# Bonnie and Clyde

An episode of [Stuff You Should Know](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/278981407), 11 Aug 2026, 54 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a91018a4-ea4f-4130-bf55-ae270180c327/751b5230-fe86-434d-80dd-b4a20165416c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=44710ecc-10bb-48d1-93c7-ae270180c33e

You've probably seen the movie, but what else do you know about this legendary crime couple? Listen in to find out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
[0:11] Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck
[0:14] Speaker 1: and Jerry's here too, machine Gun Jerry Rowland and this
[0:18] Speaker 1: is Stuff you Should Know about Bonnie and Clyde. A
[0:22] Speaker 1: true crime edition but also a folk hero edition.
[0:25] Speaker 2: That's right, and it's given me an opportunity to get
[0:28] Speaker 2: that Bonnie and Clyde song stuck in my head all day,
[0:31] Speaker 2: which is great because I've never heard that song, Bonnie
[0:35] Speaker 2: and Clyde. Bonnie and Clyde, I think you're just making
[0:41] Speaker 2: that up now, it's for real. I think it was
[0:43] Speaker 2: Serge Gainsbourg, but I know the Luna version.
[0:47] Speaker 1: I came across that mention of that, so yeah, it
[0:50] Speaker 1: was Serge Gainsburg and Brigie Bardot.
[0:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, but Luna covered it. And speaking of Luna leader,
[0:58] Speaker 2: Dean Wareham's brother Anthony as a listener, So hello Anthony.
[1:02] Speaker 1: Wow, we finally got to Anthony.
[1:05] Speaker 2: I tried to buy Dean's guitar off of Instagram a
[1:08] Speaker 2: few weeks ago. How did he go, Well, he put
[1:11] Speaker 2: his guitar up and it's the one that's on the
[1:13] Speaker 2: cover of his book Black Postcards. And he's used in
[1:17] Speaker 2: the studio and on tour. And I was like, huh,
[1:19] Speaker 2: let me just see how much he wants and he said,
[1:22] Speaker 2: I missed it by a day, so it stinks.
[1:25] Speaker 1: Well, maybe Anthony can pull some strings for you.
[1:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, like steal a guitar from Dean and just send
[1:30] Speaker 2: it my way.
[1:30] Speaker 1: Yeah. And if Anthony did that, he'd be a lot
[1:33] Speaker 1: like Clyde Barrow or Bonnie Parker.
[1:36] Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, these guys like to steal stuff.
[1:39] Speaker 1: So yeah, I did you see the PBS documentary, the
[1:42] Speaker 1: American Experience documentary on him. No, just it, it's worth watching.
[1:47] Speaker 1: I haven't seen the movie. So you put the two
[1:48] Speaker 1: of us together, we have a full comprehension, right.
[1:50] Speaker 2: That's how it works.
[1:52] Speaker 1: But they kind of they basically got across that they stole,
[1:58] Speaker 1: or Clyde stole just literally a way of life, like
[2:01] Speaker 1: he stole cars to get around, he stole money to
[2:04] Speaker 1: buy food with, like he that's just how he lived.
[2:08] Speaker 1: And they make the point. And I think Lvia Olivia
[2:11] Speaker 1: helped us with this. I she kind of makes the
[2:12] Speaker 1: point too, like these were the options that were open
[2:15] Speaker 1: to them, especially Clyde because he was raised dirt poor
[2:20] Speaker 1: during the depression, and like a lot of people were
[2:23] Speaker 1: poor during the depression. So if you were dirt poor
[2:26] Speaker 1: during the Depression, you were really really poor. And that's
[2:29] Speaker 1: the life that that Clyde Barrow was born into.
[2:32] Speaker 2: Yeah for sure, and you know, not to excuse crime,
[2:35] Speaker 2: but that was just his background and not to you know,
[2:38] Speaker 2: they've been glorified over the years, but kind of reading
[2:41] Speaker 2: through this, it was like, oh, man, they like just
[2:44] Speaker 2: would murder people at will, again usually to get out
[2:48] Speaker 2: of a scrape, but still just like killing people left
[2:51] Speaker 2: and right, just you know, to not get caught.
[2:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, particularly cops. And there's some disputes over there's a
[2:58] Speaker 1: pair of patrol men that were killed, and it's disputed
[3:02] Speaker 1: whether Bonnie was one of the gunmen or not. There's
[3:06] Speaker 1: some other crimes that they have had attributed to them
[3:10] Speaker 1: that may or may not have been there doing, but
[3:14] Speaker 1: there are definitely there's a the path behind them was
[3:18] Speaker 1: littered with dead cops that they definitely murdered. They were
[3:23] Speaker 1: known to like if a cop came up to him,
[3:25] Speaker 1: even if they had no idea who they were and
[3:27] Speaker 1: were trying to help, they just opened fire and killed
[3:29] Speaker 1: the guy. Like that was definitely their mo typically with
[3:33] Speaker 1: cops though, and this isn't like justify it, but this
[3:37] Speaker 1: was also the era where the cops would just open
[3:40] Speaker 1: fire on you too. There wasn't like I put your
[3:42] Speaker 1: hands up kind of stuff. It was like, you're an outlaw.
[3:44] Speaker 1: I'm going to start shooting at you first, ask questions later.
[3:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, not like these days where cops and ice never
[3:50] Speaker 2: just kill people, right, bad joke? Yeah, all right, well,
[3:58] Speaker 2: and you know it. And maybe I'll make this point
[4:00] Speaker 2: later too. But and again it doesn't justify it. But
[4:04] Speaker 2: after Clyde's prison stent early on, like he was to
[4:10] Speaker 2: me like clearly killing people, so he would never ever
[4:13] Speaker 2: have to go back to prison, right you know.
[4:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can kind of get that after you
[4:18] Speaker 1: hear about his time in prison and how much he
[4:20] Speaker 1: hated it.
[4:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's get going and talk about Clyde first.
[4:25] Speaker 2: I know it's Bonnie and Clyde, but we're going Clyde
[4:27] Speaker 2: and Bonnie initially.
[4:28] Speaker 1: Ooh.
[4:29] Speaker 2: He was born in Texas in nineteen oh nine, in
[4:32] Speaker 2: Teleco And you know, when he was a kid, he
[4:36] Speaker 2: I don't think this necessarily means he was set for
[4:37] Speaker 2: a life of crime. So a lot of kids played
[4:39] Speaker 2: gangster play outlaw and that's but that's what he did.
[4:43] Speaker 2: And in the twenties they moved to a very very
[4:46] Speaker 2: very poor neighborhood in West Dallas and we're homeless as
[4:49] Speaker 2: a family for a while. And his brother Buck Barrow
[4:53] Speaker 2: and Clyde started you know, early on, like stealing food,
[4:57] Speaker 2: like you mentioned, stealing turkeys, and then that graduated to
[5:01] Speaker 2: robbery and car theft and stuff like that, to the
[5:03] Speaker 2: point where he was eventually arrested for the first time
[5:06] Speaker 2: when he was seventeen for car theft.
[5:09] Speaker 1: Yeah. This was not him boosting a car, which was
[5:12] Speaker 1: basically how he got every other car. He actually went
[5:15] Speaker 1: and rented a car and then a girlfriend and then
[5:18] Speaker 1: didn't take it back.
[5:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's stealing, though, you know, no, it definitely ok.
[5:23] Speaker 1: Death by taking I think, But I think also you
[5:26] Speaker 1: can implicate the car rental place for renting a car
[5:28] Speaker 1: to a seventeen year old.
[5:30] Speaker 2: Yeah. I was also quite frankly surprised to learn that
[5:33] Speaker 2: they had car rental services in nineteen twenty six.
