Bonnie and Clyde time of life. The true story of Bonnie and Clyde - photo. And he once confessed to me bitterly

Their names have long become household names, and time has brought gloss to the events of past years, softened compromising details, myths give them a romantic aura of extraordinary personalities who challenge “unjust” authorities. Films are made about them, poems are even dedicated to them. And now their names are clearly connected by the phrase “the story of one love.” People tend to forgive, but what was it like, the real life of Bonnie and Clyde, the one real life, and not the Hollywood gloss of films?

A homosexual and an adventurer, both of them were obsessed with a passion for violence, thirsted for the glory of great gangsters, numerous high-profile newspaper publications and photographs.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who roamed America in the early 1930s, were ruthless killers but found themselves immortalized in films, songs and legends. They never became great gangsters - most of the thefts and robberies were committed at gas stations, in small shops and eateries in small towns. But cruelty and reckless audacity, and most importantly, the complete senselessness of the murders committed, made them truly legendary.

Clyde Chestnut Barrow born March 24, 1909 near Telico, Texas. He was the fifth child in a family of seven or eight children, his parents were poor farmers, and he lived on a farm until he was 13 years old. He rarely appeared at school, preferring to play with wooden pistols and wander around, enviously looking at the cars of wealthy citizens. In 1922, the Barrow family went bankrupt and Clyde's father moved to West Dallas. Having reached the age of 16, Clyde dropped out of school. Already in his youth, his older brother Buck taught Clyde his first lessons in theft. The police first arrested Clyde for car theft in 1926, but could not prove anything. A second arrest soon followed, after Clyde and his brother Buck stole turkeys. After several petty thefts, the teenager was placed in a juvenile reform school, but the school could not fix anything, and Clyde ended up robbing roadside restaurants and small gas stations. In such country places you can most often get hold of a very small amount, but he understood that it was much safer to rob in small things.

In his further “exploits”, Clyde significantly surpassed his brother; he joined the ranks of the teenage gang “Root Square”, which “stripped” cars.

In 1928, Clyde ran away from home and carried out his first independent criminal operation. With a broken pistol, he burst into the gaming room, disarmed the guards and seized the proceeds. The next time he tried to commit a burglary at night and almost got caught. That same year, after a failed raid on a dining car, Buck was convicted and Clyde, pursued by the police, went to Texas. In January 1930, hungry, he went into one of the Dallas cafes, where a meeting of two future accomplices took place - a pretty waitress served Clyde a hamburger.

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker born October 1, 1910 in Rowena, Texas. When Bonnie was four years old, her father, a mason by profession, died, and her mother and three children moved to the suburbs of Dallas, where the girl went to school at the age of 14. Bonnie studied very well, receiving high marks in literature and acting. The girl's biggest hobby is photography, but after two years she got bored with her studies, and on September 25, 1926, Bonnie married young man named Roy Thornton. Family life did not work out, and after leaving her husband, seventeen-year-old Bonnie got a job as a waitress at Marco's Cafe in East Dallas. Despite the breakup with her husband, Bonnie did not take off her wedding ring until her death. “A little blonde bundle” (with a height of 150 cm, she weighed 44 kg) - this is what Bonnie wrote about herself in her diary.

America, 30s, Great Depression. Bonnie Parker works as a waitress in a creepy outback and, not without reason, assumes that her future life will be boring, poor and hopeless. Therefore, when the charming, although not entirely law-abiding Clyde Barrow suddenly appears in Bonnie’s field of view, he immediately attracts her attention by the fact that he does not accept the laws of this damn world, preferring to establish his own rules of behavior. She was interested in the exciting stories about the life of a reckless tramp that Clyde told her. This was the beginning of a truly hellish union.

The relationship between the homosexual Barrow and Parker was quite strange. He changed his sexual orientation while in prison and lost two toes under unclear circumstances. It was a surrogate of love, mixed with threats and violence. As a woman, she was of little interest to the gang leader. In the near future, Bonnie will be content with love affairs with other gang members.

They fueled their friendship with stories of robberies and brutal fights. Bonnie moved with Clyde into a small furnished apartment in Dallas. The all-consuming passion of this strange couple was weapons. Bonnie admired the pistols that her suitor carried in a holster under his coat, and the power that came from the death-carrying barrels. They made regular trips out of town to practice shooting. Soon both were shooting with equal accuracy from almost all types of weapons. The couple loved to be photographed with weapons: Bonnie posed in front of the lens with a pistol in her hands and a cigarette in her teeth. Clyde with a rifle looked simpler in the photographs - he lacked the artistry of his girlfriend.

Over time, Bonnie and Clyde began to "work" together. The robberies followed the same scenario. Bonnie got behind the wheel of the car, and they drove up to the intended object. Clyde would burst into the room and “take the cash register,” then rush to the car, jump into it while it was moving, and cover the escape with fire.Risky adventures excited BonnieParker is much more than intimate encounters with Clyde. Three months later, Clyde got into trouble at the scene of a theft in Texas. He was arrested at an apartment in Dallas and sentenced to two years in prison, which he never served. His brother Buck escaped from prison, and Clyde sent an encrypted letter with him to his accomplice asking him to organize his escape. Thanks to a cursory search, she was able to give Clyde the weapon during a visit in prison. That same night, the criminal escaped and traveled to Ohio on freight trains.

But Clyde Barrow was only free for a week. He was arrested again and this time sent to a maximum security federal prison.

The robber's mother, Cammie Barrow, bombarded the state governor with requests for leniency. On February 2, 1932, Clyde was released on parole. After leaving prison, he swore to Bonnie that he would rather die than go back to jail. For the rest of his life, this villain remembered the dungeons of the “burning hell”, where he was beaten with whips and forced to do gymnastic exercises until the poor fellow fell exhausted.

Bonnie Parker was the next to go to jail. The criminals stole another car and fled from pursuit. The car crashed into a tree. Clyde managed to escape, and his accomplice was captured and sentenced to two months in prison. While Bonnie sat, Clyde continued to rob stores in small towns and gas stations on highways. In Hillsboro, Texas, he killed 65-year-old John Bacher, the owner of a jewelry store. The "revenue" was only ten dollars.
When Bonnie was released, they went back to their old ways. The catches are insignificant, and Bonnie is indignant. She is a proponent of big action.Therefore, Bonnie introduced Clyde to her former lover, Raymond Hamilton. Hamilton was worthy of the duo he joined. He regularly slept with Bonnie... and Clyde. This sexual triangle suited all three.

