Bonnie Parker met the charismatic Clyde Barrow in Texas when she was
19 years old and her husband (she married when she was 16) was serving
time in jail for murder. Shortly after they met, Barrow was imprisoned
for robbery. Parker visited him every day, and smuggled a gun into
prison to help him escape, but he was soon caught in Ohio
and sent back to jail. When Barrow was paroled in 1932, he immediately
hooked up with Parker, and the couple began a life of crime together.
After they stole a car and committed several robberies, Parker was
caught by police and sent to jail for two months. Released in mid-1932,
she rejoined Barrow. Over the next two years, the couple teamed with
various accomplices to rob a string of banks and stores across five
states--Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, New Mexico
and Louisiana. To law enforcement agents, the Barrow Gang--including
Barrow's childhood friend, Raymond Hamilton, W.D. Jones, Henry Methvin,
Barrow's brother Buck and his wife Blanche, among others--were
cold-blooded criminals who didn't hesitate to kill anyone who got in
their way, especially police or sheriff's deputies. Among the public,
however, Parker and Barrow's reputation as dangerous outlaws was mixed
with a romantic view of the couple as "Robin Hood"-like folk heroes.
Their fame was increased by the fact that Bonnie was a woman--an
unlikely criminal--and by the fact that the couple posed for playful
photographs together, which were later found by police and released to
the media. Police almost captured the famous duo twice in the spring of
1933, with surprise raids on their hideouts in Joplin and Platte City,
Missouri. Buck Barrow was killed in the second raid, and Blanche was
arrested, but Bonnie and Clyde escaped once again. In January 1934, they
attacked the Eastham Prison Farm in Texas to help Hamilton break out of
jail, shooting several guards with machine guns and killing one.
Texan prison officials hired a retired Texas police officer, Captain
Frank Hamer, as a special investigator to track down Parker and Barrow.
After a three-month search, Hamer traced the couple to Louisiana, where
Henry Methvin's family lived. Before dawn on May 23, Hamer and a group
of Louisiana and Texas lawmen hid in the bushes along a country road
outside Sailes. When Parker and Barrow appeared, the officers opened
fire, killing the couple instantly in a hail of bullets.
All told, the Barrow Gang was believed responsible for the deaths of
13 people, including nine police officers. Parker and Barrow are still
seen by many as romantic figures, however, especially after the success
of the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history [23.05.12]
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