[5:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, although it was probably just some dude in town
[5:38] Speaker 1: who'd let you take his car for ten.
[5:40] Speaker 2: Bucks or something, but you got to be thirteen.
[5:43] Speaker 1: Right, So yeah, that was his first brush with the law,
[5:47] Speaker 1: and that was certainly far from his last. And that's Clyde.
[5:51] Speaker 1: His middle name was Chestnut, by the way, which I
[5:53] Speaker 1: thought was pretty cool, very cute. Bonnie's middle name was Elizabeth.
[5:57] Speaker 1: Her name was Bonnie Elizabeth Parker. She was born into
[6:01] Speaker 1: different circumstances than Clyde. Her mom was a seamstress, her
[6:05] Speaker 1: dad was a bricklayer, but she was born in Rowena, Texas,
[6:10] Speaker 1: and after her father died, the family had very little
[6:14] Speaker 1: means of supporting themselves, and her mom was I think
[6:18] Speaker 1: her mom's name was Emma. She was basically left to
[6:21] Speaker 1: raise three very little kids on her own. So they
[6:25] Speaker 1: ended up in the same area roughly where Clyde and
[6:28] Speaker 1: his family were. Basically, I saw it put that they
[6:31] Speaker 1: were both from the same side of the tracks, despite
[6:34] Speaker 1: Bonnie's mom raising her and her siblings to be respectable
[6:39] Speaker 1: and up to feel that they were above their circumstances
[6:43] Speaker 1: rather than you know, part of their circumstances for sure.
[6:47] Speaker 2: So you know, this was the early nineteen hundred, so
[6:51] Speaker 2: a lot of times you would find kids dropping out
[6:53] Speaker 2: of school or getting married at very young ages, and
[6:55] Speaker 2: that's what happened with Bonnie. At fifteen, she married a
[6:58] Speaker 2: guy named Roy Thornton who was a criminal, so that
[7:02] Speaker 2: kind of gave her a taste of that lifestyle. They
[7:05] Speaker 2: weren't together too long, I think about four years, even
[7:08] Speaker 2: though they never officially legally got divorced, and finally hooked
[7:13] Speaker 2: up with Clyde in nineteen thirty when he was twenty
[7:16] Speaker 2: and she was nineteen. And it wasn't long after they
[7:20] Speaker 2: got together that Clyde went to prison for car theft
[7:24] Speaker 2: and burglary again just sort of doing the same fairly
[7:29] Speaker 2: low stakes crimes at the time, and she got him
[7:34] Speaker 2: out of jail. She smuggled in a gun and helped
[7:38] Speaker 2: him escape basically with two other inmates. They were all
[7:41] Speaker 2: three recaptured though, and that's when he got his kind
[7:44] Speaker 2: of really tough stint in prison.
[7:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, they send him to fourteen years hard labor on
[7:48] Speaker 1: the East of Prison farm, which was a notorious farm
[7:52] Speaker 1: in the Texas pedals system where you would just get
[7:55] Speaker 1: beaten for no reason by the guards who were just
[7:58] Speaker 1: completely beyond the law. And he was also he had
[8:02] Speaker 1: been taken remember he's still pretty young at this time.
[8:06] Speaker 1: He was basically claimed by another inmate who raped him
[8:09] Speaker 1: repeatedly and beat him repeatedly, and he essentially was like,
[8:14] Speaker 1: this is my life now for at least the next
[8:16] Speaker 1: fourteen years. And there he finally was tired enough of
[8:22] Speaker 1: it that he smuggled a galvanized pipe into the cells
[8:26] Speaker 1: with him and he walked to the showers, knowing that
[8:28] Speaker 1: this guy was going to follow him, and the guy did,
[8:31] Speaker 1: and Clyde suddenly turns on him and beat him over
[8:33] Speaker 1: the head until he was dead with the lead pipe.
[8:37] Speaker 1: And I think one thing that really kind of gets across,
[8:41] Speaker 1: like how Clyde was. He was kind of a likable
[8:44] Speaker 1: person throughout his life, but especially at this time. Another
[8:47] Speaker 1: inmate who already had a life sentence he was never
[8:50] Speaker 1: getting out, he took the blame so that Clyde wouldn't
[8:53] Speaker 1: basically ruin his future for killing the man who'd been
[8:57] Speaker 1: raping him.
[8:58] Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, hey, it's a pretty stand up thing
[9:02] Speaker 2: to do for that guy in prison.
[9:05] Speaker 1: It totally is. It's like I donated a kid need
[9:07] Speaker 1: to a stranger. Oh yeah, well I took a murder
[9:09] Speaker 1: rap so a kid wouldn't who was doling out his
[9:12] Speaker 1: own justice wouldn't ruin his life.
[9:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know that's what I was referencing when
[9:16] Speaker 2: it You know, it seems that Clyde did everything, including
[9:19] Speaker 2: killing cops, that he could to stay out of jail.
[9:22] Speaker 2: Again again, not excusing to killing a police, just kind
[9:26] Speaker 2: of kind of lay down the reality of being assaulted
[9:29] Speaker 2: in prison like that.
[9:30] Speaker 1: I think you're explaining his mindset. That's legitimate.
[9:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So one of the other things. I don't
[9:37] Speaker 2: think Clyde was ever accused of being like the smartest
[9:39] Speaker 2: guy in the world, because at one point he cut
[9:43] Speaker 2: off two of his toes to avoid the hard labor
[9:46] Speaker 2: part of the hard labor prison, and less than a
[9:50] Speaker 2: week later he was freed when in his mother petitioned
[9:54] Speaker 2: for parole. So I didn't time that one out quite right.
[9:58] Speaker 1: No, he was also, I guess, not known as the
[10:00] Speaker 1: luckiest guy around too. Yeah, he spent so he spent
[10:04] Speaker 1: less than two years in prison. But in that time
[10:07] Speaker 1: he changed like fundamentally before, like you said, fairly light stuff,
[10:13] Speaker 1: boosting cars, stealing truckloads of turkeys, that kind of stuff.
[10:17] Speaker 1: But there was another guy that he was in the
[10:20] Speaker 1: prison with who said that before his very eyes he
[10:23] Speaker 1: saw Clyde change from a schoolboy to a Rattlesnake, and
[10:27] Speaker 1: even Bonnie. Later on, in a poem that she wrote
[10:30] Speaker 1: she used to write poetry, she mentioned that that Clyde
[10:35] Speaker 1: was basically a victim of unfair institutionalization. Basically that that's
[10:41] Speaker 1: what that's why he was the way he was.
[10:44] Speaker 2: I gotta say, every time you say boosted a car,
[10:46] Speaker 2: it makes you sound super street.
[10:49] Speaker 1: It sound like a fifties greaser in the seventies.
[10:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, instead of stealing a car, Like I'm not cool,
[10:55] Speaker 2: I don't say boosting a car.
[10:57] Speaker 1: I guess you could say stealing. Yeah, I was gonna say,
[10:59] Speaker 1: I don't know any other way to put it. But
[11:01] Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it's just because I'm from the streets.
[11:03] Speaker 3: You know.
[11:03] Speaker 2: It's about to say, you're like, oh wait, there's a
[11:06] Speaker 2: word for boosting a car, stealing steel. Yeah, they don't
[11:11] Speaker 2: teach that on the street. So I don't blame you.
[11:14] Speaker 2: So Clyde was released, like we said, when his mother
[11:17] Speaker 2: petitioned for that release, and he went right back to robbing,
[11:22] Speaker 2: you know, gas stations, convenience store stuff like that. He
[11:25] Speaker 2: had his first sort of partner in crime. His name
[11:27] Speaker 2: was Ralph Foltz, and Bonnie was kind of joined up
[11:33] Speaker 2: with them as the first version of the Barrow Gang,
[11:36] Speaker 2: just the three of them, even though like you know,
[11:39] Speaker 2: parents on both sides were like, Bonnie, you can't join
[11:42] Speaker 2: up with this criminal gang, Like please, don't do it,
[11:44] Speaker 2: and she's like, I love my man.