On April 27, 1932, they go on a joint mission - to rob a music store. However, the seller refused to open the cash register, resisted, and had to be shot. The loot was only $40, but now he is not afraid of anything, since he has already earned the death penalty if caught.

On August 5, 1932, Clyde planned to rob an usher at a country festival in Atoka, Oklahoma. Two law enforcement officers - Sheriff Charles Maxwell and his deputy Eugene Moore - saw him wandering around aimlessly. “Come into the light, boy, so I can get a better look at you,” Sheriff Maxwell addressed the suspicious guy, and these were his last words. Clyde threw back his coat and, grabbing two automatic pistols at once, killed both policemen with point-blank shots.

After that, Bonnie told the guys that it was enough to play with toys, it was time to get down to real business. Thus the criminal gang began its deadly odyssey.

They robbed an arms warehouse in Texas and armed themselves to the teeth, then shot a dozen mounted police who were blocking the roads. The raiders ransacked liquor stores, gas stations, and groceries, sometimes just for a few dollars. One day, criminals kidnapped the sheriff, stripped him, tied him up, and left him on the side of the road with the words: “Tell your people that we are not a gang of murderers. Put yourself in the position of people trying to survive this damn depression.”

Wandering around, they lived like bandits in the old days: they slept by camp fires and ate game. At night they drank whiskey, and Bonnie wrote pompous romantic poems in which she bemoaned her fate. Persecuted by the law, in reality they were a new generation of heroes - this is how the failed poetess presented her “exploits”. In the fall of 1932, Bonnie and Clyde headed to New Mexico with Roy Hamilton joining them, but the profit did not seem as great to them as in Texas, and they returned back.

They killed people frequently and indiscriminately. Thus, Clyde took the life of a butcher who rushed with a knife to defend his 50 dollars; killed Doyle Johnson in Temple while he was trying to prevent his car from being stolen; shot and killed two police officers who were waiting in ambush for another robber in Dallas. In Dallas he joins the gangWilliam Jones. In the future, he will tell the police the details of the life of the criminal couple.
Like gypsies, they traveled around the southwestern United States, robbing shops and garages. Hamilton was soon arrested and sentenced to 264 years in prison.

Robbery attacks became more frequent when Buck and his wife Blanche reappeared in the gang. In Kansas, they robbed the office of a loan and credit society. There, Bonnie first saw a "Police Wanted" poster with her image on it. The fact that she and Clyde had become "celebrities" shocked Bonnie so much that she immediately sent a dozen letters to major newspapers with pictures that she and Clyde had taken along their criminal path. Bonnie supported by all means available to her the version that she and Clyde were fighters for justice. After all, the banks they rob belong to the powers that be, not poor farmers and small businessmen. Bonnie, of course, did not mention the pathological pleasure that both received from killing the same farmers.

During this time, Bonnie was working on a bombastic autobiographical poem. In the future this opus was published in newspapers.

In 1933, robbers turned their attention mainly to small banks in small towns in Indiana, Minnesota and Texas.

One day they were hiding in rental log cabins in Missouri. The raiders did not attract attention, but the manager became suspicious when they paid the rent in small coins. He reported his suspicions to the police.
The guests' physical descriptions matched those of the criminals, and a hundred "cops" were sent to lay siege to the gang's suspected hideout.
To everyone's surprise, the criminals disappeared again, leaving three dead officers.
Blanche was shot in the leg, Clyde was slightly wounded in the head, Bonnie was hit in the rib by a bullet, and Buck... Buck received his last bullet in his life.

In the wooded area of ​​Iowa, the bandits licked their wounds and did everything to save Buck, but they could no longer help him.

They were deciding where to leave the dying Buck when Clyde felt some movement in the thickets and bullets immediately rained down on the camp. The criminals responded with fire. Even the mortally wounded Buck fired several machine-gun bursts at the police. Bonnie, Clyde and Jones managed to slip into the undergrowth and escape. The tank was riddled with bullets. The police found Blanche sobbing inconsolably over the body of her murdered husband.

Feeling the pursuit, the duo quickly retreated north to Minnesota, reasonably believing that in a state where they had committed fewer crimes, they would not have as many problems. They stole laundry from the lines and ate garbage.
Jones, who rejoined them, later told police: “It wasn’t the same life. We were like ordinary tramps.”

Jones was the first of the bandits to become fed up with this life and ran away from his accomplices to Texas, where he was immediately arrested. He told the police everything he knew about the gang's activities. “These two are monsters,” said the fugitive. “I have never seen anyone else who enjoys killing so much.”

The following month, Bonnie and Clyde snuck into Texas to meet Clyde's mother at a suburban rest area. Here this couple almost got caught - Cammy Barrow was being followed by the sheriff's people who surrounded the picnic site. Warned by some sixth sense, Clyde rushed as fast as he could to the car that had been left nearby. The trunk of the car was riddled with bullets, and he and Bonnie were slightly injured, but they were lucky.

In January 1934, Clyde launched a daring attack on the prison farm where Hamilton was being taken to work, and after a shootout with guards, he freed him and several other prisoners. Joe Palmer and Henry Methvin join the gang. The Barrow gang was growing in strength again. Again, a wave of murders, car thefts, and weapons thefts swept through different towns. Soon, however, after a quarrel over the division of the loot, Hamilton leaves his colleagues.

The wild morals of the raiders, their unbridled passions and base desires terrified people.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has instructed police personnel to shoot to kill and ask questions later. This was tantamount to declaring war on the bandits terrorizing the population. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover said: "Clyde is a psychopath. He must be destroyed like a rabid animal."

What and with whom did Bonnie and Clyde fight? Why were rivers of human blood shed? Readers who recently admired Bonnie Parker's romantic poem have already realized that the heroes are far from Robin Hood. These were greedy, ruthless killers.
Meanwhile, the ring around the Barrow gang was inexorably shrinking. Texas Sheriff Frank Hamer, who had neutralized 65 notorious criminals during his career, was tasked with tracking down Bonnie and Clyde. Hamer analyzed each of their attacks, created maps and diagrams of their movements over all these years, studied all the raid sites and the paths they chose. “I wanted to penetrate their diabolical plans,” he said, “and I did it.” Several times during the first months of 1934, Hamer and his men were on the trail of the bandits, but the police were constantly unlucky - they were always late.

