the attention of the American press and its readership during what is occasionally referred to as the public enemy era between 1931 and 1934. They are believed to have murdered at least nine police officers and four civilians.
They were killed in May 1934 during an ambush by police near Gibsland, Louisiana.
The press's portrayal of Bonnie and Clyde was sometimes at odds with the reality of their life on the road, especially for Parker. She was present at 100 or more felonies during the two years that she was Barrow's companion, although she was not the cigar-smoking, machine gun-wielding killer depicted in newspapers, newsreels, and pulp detective magazines of the day.
Nonetheless, numerous police accounts detail her attempts to murder police officers, although gang member W.D. Jones contradicted them at trial. A photo of Parker posing with a cigar came from an undeveloped roll of film that police found at an abandoned hideout, and the snapshot was published nationwide. Parker did smoke cigarettes, although she never smoked cigars.
According to historian Jeff Guinn, the photos found at the hideout resulted in Parker's glamorization and the creation of myths about the gang.
The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the title roles, revived interest in the criminals and glamorized them with a romantic aura. The 2019 Netflix film The Highwaymen depicted the law's pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde.
More information: FBI
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in 1910 in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father Charles Robert Parker (1884-1911) was a bricklayer who died when Bonnie was 1 year old. Her widowed mother Emma (Krause) Parker (1885-1944) moved her family back to her parents' home in Cement City, an industrial suburb in West Dallas where she worked as a seamstress.
As an adult, Bonnie wrote poems such as The Story of Suicide Sal and The Trail's End, the latter more commonly known as The Story of Bonnie and Clyde.
In her second year in high school, Parker met Roy Thornton (1908-1937). The couple dropped out of school and married on September 25, 1926, six days before her 16th birthday. Their marriage was marred by his frequent absences and brushes with the law, and it proved to be short-lived. They never divorced, but their paths never crossed again after January 1929. She was still wearing his wedding ring when she died.
Thornton was in prison when he heard of her death. He commented, I'm glad they went out like they did. It's much better than being caught. Sentenced to 5 years for robbery in 1933 and after attempting several prison breaks from other facilities, Thornton was killed while trying to escape from the Huntsville State Prison on October 3, 1937.
After the end of her marriage, Parker moved back in with her mother and worked as a waitress in Dallas. One of her regular customers was postal worker Ted Hinton.
In 1932, he joined the Dallas Sheriff's Department and eventually served as a member of the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde.
Parker briefly kept a diary early in 1929 when she was 18, in which she wrote of her loneliness, her impatience with life in Dallas, and her love of talking pictures.
More information: Smithsonian Magazine
Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born in 1909 into a poor farming family in Ellis County, Texas, southeast of Dallas. He was the fifth of seven children of Henry Basil Barrow (1874-1957) and Cumie Talitha Walker (1874-1942). The family moved to Dallas in the early 1920s, part of a migration pattern from rural areas to the city, where many settled in the urban slum of West Dallas. The Barrows spent their first months in West Dallas living under their wagon until they got enough money to buy a tent.
Barrow was first arrested in late 1926, at age 17, after running when police confronted him over a rental car that he had failed to return on time. His second arrest was with his brother Buck soon after for possession of stolen turkeys.
Clyde was sent to Eastham Prison Farm in April 1930 at the age of 21. He escaped from the prison farm shortly after his incarceration using a weapon Parker smuggled to him. He was recaptured shortly after and sent back to prison.
Barrow was repeatedly sexually assaulted while in prison, and he retaliated by attacking and killing his tormentor with a pipe, crushing his skull. This was his first killing. Another inmate, who was already serving a life sentence, claimed responsibility.
In order to avoid hard labour in the fields, Barrow purposely had two of his toes chopped off by either him or another inmate in late January 1932. Because of this, he walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
However, Barrow was set free six days after his intentional injury. Without his knowledge, Barrow's mother had successfully petitioned for his release. He was paroled on February 2, 1932 from Eastham as a hardened and bitter criminal. His sister Marie said, Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison because he wasn't the same person when he got out. Fellow inmate Ralph Fults said that he watched Clyde change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake.
In his post-Eastham career, Barrow robbed grocery stores and gas stations at a rate far outpacing the ten or so bank robberies attributed to him and the Barrow Gang. His favourite weapon was the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR).
More information: History
According to John Neal Phillips, Barrow's goal in life was not to gain fame or fortune from robbing banks but to seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses that he suffered while serving time.
Several accounts describe Parker and Barrow's first meeting. The most credible states that they met on January 5, 1930 at the home of Barrow's friend Clarence Clay at 105 Herbert Street in the neighbourhood of West Dallas.
Barrow was 20 years old, and Parker was 19. Parker was out of work and staying with a female friend to assist her during her recovery from a broken arm. Barrow dropped by the girl's house while Parker was in the kitchen making hot chocolate. Both were smitten immediately; most historians believe that Parker joined Barrow because she had fallen in love with him. She remained his loyal companion as they carried out their many crimes and awaited the violent death that they viewed as inevitable.
Barrow and Parker were killed on May 23, 1934, on a rural road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
More information: Bonnie & Clyde History
It has been a part of urban life for years,
offering an aggressive definition and identity
to those seeking a place to belong
in the chaos of large metropolitan areas.
Dave Reichert
No comments:
Post a Comment