[11:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, she said, I like the bad boys for sure.
[11:49] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[11:49] Speaker 1: But you know, one of the reasons why we still
[11:52] Speaker 1: know about Bonnie and Clyde not just because they became celebrities,
[11:55] Speaker 1: but also because they were just totally in love with
[12:00] Speaker 1: one another.
[12:01] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[12:01] Speaker 1: Like basically every single outlaw romance or love story that
[12:06] Speaker 1: you've ever seen, and the movies are on TV, is
[12:10] Speaker 1: in one way or another based on Bonnie and Clyde.
[12:14] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's my theory. Yeah. I should probably say
[12:19] Speaker 1: this is not you know, something from an academic journal
[12:21] Speaker 1: I read, but.
[12:22] Speaker 2: A white paper, as Emily would say.
[12:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right, it's it's something I'm working on.
[12:28] Speaker 2: Emily.
[12:28] Speaker 1: Emily's got one for everything, doesn't she.
[12:30] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, when I like, you know, when she'll just
[12:33] Speaker 2: sort of make a claim or something else and not
[12:35] Speaker 2: to its challenger, I'll just be like, are you sure
[12:37] Speaker 2: about that or something, and She'll be like, well, I
[12:38] Speaker 2: don't have a white paper. On it all right, I
[12:42] Speaker 2: know that's the time.
[12:42] Speaker 1: To back off, Thank you, Emily.
[12:45] Speaker 2: So in April of thirty two, and you know, we
[12:48] Speaker 2: should point out this is over just a couple of
[12:50] Speaker 2: years that all of derrib shenanigans took place. Yeah, so
[12:53] Speaker 2: we're gonna be spitting out dates kind of Fast and Furious.
[12:56] Speaker 2: But in April of speaking of boosting cars of thirty two,
[13:01] Speaker 2: did you get that one?
[13:03] Speaker 1: Hm?
[13:03] Speaker 2: Hmmm, Fast and Furious?
[13:05] Speaker 1: Oh oh, did they boost cars? I thought they There
[13:07] Speaker 1: were extensive, lengthy scenes of them negotiating at car dealerships.
[13:13] Speaker 1: Actually they're purchasing.
[13:14] Speaker 2: I think saw you got to sell me this car?
[13:18] Speaker 2: It's about family. I only know that line about family
[13:22] Speaker 2: as a reference because I've only seen one of that.
[13:24] Speaker 2: I think I saw that very first movie, did you.
[13:27] Speaker 2: I'm not familiar with the Fast and the Furious verse,
[13:30] Speaker 2: But were they even Carthy's I think they were right.
[13:33] Speaker 1: I probably, I mean they were definitely. I get the
[13:36] Speaker 1: impression that they were on the wrong side of the law,
[13:38] Speaker 1: the right side.
[13:39] Speaker 2: Of Justice's man, that's the log line. Did you you
[13:42] Speaker 2: didn't see any of those? No, not even the first one. No,
[13:46] Speaker 2: you say that like you have that I know I'm
[13:48] Speaker 2: starvage movies before.
[13:50] Speaker 1: Sorry, but it's also the highest grossing movie franchise in
[13:54] Speaker 1: the world ever.
[13:55] Speaker 2: Well it's because there's thirty seven of them.
[13:58] Speaker 1: I mean, that's definitely part of it. But also people
[14:00] Speaker 1: prettily like car movies.
[14:02] Speaker 2: They do, they're supposed to be good, all right. So
[14:05] Speaker 2: back to after pointing out my dumb pun. April of
[14:07] Speaker 2: thirty two, Bonnie and Ralph Fultz, who was the guy
[14:11] Speaker 2: who he initially hooked up with and then gang they
[14:14] Speaker 2: were arrested trying to rob a hardware store and she
[14:18] Speaker 2: got out, was never indicted at least, and Ralph was convicted,
[14:21] Speaker 2: and while she was sort of being investigated for indictment,
[14:24] Speaker 2: Clyde and his other boys are still out there again.
[14:28] Speaker 2: Robin banks, Robin stores, gas stations, all pretty And this
[14:33] Speaker 2: is one reason they got away with it for so
[14:35] Speaker 2: long is they never did like these huge things. They
[14:38] Speaker 2: were kind of in small towns Robin, you know, kind
[14:40] Speaker 2: of backwater grocery stores and stuff.
[14:42] Speaker 1: It's key.
[14:43] Speaker 2: But it was at one of these robberies where the
[14:47] Speaker 2: first murder happens when a store owner and one of
[14:50] Speaker 2: the only non cops, a guy named John Butcher, was killed.
[14:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's also not clear whether it was Clyde
[14:56] Speaker 1: that did it. Yeah, I don't think anyone thinks it
[14:59] Speaker 1: was Bonnie. I'm yeah, she was in jail, I think,
[15:01] Speaker 1: like you said at the time, Yeah, definitely wasn't her.
[15:05] Speaker 1: There was. He was with an associate named Raymond Hamilton,
[15:07] Speaker 1: and Raymond Hamilton and Floyd Hamilton would kind of come
[15:10] Speaker 1: in and out of the Barrow gang, and I got
[15:13] Speaker 1: the impression that, like Clyde was definitely one of the
[15:16] Speaker 1: more stand up gangsters, of the people in his gang,
[15:20] Speaker 1: that he ran with some shady, shady dudes that were
[15:25] Speaker 1: way more murderous than him, and that it was just
[15:29] Speaker 1: basically him being pragmatic, like he just had a small
[15:33] Speaker 1: pool of people who he knew could help him rob
[15:35] Speaker 1: a store at any given time, so he had to
[15:38] Speaker 1: kind of hang out with these shady people. I get
[15:40] Speaker 1: the impression the otherwise wouldn't have necessarily.
[15:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, I sort of do too. Yeah. So that was
[15:47] Speaker 2: in April of the first murder. The second murder was
[15:51] Speaker 2: in August of that year when Clyde and Raymond and
[15:54] Speaker 2: another you know guy that they was sort of in
[15:57] Speaker 2: and out of the gang killed an undershare if I guess,
[16:00] Speaker 2: which is sort of like a deputy named Eugene Moore
[16:02] Speaker 2: in Stringtown, Oklahoma, and then went back to Dallas around
[16:08] Speaker 2: Christmas and Clyde talked to a kid, basically a sixteen
[16:13] Speaker 2: year old named w D. Jones into joining up with
[16:16] Speaker 2: the gang. And on Christmas Day, which was the next day,
[16:19] Speaker 2: they killed another guy named Doyle Johnson while stealing his car,
[16:24] Speaker 2: and Clyde was like, all right, kid, like, you got
[16:26] Speaker 2: to stay with us now otherwise like they're going to
[16:29] Speaker 2: get you for this murder.
[16:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, and w D being sixteen at the time, was like,
[16:34] Speaker 1: oh God, I have no choice. I have to turn
[16:37] Speaker 1: to a life of crime now. I'm in too deep.
[16:40] Speaker 1: As Phil Collins would later saye so he did. He
[16:44] Speaker 1: stuck around and he and Bonnie and Clyde were essentially
[16:49] Speaker 1: the first cohesive Bonnie and Clyde gang, Yeah, because they
[16:53] Speaker 1: stuck together for quite a while.
[16:55] Speaker 2: A member.