At this time, Hamilton was detained in Texas, and in order to avoid the death penalty, he attributes all the crimes to Bonnie and Clyde. Having learned about this from the newspapers, Clyde writes a mocking letter to the judge, fully confirming Hamilton's testimony.

In April, the remnants of the criminal group headed to Texas, hoping to sit quietly with Bonnie's relatives, but as they approached the town of Grainwine, police officers Ernest Wheeler and Harold Murphy rode past on motorcycles. Sensing something was wrong, Clyde stopped the car.

The police, who became suspicious, turned back. When they drew level, Clyde fired from both guns at once.

The criminals managed to escape again. Two weeks later in Oklahoma, when Clyde's car got stuck in the mud, two "cops" approached them. One of them received a bullet in the head, the second was luckier - he was slightly wounded. Thus, the total number of victims became about one and a half dozen.

The police discovered a house where criminals were hiding from time to time. They needed a key to the door, which could be in the possession of the third member of the gang, Metvin. His father promised to help lure the gang into an ambush if Hamer spared his son. The sheriff, who was primarily interested in catching Bonnie and Clyde, went for it.
Henry Methvin agreed to act in concert with his father and quietly slipped out of the bandit's lair.
Soon the police surrounded the shelter and blocked the road leading to it. They were armed with machine guns, automatic rifles, and large quantities of tear gas grenades. This time the police had every chance to catch the criminals.
On the morning of May 23, 1934, a Ford appeared on the road, which the couple had stolen a week earlier. Clyde was driving. He was wearing dark glasses to protect him from the bright spring sun. Next to Clyde sat his inseparable companion in a new red dress, stolen along with other things a few weeks ago. Two thousand rounds of ammunition, three rifles, twelve pistols and two gas guns were hidden in the car.
Methvin Sr.'s truck was parked at the edge of the road. When Clyde caught up with him, he asked if his son had appeared. Metvin, seeing the approaching police car, shook with fear and dived under his truck. The sheriff jumped out of the car and ordered the bandits to surrender. But this command acted on the criminal couple like a red rag on a bull.

With lightning speed, Clyde opened the car door and grabbed the shotgun. Bonnie pulled out her revolver.

But this time they had nothing to hope for. Lead hail fell on their car. 167 bullets pierced the car, of which 50 hit the bandits. The front pages of American newspapers were filled with reports of the death of Bonnie and Clyde. The mutilated bodies of criminals were put on public display in the morgue, and anyone could look at them for one dollar. There were quite a lot of curious people.

Ten years later, Roy Hamilton was sentenced to death. Before his death, he recalled: “They loved to kill people, see how blood flows, and took pleasure in this spectacle. And they never missed the opportunity to enjoy the sight of someone else’s death. These people did not know what pity and compassion were.”

The family of the deceased criminal tried to create a different, romantic image of Bonnie. The inscription on her gravestone reads: “As flowers bloom under the rays of the sun and the freshness of the dew, so the world becomes brighter thanks to people like you.”

Such an epitaph for someone who left behind such an unkind bloody memory sounds somewhat strange.

Victims of the Great Depression. Lost generation. This may somehow explain the goal, but it cannot justify the means to achieve it. Time leaves its traces on everything. It left the stamp of myth on the lives of Bonnie and Clyde. And numerous stories, true and not entirely true, give the robbers a romantic aura of extraordinary personalities who challenge the authorities, but in reality Bonnie Parker and Clyde Burrow turned out to be just ruthless killers.

The gangster story of love and crime of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow began in the era of the Great Depression, when freedom-loving, daring natures did not want to eke out a miserable existence, but took up arms and went into gangland. In addition to the famous love couple, the gang included half a dozen more people, including Clyde’s older brother Buck and his wife Blanche. All gang members were killed or arrested, but it was Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow who lasted the longest.

Interesting facts about the life of Bonnie and Clyde

1. The first time Barrow was arrested was for failing to return a rental car on time. This happened in 1926, when a young man rented a car to visit his girlfriend and expired the contract. The rental agency dropped the theft charges, but criminal charges were already filed against Clyde Chesnut Barrow. Soon his folder will become thick and soaked in blood.

Police station photo of Clyde Barrow

2. Instead of a malicious bandit, America could have gotten a heroic sailor, but the Navy rejected the promising recruit because of malaria he suffered as a child, although the young man had already managed to get a tattoo “USN” - (United States Navy) and subsequently was seriously worried that he was rejected for military service.

3. The mistress also had health problems after the bandits got into a serious accident on one of the country roads in Texas. The driver did not notice the sign about bridge repairs, only at the last moment avoiding a collision and flying into a river ravine at a speed of over 100 km/h. Parker, who was sitting in the passenger seat, suffered the most when the acid eroded parts of her right leg right down to the bone. After the accident, the bandit moved with great difficulty and lameness. Although here they looked like an ideal couple, because in his youth in prison, Clyde cut off two of his toes to evade labor duty. After his release, the former prisoner continued to walk with a limp.

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4. The famous raiders were very short - 150 cm (woman) and 162 cm (man).

5. Bonnie/Clyde are popularly remembered as bank robbers, although in reality they raided large financial institutions on a number of occasions. The main trade of the bandits were gas stations and small grocery stores, whose cash register was only $5-10.

6. Riddled with hundreds of bullets, the Ford V-8 in which the lovers died became a cult item and is still on display as a historical landmark in a Nevada casino.

7. The lovers wanted to be buried together, but their parents separated them after death. The mother did not approve of her daughter’s relationship with the seasoned raider and categorically forbade Bonnie and Clyde to be buried side by side.

Photos of Bonnie and Clyde

In the spring of 1933, the police raided the Barrow gang in a rented apartment in Joplin. After a fierce shootout, the criminals managed to escape, but in the apartment there was a huge collection of photos of Bonnie and Clyde, which the criminal lovers took at every opportunity. From early childhood, the future criminal showed a love for the arts, poetry and acting. Photography was a real passion for Parker, who loved to strike theatrical poses in front of the camera alone, with her beloved man and next to her car. The police found many such photographs in the robbers’ apartment and, by and large, this find became a key element in the hunt for the robbers, because the whole country recognized their faces - a large-scale raid began on the gang, which now had to spend the night in cars, an open field or a dense forest , and not on soft hotel feather beds.

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Death of Bonnie and Clyde

Paying tribute to the experience of the rangers, the main reason for the death of Bonnie and Clyde is the strong family ties and love for their parents, which the criminals retained until their death. Even after several years of highway robbery, the criminal couple constantly visited their parents, driving back and forth along the roads of Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnesota, Indiana, Louisiana, but always returning to their native Texas. This is where the gangsters got burned, because a team of Texas Rangers under the command of seasoned captain Frank Hamer (17 of his own wounds and 53 confirmed murders of criminals in his career as a bandit hunter) figured out their route and ambushed them on a country road near the town of Bienville, Louisiana. On May 23, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by four Texas Rangers and two Louisiana police officers. Back in 1933, the authorities announced a reward not for the living persons of the raiders, but for their corpses, so the lawyers did not stand on ceremony. In two minutes, 167 bullets were fired into the criminals’ car, 110 of which hit human targets, 60 hit a woman, 50 hit a man. Thus ended the story of the most famous American criminal duo of the 1930s.

Bonnie and Clyde are famous American robbers who operated during the Great Depression. Killed in 1934 FBI agents. Bonnie was 24 years old at the time of the murder, Clyde was 25 years old.

Bonnie was born into a poor family of a mason and seamstress with three children. Clyde comes from a family of poor farmers with seven children. Bonnie studied well, was a fashionista, and wrote poetry. Clyde, apparently, did not shine with education.

Everything in their lives happened extremely quickly and concentratedly.

Bonnie dropped out of school at age 15. She got married at 16. At 17 I got a job as a waitress. At 18 I separated from my husband. At 22, I met Clyde, and away we go...

(pictured is Bonnie and her first husband, whom she, by the way, never divorced)

At the age of 17, Clyde stole a car (rented it and did not return it), for which he was arrested. A little later he stole turkeys and was arrested again. At the age of 18-20 he began cracking safes, robbing stores and stealing cars, for which he was sent to prison at the age of 21. There he was raped. Clyde killed the rapist. There, Clyde lost two toes, which he chopped off as a sign of protest against the rules that prevailed in this establishment.

It is believed that it was in prison that Clyde finally “matured.” His sister Mary said, “Something terrible must have happened to him in prison, because he was never the same again.” Ralph Fults, who served time at the same time as Clyde, said he saw him go from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake. At the age of 23, Clyde was released early, after which he met Bonnie, and away we go...

They had only two years of life left, during which they had time to become famous as frostbitten murderers and robbers, about whom many legends would later be created, films would be made, and their names would become household names.

Bonnie and Clyde are usually portrayed as romantic lovers who were devoted to each other to the end. But, there are also slightly different opinions.

According to some sources, it is believed that Clyde was homosexual. Others claim that Bonnie and Clyde were lovers, but at the same time had sexual relations with other gang members. For example, it is known that Roy Hamilton was the lover of both.

(Pictured - Raymond Hamilton)

And then Roy also brought a girlfriend into the gang, which is why relations within the team became tense to the limit.

(Hamilton's girlfriend, whom he, by his own admission, loved more than anyone in the world, with the exception of his mother)

By the way, what is noteworthy is that Raymond Hamilton was sentenced to 264 years in prison for shooting the sheriff and his deputies while drunk.

Based on such “free” relationships and Clyde’s difficult orientation, some people believe that by definition there was no unearthly love between Bonnie and Clyde. Although there was no doubt that they were really very devoted to each other: Bonnie at one time pulled Clyde out of prison, giving him a weapon on a date, and Clyde later, when the police detained Bonnie, fought off his friend, brazenly attacking the police station .

And Bonnie’s mother, Emma Parker, said: “I immediately realized that there was something between them when Bonnie introduced him to me. I saw it in her eyes, in the way she held onto the sleeve of his jacket.”

It is believed that Bonnie became the brain center of the gang and thanks to her, crimes reached a new level.

Nevertheless, they explained their crimes, of course, not by their bloodthirstiness or passion for profit, but by “hard fate” and “fight against the system.”

Here, for example, are the poems Bonnie wrote in those two years:

“Nowadays Bonnie and Clyde are a famous duet,
All the newspapers are trumpeting about them.
There are no witnesses after their “work”,
All that remains is the stench of death.
But there are a lot of false words about them,
And they are not that cruel.
They hate informers and liars,
And the law is their mortal enemy."

One day, criminals kidnapped the sheriff, stripped him, tied him up, and threw him on the side of the road with the words: “Tell your people that we are not a gang of murderers. Put yourself in the shoes of people trying to get through this damn depression.”

“The country shook from cold murders,
And their cruelty is a grave sin,
But I knew Clyde in those days,
When he was like everyone else.

He was a good, simple Texas boy,
There was nothing to blame him for,
But life dealt him harshly
And pushed me onto the devilish path.”

After meeting, Bonnie and Clyde immediately became close. They often went out of town and learned to shoot accurately. Perhaps accurate shooting from all types of weapons became the only science in which they achieved perfection.

They also loved to be photographed with weapons: with a pistol or rifle in their hands, they often posed in front of the lens. In general, they were constantly photographed. And in 1933, fleeing from the police, the criminals left some things at the site of their home - a series of photographs and poems by Bonnie about the difficult fate of highwaymen. The evidence was left “by accident,” but here’s what’s interesting. The photographs were extremely posing: Bonnie and Clyde appeared as daring thugs with huge guns, cigars, in fashionable outfits and against the backdrop of a cool car.

Bonnie's poems talked about love and the expectation of imminent death under police bullets. After all this was published in the newspaper, the popularity of Bonnie and Clyde skyrocketed - they became the main characters of gossip columns.

One day in Kansas, Bonnie first saw a “Police Wanted” poster with her image on it. The fact that she and Clyde had become "celebrities" shocked Bonnie so much that she immediately sent a dozen letters to major newspapers with pictures that she and Clyde had taken along their criminal path.

In general, they loved PR. Actually, that’s why they eventually became so famous.

“If a police officer is suddenly killed in Dallas
And the "cops" have no clue,
The real killer will not be revealed
Bonnie and Clyde are responsible.