[16:56] Speaker 1: She did a lot of stuff. Everything we're talking about here,
[16:59] Speaker 1: every signify thing, which is usually the murder of a cop.
[17:03] Speaker 1: They're in between those, there's handfuls and handfuls of robberies
[17:08] Speaker 1: and you know, shootouts and stuff like that that they
[17:10] Speaker 1: engaged and they were on the run and on the
[17:14] Speaker 1: move and under the gun. Yeah, every moment from the
[17:17] Speaker 1: start to their death. Over the course of this two
[17:20] Speaker 1: something years, they were just constantly in action. Even when
[17:24] Speaker 1: they took a vacation, as we'll see in Joplin, Missouri,
[17:28] Speaker 1: they ended up in a shootout.
[17:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a lot of gunplay. I mean that
[17:34] Speaker 2: was at Christmas when the second murder happened. In January,
[17:38] Speaker 2: there was another murder and this was just a sort
[17:42] Speaker 2: of an unlucky circumstance when they walked into an ambush,
[17:46] Speaker 2: but it wasn't for them, it was for a different target,
[17:48] Speaker 2: but it was an ambush nonetheless. So they killed the
[17:51] Speaker 2: deputy sheriff named Malcolm Davis. And for the next couple
[17:55] Speaker 2: of months, basically early thirty three through the spring, it
[17:59] Speaker 2: was Zora, Arkansas, Oklahoma, stealing boosting cars how to say it, right, Yeah,
[18:07] Speaker 2: boosting cars. And you know, if you've ever seen the
[18:12] Speaker 2: very famous photos that looks like, hey, this looks sort
[18:16] Speaker 2: of like a photo shoot of these criminals, that's kind
[18:19] Speaker 2: of exactly what it was. It was during this time
[18:21] Speaker 2: that w D took these photos of them, these very
[18:24] Speaker 2: famous photos. One of which I'm sure you saw this
[18:27] Speaker 2: one online. Somebody did a really good job colorizing the
[18:31] Speaker 2: one where he's kind of lifted Bonnie up and like
[18:36] Speaker 2: colorized and retouched to where it looks like a modern photo.
[18:39] Speaker 2: There's like a lot of clarity because otherwise they're sort
[18:42] Speaker 2: of grainy black and white. But yeah, you get your
[18:45] Speaker 2: with this color photo. You get a really good look
[18:47] Speaker 2: at like who they were, and they they you know,
[18:50] Speaker 2: Fade Dunaway and Warren Batty played them for a reason,
[18:52] Speaker 2: like they were both like pretty attractive people.
[18:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, and I didn't know this, but Bonnie was really Dnkham's.
[19:01] Speaker 1: Like she was under what is that she was under
[19:04] Speaker 1: five feet tall and weighed eighty five pounds.
[19:06] Speaker 2: That's a Dnkham's.
[19:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a dnkham Never heard of that. I guess
[19:11] Speaker 1: it's it's mine. Oh okay, like being white papered. It's
[19:16] Speaker 1: on archive right now.
[19:18] Speaker 2: Well you means it to a small person, do you say,
[19:19] Speaker 2: come here, little Dinkams? Is that where it comes from?
[19:21] Speaker 1: Yeah? Drives her crazy, She's like, put me down, all right?
[19:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, she was a Dnkhams. That's why he was just
[19:27] Speaker 2: sort of holding her up with one arm.
[19:29] Speaker 1: I guess yeah. And also it would come in handy
[19:32] Speaker 1: later when she injures her leg, right, because she had
[19:35] Speaker 1: to be carried quite a bit. But so around this
[19:38] Speaker 1: time those photos, like you said, they'll they'll come back
[19:41] Speaker 1: in again. But around this time, I guess in March.
[19:46] Speaker 1: This is January when they started shooting at the cops again.
[19:50] Speaker 1: December and January art shooting at the cops again, right,
[19:54] Speaker 1: so this is this is March. And when Clyde's brother
[19:57] Speaker 1: Buck shows up, and Buck had been in pre remember
[20:00] Speaker 1: he basically taught his little brother Clyde how to be
[20:03] Speaker 1: a criminal, but not a murderous criminal. Clyde learned that
[20:07] Speaker 1: on his own, remember, Yeah. And Buck's wife Blanche came along.
[20:10] Speaker 1: So now they had a two couple gang with a
[20:13] Speaker 1: fifth wheel in WD Blanche and Buck and Bonnie and
[20:17] Speaker 1: Clyde in poor little w D, who again is like sixteen,
[20:21] Speaker 1: maybe seventeen by now, and after like this at least
[20:25] Speaker 1: a year of just constant crime, they're like, let's take
[20:30] Speaker 1: a vacation in Joplin, Missouri, Missouri, right, that's how they
[20:35] Speaker 1: say it. Yeah, And they were there for thirteen days
[20:40] Speaker 1: before the cops got called on them because they were
[20:43] Speaker 1: basically being noisy drunks in a neighborhood, and the neighbors
[20:47] Speaker 1: were like, these are probably bootleggers because this is you know,
[20:53] Speaker 1: I guess it's after prohibition, shortly after prohibition, but still,
[20:57] Speaker 1: these bootleg operations were so successful. I'm sure they just
[21:00] Speaker 1: didn't go away immediately.
[21:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, whoever's at this airbnb is really dragging
[21:06] Speaker 2: the neighborhood down.
[21:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right.
[21:09] Speaker 2: So they did call the cops and another gunfight. You know,
[21:12] Speaker 2: the cops come up and, like you said, this is
[21:14] Speaker 2: just a time where people are just opening fire all
[21:16] Speaker 2: over the place, and they killed two cops, Harry McGinnis
[21:20] Speaker 2: and Wes Harryman, and the gang got out of there
[21:23] Speaker 2: and wd his nickname was Little Forty. He was shot
[21:27] Speaker 2: in the side and recovered and they somehow, with those
[21:32] Speaker 2: old cars in the nineteen thirties, drove about six hundred
[21:35] Speaker 2: miles overnight to Shamrock, Texas.
[21:39] Speaker 1: It's a long drive, yeah, because Clyde was a professional
[21:43] Speaker 1: getaway driver. He was really good at stealing cars and
[21:46] Speaker 1: he was really good at driving cars fast.
[21:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, should we take a break, Yes, I.
[21:53] Speaker 1: Think that's a great idea.
[21:54] Speaker 2: Chuck, all right, we'll be right back with more on
[21:57] Speaker 2: B and C.
[22:10] Speaker 3: Burning Stoffy jaw Sh shows Soffi.
[22:18] Speaker 2: S all right, So we're back with Bonnie and Clyde.
[22:25] Speaker 2: They are starting to get a little bit of press
[22:28] Speaker 2: at this point, and the newspapers show up at the
[22:32] Speaker 2: hide out in Joplin, Missouri, at the Airbnb once they
[22:36] Speaker 2: found out what was going on. They found you know, guns,
[22:39] Speaker 2: they found this poem that Bonnie had written, which we'll
[22:43] Speaker 2: get to in a second little more detail. They found
[22:45] Speaker 2: that undeveloped film, so you can imagine they developed that
[22:48] Speaker 2: film of these like soon to be infamous photos of
[22:52] Speaker 2: Bonnie with a cigar and all this stuff, and it
[22:55] Speaker 2: was front page stuff, and like everybody was all of
[22:59] Speaker 2: a sudden, like really kind of captured by the allure
[23:02] Speaker 2: of these gangsters.
[23:03] Speaker 1: Yeah, because not only are they like doing you know,
[23:07] Speaker 1: news paper article worthy crimes, getting away from the cops,
[23:13] Speaker 1: killing cops. Now there's photos that they can run alongside
[23:17] Speaker 1: of them. So everybody starts getting in on the act,
[23:20] Speaker 1: not just the press, but also true crime magazines, newsreels.