If the couple suddenly decides to calm down
And he will rent an apartment for himself,
In a couple of days they will get tired of everyday life,
And again with a machine gun in his hand.

And he once confessed to me bitterly:
“I cannot see a century of freedom.
My life will end on the fire of hell,
And there will be retribution!"

The unreliable path is getting darker and more terrible,
The struggle becomes more and more meaningless.
May we become rich someday
But never free!

They didn't think they were stronger than everyone else
After all, the law cannot be defeated!
And that death will be the payment for sin,
They both knew for sure.”

They started with the robbery of a weapons warehouse in Texas in the spring of 1930. There they armed themselves to the teeth. After that, they began to rob eateries, shops, and gas stations. By the way, in those days there was no way to make much money by robbing banks - the Great Depression raked out all the big money from the banks, and the gang sometimes received more by robbing some roadside store.

The robbery scenario was usually like this: Bonnie was driving the car, Clyde broke in and took the proceeds, then jumped into the car while shooting back. If someone tried to resist, they immediately received a bullet. However, they mercilessly removed innocent witnesses as well. They were not just robbers, they were murderers, and they included both ordinary people like owners of small shops and gas stations, and police officers whom Clyde preferred to kill in order to avoid prison.

After the murder of the first policeman who decided to check the documents of the suspicious couple from the car, there was nothing left to lose: now they were probably facing a death sentence. Therefore, Bonnie and Clyde went to great lengths and, without hesitation, fired at people in any situation, even when they were practically in no danger. On August 5, 1932, two police officers spotted Clyde at a village festival. When they asked him to come up, the bandit killed them both on the spot. A month later, breaking through police checkpoints on the road, the gang shot twelve guards of the law.

Of course, the police were constantly hunting for them. However, for the time being they were incredibly lucky. However, they had absolutely nothing to lose, so any attempts by the police to get at this gang were met with shooting.

However, the father of one of the gang members, in exchange for pardoning his son, offered his help in capturing the criminals. He gave the police the key to the house where Bonnie and Clyde were hiding. The house was surrounded by two dense rings of police, all entrances to it were blocked.

On the morning of May 23, 1934, a stolen Ford appeared on the road. The driver was wearing dark glasses, and a woman in a new red dress was sitting next to him. Hidden in the car were two thousand rounds of ammunition, three rifles, twelve pistols, two pump-action shotguns and... a saxophone. It was Bonnie and Clyde. Apparently they still hoped to get away.

However, they did not succeed. Before they could fire a single shot, they were shot dead by the police. They write that more than five hundred bullets pierced the bodies of the gangsters, and they were almost torn to pieces.

“May you suffer from heartaches,
And death will take away those who are decrepit.
But with the misfortunes of Bonnie and Clyde fate
Don't compare your small adversities!
The day will come and they will fall into eternal sleep
In the unsorrowful loose earth.
And the country and the law will breathe a sigh of relief,
Sending them into oblivion."

The mutilated bodies of criminals were put on public display in the morgue, and anyone could look at them for one dollar. There were quite a lot of curious people... All newspapers published photographs of the killed bandits.

After death, they became natural symbols, like moths, who lived their lives in the fight against the law and poverty. And they even wrote on Bonnie’s grave:

“Just as flowers bloom under the rays of the sun and the freshness of the dew, the world becomes brighter thanks to people like you.”

What kind of alternatively gifted person thought of writing this on the killer’s grave – I can only guess. But this is very revealing in the sense of how much crime can be romanticized. People even make tattoos with their images. So you can imagine their popularity.

By the way, several films have been made about Bonnie and Clyde. But I don’t think you can see anything interesting there. At least, judging by this photograph, it shows nothing more than glamorized gangsters in love with each other.

1935, May 23, morning - a dark red Ford was driving along a country road. Six riflemen armed with carbines were waiting for him behind the tall bushes. Inside the Ford there were a man and a girl, whose heads were valued at $50,000 by American police. When the vehicle arrived at the ambush site, all six shooters rose to their full height and opened heavy fire.

More than a hundred bullets riddled the car and everyone inside. The Ford drove a few more meters and stopped on the side of the road. The two bloody bodies just a moment ago were the legendary raiders Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. They were ranked among the most famous bandits in the United States. The reasons for this were more than solid.

The law pursued Bonnie and Clyde in a dozen states. They did not hesitate to shoot at anyone who tried to stop them. The news of their death spread across all the world's newspapers, but no one believed it. “This is another police canard,” said one of the respected American newspapers. “Someone needs political dividends in the upcoming elections, and he (and most likely “they”) intend to receive them even through official recognition, based at best on gossip.” And only when the public was presented with photographs of corpses and expert opinion about death, the Americans became convinced that they had lost their unlucky heroes.

Bonnie and Clyde became celebrities in two short years. They were indeed destined to become folk heroes - a modern Robin Hood and the maiden Maryam. But not for their victims and not for the police who hunted them down and killed them. For the police, they were simply trophies that could be shown to the whole world. Naked and unwashed, they were laid on tables in the morgue and photographed for history. Bonnie Parker was only 23, her partner a year older.

Clyde Barrow was born on March 24, 1909 in Teleco (Texas), in a small town near Dallas. He was the sixth and penultimate child in the family. At the age of nine, Clyde was sent to an institution for juvenile delinquents as an incorrigible truant and a petty thief. Teleko was located in a sandy basin. This was the name given to a vast area in the American southwest devastated by drought and intensive farming. 2/3 of the residents left in search of a better life. Among them was Clyde's father, who sold the farm for almost nothing. Clyde tried to provide for his family, but all his noble attempts went beyond the law.

1929 - young Clyde Barrow met young Bonnie Parker. Petite and slender, cheerful and smart, she was able to charm anyone. Bonnie's father died when she was only 4 years old. The mother, having taken the children, moved to live in Dallas, in a gloomy area that was called “cement city.” Bonnie and her sister Billy married early, and both married petty criminals. A year after the wedding, the first husband of the future raider, Roy, ran away with his mistress.

Bonnie didn’t feel sad for long: three months later she took in Clyde, who was being hunted by the police with all his might. Clyde Barrow, a thief and fraudster, spent only one night in bed with his beloved. Dawn had barely broken when the door burst off its hinges with a crash and three kids in uniform pounced on the sleepy thief. Clyde received 2 years in prison and 12 years probation.

And even though prison term and looked ridiculous for a professional thief, the energetic Clyde decided not to wait for him. His faithful Bonnie, having hidden a loaded Colt under her dress, was able to pass the weapon through the bars during their next date. The stern jailer at the checkpoint was embarrassed to search the sweet and friendly girl, from whom there was an air of genuine timidity and chastity.

That same night, an armed Clyde escaped from prison, but two days later he was already caught and again languished behind bars. He now faced a full sentence of 14 years. I had to resort to a small but painful operation. The local cell “surgeon” used a homemade knife to chop off two of his cellmate’s toes, moreover, at his own request. The wounded prisoner was released.

In the United States at that time, banditry flourished thanks to Prohibition. IN major cities the mafia was in charge, and in the provinces there was a hunt for bandits like John Dillinger. The country was gripped by a depression that followed the Wall Street stock market crash. More than three million families were forced to live on welfare. Employers were not interested in yesterday's prisoners.

Bonnie and Clyde, armed with revolvers, began to rob commercial establishments throughout Texas. Bonnie, covering her face with a dark silk scarf, fearlessly fired upward, while her partner hastily packed the money into her bag. This went on for several months until the raiders ran into a police ambush in Kaufman.

Clyde, firing back, took off running and escaped with only a slight wound to the shoulder. The police roughly restrained Bonnie, who was squealing and biting, and dragged her to the car. When the judges looked at the pretty young robber, they did not believe for a long time that they were actually the object of a criminal trial. Her appearance and touching notes took their toll: the raider was sentenced to only three years.

Bonnie, after serving two years, was released early for good behavior. Behind the prison walls, all her virtue disappeared again. Bonnie and Clyde were still together. Raid followed raid. During breaks, they had fun and posed for the camera. The pictures only increased their popularity. The press portrayed the bandits as ruthless lovers who roamed the cities of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, robbing and killing, while remaining a romantic couple.

In reality, everything was much more prosaic and even piquant. The prison turned the ardent Clyde into a bisexual. Very soon, the formidable gang was replenished with a third member - Ray Hamilton, with whom Clyde spent his prison term in lovemaking. For a long time, jealous Bonnie could not treat same-sex sex with understanding, then she got used to it and simply tried not to notice it.

Over the course of a year, the criminal trio killed 4 people, the first of whom was a jeweler. The raiders stole weapons, stole cars, and even targeted banks. The bank locks and employees whose hands lay a few centimeters from the red button could not resist their audacity. Ray Hamilton, although he considered himself lucky, was caught first.

Bonnie and Clyde hid for a month and decided to leave the state. A few days before leaving, they were again ambushed and opened with revolver fire. A sheriff's deputy was killed in a desperate shootout. The raiders managed to escape again, but now the entire Texas police were hunting them. Bonnie, who sensed her imminent death, decided to play with death openly. The gang was replenished with Clyde's brother named Buck and a certain 16-year-old youth named Wu De.

The raiders needed firearms. Bonnie proposed organizing a raid on the federal arsenal in Springfield, Missouri. The operation went brilliantly. The success was immediately celebrated by robbing a credit card company in Kansas City. While police were searching for the gangsters in six states, they made their way back to Dallas to visit their relatives. After the robbery of a jewelry store in Neosha, Bonnie and Clyde rented a house nearby, but a neighbor managed to notice how suspicious guns had moved into the house along with bags and boxes.

The police arrived 15 minutes later and immediately began taking casualties. The first volley from the window of the surrounded house killed two policemen. The law enforcement officers did not expect such a rebuff. Taking advantage of the confusion, the bandits jumped out of the house, got into the car and rushed along the dusty road. That night they drove nearly 400 miles from Neosha to Texas. Clyde's hand was bleeding; it was bandaged right away. Before this, Bonnie was able to pull the bullet out of the wound with a hairpin.

Despite all their fame, the bandits received tiny amounts of money. They captured the biggest prize - $2,500 - in May 1933 from the Okobino bank. The legendary John Dillinger commented on this event as follows: “A couple of scum. They're a disgrace to bank robbers." A week later, Clyde was driving at his usual crazy speed when the accident occurred. The car caught fire and overturned.

Clyde was able to open the door and jumped out of the burning salon. Bonnie was less agile. She received serious burns and was barely able to hobble to the nearest village. The compassionate family that sheltered the young couple suggested calling a doctor. Bonnie refused. Then the owner called the police.

Two officers arrived at the house and within minutes were ambushed. The raiders declared them hostages, got into a police car with them and drove at the same breakneck speed to the state line. At the border, the officers were released.
Bonnie recovered slowly. The raiders happened to hide in Kansas and Iowa. Despite all their caution, the police tracked them down again. Early in the morning, about two dozen police officers surrounded the house where Clyde and his Bonnie were basking in their pre-dawn slumber.

Sensitive Bonnie heard a slight noise, looked out from behind the curtain and was horrified. She woke Clyde, and together they tried to sneak out of the house unnoticed. The first shots rang out, and the bandits, firing left and right, rushed forward. They were able to reach the river and started swimming. Fortune helped Bonnie and Clyde again and again, who seemed drunk on risk.

Over the next 4 months they shot four more police officers. By that time Brother Buck was already buried in better world, struck by a bullet from a carbine. Little Wu De, captured at the border, was able to escape the electric chair. At the trial, he cried and screamed that he was forced to shoot and cut. Wu De begged for a pardon and went to federal prison for 15 years.

Sheriff Schmidt took up the elusive Bonnie and Clyde, ordering his best agents to catch the bandits alive or dead. The same ones, inspired by luck, attacked the farm where the prisoners were working, killed the guards and took five prisoners from the striped crowd. The new team began to destroy banking institutions, leaving corpses in their wake. Everything would have been fine, but Clyde’s sexual orientation showed up again.

Shameless Clyde flirted with two gang members, and they reciprocated. The third bandit brought his girlfriend into the group, and off we went. While the press treated the gangsters as a sensation, a quarrel developed among them not so much over sexual partnerships as over loot. The raids yielded a meager catch. Having quarreled and almost shot each other, the bandits split into two camps and dispersed.