[23:23] Speaker 1: Like they became famous overnight, Like they were already local
[23:27] Speaker 1: legends in Texas after those photos started getting published on
[23:31] Speaker 1: the wire. That was when they just really became icons.
[23:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean attractive young lovers. They're having a good
[23:38] Speaker 2: time because in these photos they're like goofing off and
[23:40] Speaker 2: having fun, so obviously just something that's going to capture
[23:44] Speaker 2: the public's attention. They published that poem that you referenced earlier.
[23:48] Speaker 2: This was called the Story of Suicide sal and I
[23:51] Speaker 2: read the poem. I'm sure you did too. She wrote
[23:54] Speaker 2: this in jail when she was briefly in jail in
[23:57] Speaker 2: nineteen thirty two. And you know, it's an okay poem.
[24:01] Speaker 2: It's not the greatest thing in the world. But when
[24:02] Speaker 2: I was reading it, I was like, I wonder if
[24:04] Speaker 2: anyone's ever put this to song. I was like, surely
[24:06] Speaker 2: someone has, and I went online. I was like, oh, yeah,
[24:10] Speaker 2: there it is. And I went and played it and
[24:11] Speaker 2: I was listening to it and it was this woman
[24:14] Speaker 2: and it was like a country sort of version. I
[24:16] Speaker 2: was like, wait a minute. I was like this, I
[24:19] Speaker 2: bet this is not real. And I looked of course
[24:21] Speaker 2: it was freaking Ai from like February of this year,
[24:26] Speaker 2: like all completely fake, and I was just it left
[24:29] Speaker 2: a really nasty taste in my mouth.
[24:32] Speaker 1: I'm sure, and well it should man, Yeah, you got
[24:36] Speaker 1: duped by AI. Somebody said, AI make a song out
[24:40] Speaker 1: of this Bonnie Parker poem in the in the in
[24:45] Speaker 1: the the style of Juice Newton.
[24:48] Speaker 2: It was more like, I don't know, I can't think
[24:50] Speaker 2: of a country singer like.
[24:52] Speaker 1: New country stuff like country pops.
[24:54] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[24:54] Speaker 2: I mean it wasn't poppy. It sounded country. But the
[24:57] Speaker 2: way the woman's the fake woman's voice, I don't we
[25:00] Speaker 2: want to call her a woman. The computer voice mm
[25:03] Speaker 2: was just super sort of modern Nashville polished. Yeah.
[25:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope AI, when they take over, don't come
[25:10] Speaker 1: back and punish us for saying things derogatory things like
[25:14] Speaker 1: we've said about them over the years.
[25:16] Speaker 2: Remember, Yeah, I remember the guy on the train in
[25:18] Speaker 2: Canada that I overheard talking about AI. Was on the
[25:22] Speaker 2: ride from uh yeah, uh Ottawa to Toronto.
[25:26] Speaker 1: Yeah, but I don't remember what he said.
[25:28] Speaker 2: He said, he's talking about AI. He's like, some people
[25:30] Speaker 2: don't like it, some people do like it. He's like,
[25:32] Speaker 2: I mean I can't wait for AI to get here,
[25:34] Speaker 2: like it was coming to dinner. I was like, oh,
[25:37] Speaker 2: it is here, my friend, Yeah.
[25:40] Speaker 1: Sweet, sweet to get off the more often.
[25:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, I tell you what, he knew a lot about
[25:44] Speaker 2: NHL hockey though.
[25:45] Speaker 1: I'll bet this, like basically every Canadian does. Yeah, one
[25:50] Speaker 1: thing about that poem too, So in it she uses
[25:54] Speaker 1: a bunch of like slang, like like underworld slang basically yeah,
[25:59] Speaker 1: but it's still a serviceable poem, especially for a twenty
[26:03] Speaker 1: two year old who dropped out of school at fifteen.
[26:06] Speaker 1: And I think that that's like a really good back
[26:08] Speaker 1: of the envelope sketch of Bonnie's personality. She was very bright,
[26:12] Speaker 1: she excelled in school, but she dropped out at fifteen,
[26:16] Speaker 1: and she was fascinated with the underworld and like outlaw
[26:20] Speaker 1: stuff so much so that she started living that life
[26:23] Speaker 1: because she found a guy who was living in that
[26:26] Speaker 1: life and she decided to be with them, you know,
[26:29] Speaker 1: So that was that's her basically encapsulated.
[26:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree. So there the public again is
[26:37] Speaker 2: enthralled at this point. They're in like the true detective
[26:40] Speaker 2: mysteries magazines and stuff like that. In nineteen you mentioned
[26:46] Speaker 2: that Clyde loved cars and like loved to boost them
[26:50] Speaker 2: and also drive them, and he loved Fords, and he
[26:53] Speaker 2: wrote a letter in nineteen thirty four supposedly. I don't
[26:56] Speaker 2: think they verified it from him, but it certainly sounds
[26:58] Speaker 2: like it was to me. Wrote a letter to Henry
[27:01] Speaker 2: Ford and he said. Part of the letter says, while
[27:04] Speaker 2: I still have got breath in my lungs, I will
[27:05] Speaker 2: tell you what a dandy carr you make. I have
[27:09] Speaker 2: drove forwards exclusively when I could get away with one
[27:12] Speaker 2: for sustained speed and freedom from trouble. To Ford has
[27:15] Speaker 2: got every other car skin. There's your ad. And even
[27:18] Speaker 2: if my business hasn't been strictly legal, it don't hurt
[27:21] Speaker 2: anything to tell you what a fine car you got
[27:23] Speaker 2: in the V eight and judging from you know, we
[27:27] Speaker 2: later got poems from Clyde as well, and there are
[27:30] Speaker 2: a lot of misspellings and stuff. And I said he wasn't,
[27:32] Speaker 2: you know, the brightest bulb because of his upbringing, of course,
[27:35] Speaker 2: but it sounds to me pretty legit.
[27:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think at least Henry Ford was like,
[27:41] Speaker 1: it's legit enough to have his secretary Kraft to thank
[27:44] Speaker 1: you letter to sounds back pretty funny, yeah, And you
[27:48] Speaker 1: said that that like they were, you know, they become
[27:52] Speaker 1: popularizing true crime magazines in part as like folk heroes,
[27:57] Speaker 1: Like I said, at the outset, And one of the
[27:59] Speaker 1: reasons why is they're committing these crimes at the height
[28:02] Speaker 1: of the depression or the depth of the depression. Yeah,
[28:05] Speaker 1: and people were rooting for people who did things like
[28:08] Speaker 1: rob banks because the banks were the villains at the time.
[28:11] Speaker 1: They were foreclosing on like hard working, honest people, and
[28:16] Speaker 1: so if you robbed a bank, you kind of automatically
[28:18] Speaker 1: became a folk hero. And people like Bonnie and Clyde
[28:21] Speaker 1: so much that those true crime magazines basically attributed scores
[28:25] Speaker 1: of bank robberies to them that they never did.
[28:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
[28:28] Speaker 1: Apparently they were popular enough that banks would if they
[28:32] Speaker 1: got robbed, they'd be like, yeah, Bonnie and Clyde just
[28:34] Speaker 1: robbed us, just to have that brush with celebrity, even
[28:37] Speaker 1: if it wasn't them.
[28:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, get it in the paper for sure.
[28:42] Speaker 2: They also, you know, they did kill a lot of cops,
[28:45] Speaker 2: but they also let a lot go by way of
[28:47] Speaker 2: kind of taking them with them, which is technically kidnapping.
[28:51] Speaker 2: Sometimes cops sometimes civilians that would they would kidnap and
[28:55] Speaker 2: then just drop them off in the middle of nowhere,
[28:57] Speaker 2: basically so they didn't have to kill them, which you know,
[29:01] Speaker 2: that was a better choice, I guess. And they were
[29:05] Speaker 2: also like, you know, this is a time where you
[29:07] Speaker 2: get away with crime a lot easier and come and
[29:10] Speaker 2: go as a lot easier, just because of communications and
[29:13] Speaker 2: the way things worked. And they would, you know, they'd
[29:15] Speaker 2: go home and like visit their families and stuff and
[29:18] Speaker 2: not get caught, Like they didn't have their famili's homes
[29:20] Speaker 2: staked out at this point.
[29:22] Speaker 1: No, But they were also really safe about it. They
[29:25] Speaker 1: were very smart, Like they write a message in a
[29:27] Speaker 1: coke bottle and just throw it out of the car
[29:29] Speaker 1: as they were driving past at their mom's house or whatever.
[29:32] Speaker 1: Like they were smart. They assumed the phones were tapped
[29:35] Speaker 1: and all that stuff. But if you're an outlaw that
[29:38] Speaker 1: are well known around those parts, just show up at
[29:41] Speaker 1: home is still pretty pretty risky, oh for sure. So
[29:45] Speaker 1: after Joplin, after the little vak in Joplin that ended
[29:49] Speaker 1: on a shootout with the cops and the death of
[29:52] Speaker 1: two cops, they kept moving. They got back on the
[29:55] Speaker 1: road and they were in a car wreck actually at
[29:58] Speaker 1: one point like a couple months later, and they it
[30:03] Speaker 1: was a bad crash. The Clyde was going really fast.
[30:06] Speaker 1: They rolled the car and Bonnie got third degree burns
[30:09] Speaker 1: on her leg. I saw from one account that she
[30:13] Speaker 1: was burned because the car caught on fire. Another account
[30:16] Speaker 1: said that it was acid from the battery. Either way,
[30:19] Speaker 1: she had third degree burns down to her bones and
[30:22] Speaker 1: no options about going and getting actual medical treatment. So
[30:26] Speaker 1: she had. She was in a lot of pain and
[30:28] Speaker 1: limped and hopped and was carried in some cases for
[30:32] Speaker 1: the rest of her life.
[30:35] Speaker 2: Why does it surprise me that cars had batteries? Then?
[30:39] Speaker 1: I think that was actually very new, and that was
[30:42] Speaker 1: one of the reasons Clyde was able to steal so
[30:44] Speaker 1: many cars is because you could hot wire them. Now,
[30:47] Speaker 1: oh okay, I think that was super new.
[30:50] Speaker 2: All right, which is probably what it leaked all over Bunny.
[30:54] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[30:54] Speaker 2: I guess they didn't have the caps.
[30:56] Speaker 1: No, They're like, just don't tip it over, don't roll
[30:59] Speaker 1: your car over, and everything should be fine, all.
[31:02] Speaker 2: Right, So good driver, except when he's crashing cars. Later
[31:06] Speaker 2: they wrapped. I think that was in June of thirty three,
[31:09] Speaker 2: they robbed a store in Alma, Texas, another gunfight with
[31:13] Speaker 2: two cops, and they killed another cop, Marshall Henry D.
[31:16] Speaker 2: Humphrey escaped again in July. They were not at that Airbnb,
[31:24] Speaker 2: but they went to a different one in Missouri, another guesthouse,
[31:27] Speaker 2: and the owner and I never had heard of this,
[31:30] Speaker 2: but it makes sense if you, apparently back then, if
[31:33] Speaker 2: you would back a car, and they called that like
[31:34] Speaker 2: gangster style because you want to get out of there quick,
[31:37] Speaker 2: and that was sort of a just a red flag.
[31:39] Speaker 2: So he noticed that they backed their car in the
[31:42] Speaker 2: other thing he noticed to me a bigger tell is
[31:44] Speaker 2: they taped newspapers over the windows, and they paid for
[31:47] Speaker 2: their meals with coins. And it turns out some vending
[31:50] Speaker 2: machines nearby had been robbed. So this was all just like.
[31:53] Speaker 2: The guy was like, well, maybe I should call the cops.
[31:55] Speaker 2: So they did. The cops came out. Guess what happened.
[32:00] Speaker 2: Another gunfight. Guess what happened. They escaped again, but this
[32:04] Speaker 2: time Buck Barrow his brother was wounded pretty badly and
[32:10] Speaker 2: Blanche was too. Blant's got charge of glass in her eyes,
[32:14] Speaker 2: I'm guessing temporarily blinding her considering the jobs she had
[32:18] Speaker 2: later in life.
[32:18] Speaker 1: She was blinded in at least one eye, so I
[32:21] Speaker 1: don't know if it was permanent or not. Either. I
[32:22] Speaker 1: didn't see that anywhere. Yeah, so they actually made it.
[32:26] Speaker 1: They escaped from this gunfight with the cops in Missouri,
[32:30] Speaker 1: and they made it all the way to Iowa, and
[32:32] Speaker 1: they found like a park and were hanging laying low
[32:36] Speaker 1: in this park, trying to keep Buck alive and I
[32:40] Speaker 1: guess tending to Blanch as well. And again they backed
[32:45] Speaker 1: their car in gangster style, and that caught people's attention.
[32:48] Speaker 1: They also left the car running when they went to
[32:50] Speaker 1: town to buy supply.
[32:52] Speaker 2: Extra gangster for sure.
[32:55] Speaker 1: Either there, you just got places to be, you know.
[32:57] Speaker 1: But I guess people were jumpy back then. Yeah, the
[33:00] Speaker 1: cops showed up at the park. Somebody followed them or said,
[33:04] Speaker 1: these people are staying at the park right now, fifty
[33:06] Speaker 1: cops show up. Another gun fight happens. This is like
[33:09] Speaker 1: a day or so, I think, after the first one,
[33:12] Speaker 1: and Blanche and Buck buckets hit again and He's like,
[33:16] Speaker 1: I can't make it any further, you guys go on.
[33:18] Speaker 1: Blanche stays with Buck and they both get arrested. Bonnie
[33:21] Speaker 1: Clyde and w D make their escape and they actually
[33:25] Speaker 1: get away. W D finally says like that's enough for me.
[33:28] Speaker 1: I'm done. He did the whole Blackjack dealers like I'm
[33:31] Speaker 1: out thing. Yeah, and he went home to Texas.
[33:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, so he goes home to Texas while Buck is arrested,
[33:37] Speaker 2: I think five days later he dies. So a big
[33:40] Speaker 2: brother is now gone, Blanche's husband, and when w D
[33:46] Speaker 2: goes home, he's arrested in pretty short order, I think
[33:49] Speaker 2: in November. And he told the cops like, yeah, I
[33:52] Speaker 2: was in the Barrow gang, but he said he was
[33:55] Speaker 2: forced into it, and because of that fact and because
[33:57] Speaker 2: he was a kid, they were fairly lenient on him.
[34:00] Speaker 2: They sentenced ht to six years in prison.
[34:03] Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, I think WD kind of got the
[34:07] Speaker 1: least of it to anybody because also at this time,
[34:11] Speaker 1: like there are other people that they're kind of coming
[34:13] Speaker 1: up against doing some crimes with here there, they're going
[34:16] Speaker 1: in and out of prison, Yeah, pretty pretty frequently. And
[34:20] Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, because he was shorthanded, he
[34:24] Speaker 1: actually Clyde stage a prison break. Remember the old Eastham
[34:30] Speaker 1: prison farm that Clyde had learned to hate, and it
[34:34] Speaker 1: had changed Clyde essentially right. Well, he had people on
[34:38] Speaker 1: the inside and he and a guy named Jimmy Mullins
[34:42] Speaker 1: busted these guys out. They busted out Henry Methvin, Joe Palmer,
[34:47] Speaker 1: guy named Hilton Biby and Raymond Hamilton remember him from
[34:51] Speaker 1: the earlier section. He had been captured and sent to prison,
[34:55] Speaker 1: and so they busted him out because Clyde needed more
[34:57] Speaker 1: help because now WD was gone and so was.