Bonnie and Clyde traveled around the states, robbing and killing. During a long car rally, they stopped between corn fields, deciding to take a break. The loving couple drank whiskey, shot birds and made love. Soon she was noticed by two police officers from the highway patrol. The officers approached the car, not even knowing who they would have to deal with. Smiling welcomingly, Bonnie and Clyde opened fire in unison. After this cold-blooded murder, they signed their own death sentence: the romantic and sentimental part of the United States turned away from them. Now a reward has been announced for the capture of Bonnie and Clyde.

Federal authorities joined forces to capture the daring raiders. The search was led by mounted policeman Frank Hamer, who at one time shot and killed 60 bandits. Having secured himself with two fighters, he followed the trail of the raiders, not allowing them to rest and gain strength and ammunition. Bonnie and Clyde headed northeast toward Oklahoma.

A random police patrol tried to stop a suspicious car with bullet holes in the windshield. But a machine gun fired from the window. Two policemen fell on the road. One of them fell already dead. Local police chief Percy Boyd received minor head wounds and was taken hostage. The bandits kept him for 24 hours. In the end they somehow liked him and generously released him.

Percy Boyd began to share his impressions. According to him, Clyda stood out for his vanity and arrogance. As for Bonnie, the police chief liked her:

She is not at all like the one shown in the picture with a revolver in her hands and a cigar in her mouth. She was annoyed by the caption on the photo, “Clyde Barrow's Girlfriend Smoking Cigars,” and regretted ever posing. Bonnie looks like herself in the other photo. Where a smiling and cheerful girl stands. And you know, she really loves Clyde. This couple always carries a little rabbit named Sonny Boy with them in their car. They are going to give it to Bonnie's mother.

The last fact was a clue. A small police squad headed to Dallas and visited the mother of the most famous Texas raider. An aging, lonely woman sorted through photographs and stared blankly at the armed policemen. “I haven’t seen Bonnie in 5 years,” she said. “And even if she knew where she was, she still wouldn’t tell me.” A mother cannot betray her child, no matter what it is and no matter what is written about it.”

The mortally tired officers hoped that the raiders would make a mistake and waited. Clyde's Ford was spotted outside a cafe in Louisiana. The police assumed that the bandits were looking for a meeting with their former accomplice Henry Methven, whose father lived on a local farm. For some reason, all the local robberies were attributed to Bonnie and Clyde.

Six policemen crouched near Methven Snr's farm. Their car contained an entire arsenal of automatic weapons, but there was nothing that could brighten up the long wait. The officers were mortally tired, wet, and tormented by mosquito bites. They sat in ambush for three days and three nights. However, Bonnie and Clyde were on their guard. On May 23 at 4 am, officers stopped the car in which Henry Methven's father was driving. The old man was pulled out of the car, handcuffed to a tree, and the car was left in the middle of the road as bait.

At ten o'clock in the morning a familiar Ford appeared on the horizon. Clyde was driving. Noticing the bait, he slowed down, but the next second he stepped on the gas again. But it was already too late. A friendly volley of carbines rang out from the bushes. The Ford, shot almost point-blank, stopped. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker died violently, dying as they lived. Bonnie fell onto Clyde's shoulder.

Clyde was an excellent shot. Rarely did anyone survive if Clyde fired the first shot. The pistols and carbine were lying next to Bonnie, but the ambush took her by surprise. A few hours later, the first onlookers appeared at the shooting site. The Ford, riddled with bullets, was escorted to the police station by a long escort of 50 cars.

The dark red Ford was put on public display behind a high chain-link fence. This fence appeared after souvenir hunters tried to dismantle the car for parts. Some even got pieces of Bonnie's clothing and locks of hair before her body was taken out of the car. In the back seat they found three light machine guns, two shotguns, a dozen pistols and at least 1,000 rounds of ammunition. They were of no use to the bandits. More than a hundred bullets were lodged in two corpses.

The officers who shot the raiders became national heroes. There was chaos around the morgue. The crowd was eager to see the famous corpses. The morgue conducted filming to visually document the death. Bonnie's body was on display in Dallas before nearly 40,000 onlookers. A little less came to look at Clyde's corpse. The most curious were shown Clyde's torn jacket and his carbine, where there were seven notches on the butt - one for each victim.

20 people appeared in court on charges of harboring criminals. These were relatives and friends. The men were chained together with one long chain to prevent an attempt to attack the guards.

Clyde was buried next to his brother Buck in a west Dallas cemetery. A huge flower wreath was dropped from an airplane onto his grave. Bonnie wanted to be buried next to Clyde, but her body was taken to Fishtrap Cemetery.

Between robberies and murders, Bonnie sent her poems to many newspapers. An examination proved their authenticity. Among them was her own prophetic epitaph:

They don't consider themselves too cruel
They know that the law always wins.
They've been shot at before
And they remember that death is the punishment for sin.
Someday they will be killed together
And they will be buried side by side.
It will be sadness for few
And it will be a relief for the law,
And it will be death for Bonnie and Clyde.

On Bonnie’s grave, someone’s hand carved the inscription: “Just as flowers become sweeter from the sun and dew, so our old world becomes better thanks to people like you.”

And yet she was America's most cold-blooded and brutal raider.

The story of Bonnie and Clyde, perhaps the most famous criminal couple, is reminiscent of the fairy tale about “Beauty and the Beast,” only with a bad ending. But how did the relationship between these dangerous people actually develop?

The sad fate of little Bonnie

Of course, it is very difficult to classify the girl as a real seductress, but she was not without charm. Even being a real monster inside.

Childhood

Miss Parker was born on October 1, 1910 in one of the dull and unremarkable towns of Texas, Rowena. The girl’s mother did not work, her father was a bricklayer and somehow supported the family. Trouble came to little Bonnie's house with the death of her father. How exactly he died is unknown. However, according to some information, it can be understood that his life was interrupted by an accident at work.

The mother with three children did not linger in her hometown and moved to live in Ciment City. This is where it started sad story, which led to the death and grief of many people.

When did it all go wrong?

As before, the Parker family lived very poorly. The earnings from tailoring were barely enough for the girls, especially when they reached school age. Despite this, Bonnie was almost an excellent student. She had a knack for theater and loved to improvise. Her classmates noted the presence of a restless fantasy, as they often listened to Bonnie's fictional stories.

While studying in high school (around 1925), the girl met a certain Roy Thornton. He exuded danger, could dance and dressed beautifully. Which probably turned the inexperienced quiet head.

They married on September 25, 1926. Neither mother nor sisters were present at the wedding. Bonnie was left without family support, dropped out of school and soon went to work as a waitress at Marco's Cafe in Dallas. Her dreams of a happy marriage, prosperity, and a beautiful life crumbled to ashes. The cruel and merciless reality crushed everything that the girl had fantasized about for so long.

Roy almost immediately stopped paying attention to his young wife, preferring other women to her. Soon he completely disappeared, and after a while Bonnie became unemployed. America was swallowed up by the Great Depression, and the cafe went bankrupt. However, Bonnie never officially divorced her husband and wedding ring I wore it until my death.

The Ugly Life of a Boy with Great Expectations

Bonnie's future accomplice Clyde Barrow was also born in Texas. His parents earned their living by farming, and the boy was accustomed to hard work in the agriculture. However, Ellis County was not considered the most successful in terms of money; soon a large family went bankrupt and was forced to give their land and house to the bank.

In 1922, the Barrow couple and their 7 children moved to West Dallas. My father got a job at a gas station. Clyde was placed in the school closest to his home. The boy studied frankly poorly, conflicts with teachers became commonplace, and at the age of sixteen he dropped out of school.

Broken dreams

The beautiful life attracted Clyde with polished cars, expensive suits and gourmet food. But what could a young, albeit handsome, illiterate guy count on?.. A job as a loader or a gas station attendant, and only if he was lucky.

At first, Clyde wanted to live like everyone else and enlisted in the US Navy, but he was not accepted. A childhood illness crossed out the path to the military. The only memento that remains is the “USN” tattoo on his left arm.

How the story of Bonnie and Clyde began

The first steps in the gangster field

Then Mr. Barrow chose a different path. Easier and full of dangers. In 1926 he stole his first car. Everything turned out to be very simple: supposedly rent a car. Meanwhile, the police could not prove anything, the company withdrew the claim, and Clyde was released. He soon joined one of the major Dallas gangs. “Trivia” no longer interested him.

Oddly enough, Clyde was also not happy with his share of the raids. Therefore, in 1928, he committed his first serious crime. He robbed a gaming hall on his own, although he did not even have a working weapon with him. The pistol with which Clyde threatened the guards was broken.

Start

The story of Bonnie and Clyde began in 1929. The true date of their acquaintance is unknown: some researchers, for example, even date it to 1932. Nevertheless, they immediately liked each other and did not part until their death.
Also in 1932, Bonnie went to prison for the first time for attempting to rob a store. Only for three months, but the girl did not waste time there. In addition to letters to Clyde, she managed to write a collection of poetry consisting of ten odes.

Clyde Barrow received his first prison sentence a little earlier - in 1929. Then Bonnie brought a gun to the date, thus helping him escape. Only after three weeks the guy was caught and imprisoned for fourteen years. Clyde was not at a loss: as a sign of protest (or simply unwillingness to work), he cut off two of his toes. However, in vain: some time after the act of disobedience, he was released.

Crimes

From that moment on, the two-year epic of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow began. Together, and sometimes three (along with Raymond Hamilton, Bonnie’s former lover), they robbed everything that came their way. It wasn't always banks. For the most part, the couple destroyed gas stations and grocery stores. Sometimes their income was only ten dollars. But fame went before them.

In many ways, Bonnie and Clyde became famous thanks to rumors and staged photos taken by the bandits themselves, in which Parker stands near an expensive car with a cigar in his hand. Or aims a gun at Clyde's chest. Although Bonnie never smoked cigars, preferring regular Camel brand cigarettes. Her accomplice smoked the same ones.

Hamilton was soon caught and sentenced to 264 years. At the same time, Bonnie, in order to replace the retired shooter, learned to use the weapon herself. And quite accurately, according to eyewitness accounts.

On the night of June 10, 1933, Bonnie was wounded in the leg. Not from a stray bullet. The culprit was Clyde himself, who was driving the car at top speed and lost control. The girl's right leg was severely corroded by acid. Naturally, she did not go to the hospital, and remained forever crippled. Barrow blamed himself for this and supported Bonnie as best he could. During periods of severe pain, she walked leaning on Clyde.

When Buck Barrow and his friend William Jones were released from prison, the life of the gang began to sparkle with new colors.

Fatal contradictions

Bonnie was sitting in the car, the engine was running. She waited while the men did their dirty work. As soon as they got into the car, the reckless Parker took off. The police could only bite their elbows - no one could catch up with Bonnie.

The couple flew as if on wings. They forgot that luck can be fickle, and committed more and more daring robberies. Soon the police managed to kill Buck, and Jones himself came to justice. Such a life was not for him. However, these events not only did not stop Bonnie and Clyde, but also spurred them on even more.

Together, they released Hamilton from custody and returned to their “work.” They just didn’t take into account that the former accomplice had not forgotten about the loot and soon demanded his share be returned in full. Clyde, not wanting to share, expelled Hamilton from the gang.
The lone man was quickly arrested. Under threat of death, he told everything about how the story of Bonnie and Clyde began, including the smallest details. Make of car, approximate number of weapons, places and people with whom the couple came into contact. The ring around the elusive bandits narrowed.

The last adventure

Strangely, Clyde, having learned about his friend’s case from the newspapers, wrote a detailed letter to the editor, and Bonnie handed over their photos. It seemed that the young people had gone crazy if they were actually giving the police a confession of their own sins.

In the dead of night on May 23, 1934, Sheriff Frank Hammer and nine of his colleagues set up an ambush on the road. Unsuspecting Parker and Barrow were driving another stolen car and didn’t even have time to take out their weapons when they started shooting at them.

Later, the police believed that about 168 bullets were fired into the criminals’ car, more than half of them hit the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde. She was twenty-three and he was twenty-five.

Eyewitnesses almost tore the corpses to pieces, some even managed to cut off strands of Bonnie's hair.

Despite the girl's desire to be buried with Clyde, her mother acted differently. She could not, and did not want, to forgive the man who broke the fate of her daughter. On Bonnie Parker’s gravestone it is written: “Just as flowers are made more beautiful by the dew and the radiance of the sun, so this world, the old world, is made brighter by the rays of people like you.”