[35:00] Speaker 2: Buck Yes, and killed two guards in the process here,
[35:03] Speaker 2: So that's two more down. I mean, the bodies are
[35:06] Speaker 2: stacking up at this point.
[35:08] Speaker 1: Well, one of those guards I think may have been
[35:11] Speaker 1: purposely killed because he was known as such a brutal guard.
[35:15] Speaker 1: He would leave his post just to go beat inmates. Yeah,
[35:18] Speaker 1: so it's probably not coincidence that he was one of
[35:21] Speaker 1: the two that were killed during this.
[35:23] Speaker 2: Get one on the way out, all right, So the
[35:27] Speaker 2: gang is still on the run, and it feels like
[35:30] Speaker 2: it feels like the noose is tightening a little bit.
[35:32] Speaker 2: Like the original gangs now has partly died and been
[35:35] Speaker 2: in prison, so it's been splintered. Yeah, but they're soldiering
[35:39] Speaker 2: on with new people. And in April of thirty four,
[35:42] Speaker 2: Bonnie Clyde and Henry Methvin were in and he was
[35:47] Speaker 2: one of the guys they boosted from prison. Yeah can
[35:50] Speaker 2: you say.
[35:51] Speaker 1: That too, Yeah, you can boost somebody from prison.
[35:53] Speaker 2: Sure, okay, what about when you just give somebody a boost,
[35:56] Speaker 2: like an emotional support? Where does that fit in?
[36:00] Speaker 1: That is see, I guess that would be Clark and somebody.
[36:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, Clark made some good feelings. Yeah, so, uh, where
[36:09] Speaker 2: was I Henry Methin? They all went to grape Vine,
[36:11] Speaker 2: Texas At this point a couple of highway cops, highway
[36:15] Speaker 2: patrolmen saw thought they were stranded motorists and stopped to
[36:18] Speaker 2: help them out, and they killed them. So two more
[36:22] Speaker 2: cops dead. And then five days after that they killed
[36:25] Speaker 2: another cop in Oklahoma and kidnapped a police chief. So
[36:29] Speaker 2: things are getting really pretty intense at this point.
[36:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean three cops in two days, I think, Yeah,
[36:38] Speaker 1: that's or three cops and yeah, three days something like that.
[36:41] Speaker 1: That's crazy. So this was like, yeah, you kind of
[36:45] Speaker 1: get the impression that things are starting to move really
[36:47] Speaker 1: really fast at this point. Right Raymond Hamilton, he was
[36:51] Speaker 1: recaptured I think by like a month or so after,
[36:56] Speaker 1: but he'd already been involved in the murders of these
[36:59] Speaker 1: cops and like a bunch of other robberies and stuff.
[37:02] Speaker 1: So remember he had been busted out. So when he
[37:04] Speaker 1: was recaptured not only was he being re sentenced for
[37:09] Speaker 1: escaping prison, but also for all the crimes, including murder,
[37:13] Speaker 1: that he committed in the short like month or two
[37:15] Speaker 1: that he was out. Yeah, he was sentenced to the
[37:18] Speaker 1: Texas State Pen in Huntsville and placed on death row there. Yeah,
[37:22] Speaker 1: he also escaped there too, but he was recaptured again.
[37:25] Speaker 1: Do you know, heart, it's got to be to escape
[37:27] Speaker 1: from death row?
[37:29] Speaker 3: Uh?
[37:31] Speaker 2: How hard?
[37:33] Speaker 1: Really hard?
[37:34] Speaker 2: Okay.
[37:35] Speaker 1: But he had already actually split ways with Bonnie and
[37:38] Speaker 1: Clyde when they finally recaptured him and sent him to Huntsville,
[37:43] Speaker 1: and they had had a falling out.
[37:45] Speaker 2: Yeah. They ended up sending a letter to Hamilton in prison, yeah,
[37:51] Speaker 2: saying like, you know, you stole from us and you're
[37:53] Speaker 2: a coward. So yeah, it was a pretty bad breakup.
[37:57] Speaker 1: It was. There was no love lost.
[38:00] Speaker 2: Should we break up this episode?
[38:01] Speaker 1: Oh? Good call?
[38:03] Speaker 2: All right, we'll be back to finish up on Bonnie
[38:06] Speaker 2: and Clyde, right if you did.
[38:21] Speaker 3: Softly jawh sh.
[38:26] Speaker 1: Soft okay, Chuck. So you had said a little while
[38:33] Speaker 1: ago that one of the reasons they were able to
[38:36] Speaker 1: be so successful is because they were there was a
[38:39] Speaker 1: there were a handful of reasons one. They typically kept
[38:43] Speaker 1: their targets pretty small. They were small towns, often mama
[38:47] Speaker 1: pop groceries, maybe like a gas station something like that.
[38:52] Speaker 1: Every once in a while a bank. But remember like
[38:55] Speaker 1: all of their crimes were exaggerated, so they were supposedly
[38:58] Speaker 1: two of the greatest bank that ever lived, even though
[39:01] Speaker 1: they'd only done a couple of banks. So by making
[39:03] Speaker 1: their takes pretty small, I think the biggest take was
[39:05] Speaker 1: like eighteen hundred, which is less than fifty grand today.
[39:09] Speaker 1: That was far and away the biggest take. Sometimes they'd
[39:12] Speaker 1: make enough money just to buy some groceries or something
[39:14] Speaker 1: like that. They kept themselves small. They made themselves small targets.
[39:19] Speaker 1: What made them huge targets was killing cops, you know,
[39:23] Speaker 1: like that definitely catches the attention of other cops. And
[39:26] Speaker 1: there was another Texas outlet named Willis Newton who said
[39:29] Speaker 1: killing that first cop, Eugene Moore, was their true undoing,
[39:34] Speaker 1: and then all the cops after that just made them
[39:36] Speaker 1: even bigger targets. But one of the other reasons they
[39:39] Speaker 1: were able to still get away even after killing all
[39:42] Speaker 1: those cops is because those cops and the different jurisdictions
[39:45] Speaker 1: were not coordinating in any way.
[39:48] Speaker 2: No, I mean that didn't happen back then. It's not
[39:50] Speaker 2: like they were being stubborn. That was just not a
[39:52] Speaker 2: thing that had really come along yet, like working interstate
[39:56] Speaker 2: with one another or even inter county. Probably, yeah, BI
[40:00] Speaker 2: wasn't quite a thing yet. The Bureau of Investigation was
[40:03] Speaker 2: and all they could. They did start investigating them the
[40:07] Speaker 2: I guess the BI in December of thirty two, and
[40:10] Speaker 2: did get a warrant in May of thirty three, but
[40:12] Speaker 2: it was only over interstate moving of the stolen cars.
[40:16] Speaker 2: But they did get involved with the local cops and
[40:19] Speaker 2: start sort of providing information, providing support to like the
[40:23] Speaker 2: local cops and the state agencies as you know, part
[40:27] Speaker 2: of the eventual dragnet. And it seems like the cops
[40:31] Speaker 2: in Texas and Louisiana are the ones who really sort
[40:33] Speaker 2: of got together finally to zero in on them and
[40:37] Speaker 2: focus on these guys. And when the Texas Rangers come
[40:40] Speaker 2: on the scene, that means things are really serious. And
[40:43] Speaker 2: that's what happened after that that second prison break. The
[40:47] Speaker 2: Texas Rangers got together. This guy came out of retirement,
[40:51] Speaker 2: Captain Frank not Hammer, but Hamer. I guess he probably
[40:54] Speaker 2: he'd probably called himself the Hammer, and he was like,
[40:57] Speaker 2: I'm coming out of retirement to get these guys and
[41:00] Speaker 2: had a posse of six rangers and he's like, I've
[41:03] Speaker 2: killed fifty three dudes in my law enforcement career. So
[41:07] Speaker 2: it was really on at this point.
[41:09] Speaker 1: It was he coordinated with a guy named Henderson Jordan,
[41:13] Speaker 1: who was sheriff in a parish in Louisiana, Bienville Parish.
[41:18] Speaker 1: And the reason he's significant is because Henry Methvin. Remember,
[41:22] Speaker 1: he was one of the guys that got busted out
[41:24] Speaker 1: with Raymond Hamilton and some of the other guys and
[41:27] Speaker 1: joined the gang. Methavin was now a part of the gang.
[41:30] Speaker 1: He lived, his family lived in Bienville Parish, and supposedly
[41:35] Speaker 1: Henderson Jordan, the sheriff, had been approached by Methvin's family,
[41:39] Speaker 1: who were alarmed that he was wanted by the cops
[41:42] Speaker 1: and with Bonnie and Clyde's notorious outlaws, and they said, look,
[41:45] Speaker 1: we can get our son to cooperate. He was basically
[41:48] Speaker 1: Daryl and Red Dawn essentially. Yeah, right, that's Daryl's dad's car,
[41:52] Speaker 1: it's the mayor's car. So his family is like, we'll
[41:57] Speaker 1: get him to cooperate. But you got to give him
[41:59] Speaker 1: Clement and see, but we'll get you Bonnie and Clyde
[42:03] Speaker 1: if you make sure our boy doesn't get the chair
[42:05] Speaker 1: for all this stuff. And so Frank Hamer and Henderson
[42:09] Speaker 1: Jordan are like, let's make this happen. This was ultimately
[42:12] Speaker 1: the downfall. Trusting Henry Methvin was what brought them to
[42:17] Speaker 1: their end.
[42:18] Speaker 2: You know, I'm still mad at Darryl after all these years.
[42:22] Speaker 1: I know.
[42:22] Speaker 2: The second you said Darryl from Red Dawn, I was
[42:24] Speaker 2: just like, oh, that.
[42:25] Speaker 1: Guy they picked, like a perfect actor for that guy
[42:29] Speaker 1: really suited that part.
[42:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, he was one of the bad socials in The
[42:32] Speaker 2: Outsiders too.
[42:34] Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know that, so that fits. Did you
[42:36] Speaker 1: know that Si Hinton was a teenage girl? Wouldn't you
[42:39] Speaker 1: write the Outsiders?
[42:40] Speaker 2: I had no idea.
[42:41] Speaker 1: It's crazy.
[42:43] Speaker 2: So they kind of figured out their route basically, and
[42:48] Speaker 2: that Bonnie and Clyde were driving a lot to that
[42:51] Speaker 2: Methven home in Louisiana on Highway one point fifty four.
[42:54] Speaker 2: So in May of nineteen thirty four, they were like,
[42:57] Speaker 2: all right, we really need to get this done. And
[43:00] Speaker 2: this is where the famous ambush happens. There, you know,
[43:03] Speaker 2: are different, like kind of disputing accounts of exactly how
[43:06] Speaker 2: it went down, but it seems like they got Methan's
[43:09] Speaker 2: dad's car out on the road and parked it there
[43:12] Speaker 2: with a wheel removed, so they would be like, oh,
[43:14] Speaker 2: that's your dad's car, Like, it looks like he needs help,
[43:17] Speaker 2: so they would pull over. They had those six Texas Rangers.
[43:20] Speaker 2: They had automatic rifles, and as soon as that Bonnie
[43:24] Speaker 2: and Clyde car showed up, they just started firing. They're like,
[43:28] Speaker 2: we've seen enough of these guys work to not let
[43:31] Speaker 2: them open the doors, not try and arrest them or whatever,
[43:34] Speaker 2: because they're going to be shooting at us. So they
[43:36] Speaker 2: just basically shot the crud out of this car and
[43:42] Speaker 2: to great effect. I mean, they murdered the cred out
[43:45] Speaker 2: of them.
[43:46] Speaker 1: They did, they got them.
[43:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, Bonnie was shot twenty six times, Clyde was shot
[43:50] Speaker 2: seventeen times. Further, Resharts says that it may have been
[43:54] Speaker 2: as many as fifty times. They were kids, you know,
[43:58] Speaker 2: they were twenty three and twenty four years old, and
[44:00] Speaker 2: it was pretty gruesome and the people in the press
[44:05] Speaker 2: went wild over this ambush.
[44:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, they towed the car with the bodies inside.
[44:10] Speaker 2: It was crazy.
[44:12] Speaker 1: Yeah too. Well, they also laid in wait and executed
[44:15] Speaker 1: them without giving them any chance to give themselves up.
[44:18] Speaker 1: So at this point, basically anything's on the table, right. Yeah,
[44:22] Speaker 1: So they towed the death car, and I guess it
[44:25] Speaker 1: essentially immediately became like a tourist attraction. They sent them
[44:30] Speaker 1: both back to Dallas for burial, and both of the
[44:33] Speaker 1: funeral homes where they were they were each in a
[44:35] Speaker 1: different funeral home because Bonnie's mom, Emma was like you,
[44:41] Speaker 1: in death, they can't have anything to do with one another.
[44:43] Speaker 1: I couldn't talk her out of being with them while
[44:45] Speaker 1: she was alive, but I'm calling the shots now that
[44:47] Speaker 1: she's dead, and I don't want her anywhere near him. Yeah,
[44:50] Speaker 1: both of their funerals were thronged with onlookers. But even
[44:54] Speaker 1: before that, while their bodies were just basically hanging out
[44:58] Speaker 1: in the public, all these basically souvenir seekers were trying
[45:02] Speaker 1: to like cut off their body parts and stuff.
[45:04] Speaker 2: Right, Oh yeah, just like looting what they could to
[45:08] Speaker 2: get a piece of the car, maybe to get a
[45:10] Speaker 2: like a blood soaked handkerchief or something like that. And yeah,
[45:13] Speaker 2: supposedly some guy tried to cut off Clyde's ear Their
[45:18] Speaker 2: death photos are you know, you can look those up
[45:20] Speaker 2: if you have a strong stomach. They're pretty nasty, and
[45:23] Speaker 2: their funerals attracted like thousands of people to come and
[45:26] Speaker 2: see the burials of Bonnie and Clyde. After they died.
[45:31] Speaker 2: There was sort of a lot that went on. There
[45:34] Speaker 2: was a book initially from Bonnie's mother and Clyde's sister.
[45:37] Speaker 2: They got together and wrote a book called Fugitives, colon
[45:44] Speaker 2: the story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. They started
[45:47] Speaker 2: publishing more poems from Bonnie and Clyde. One from Bonnie
[45:51] Speaker 2: called The Trail's End or the Story of Bonnie and Clyde,
[45:54] Speaker 2: and then another one that I mentioned earlier that Clyde
[45:58] Speaker 2: had written sort of as respect and both of them
[46:01] Speaker 2: they're kind of still talking about like, hey, we didn't
[46:04] Speaker 2: do all these crimes, were not as bad as everyone
[46:06] Speaker 2: makes us out to be. That kind of thing and
[46:09] Speaker 2: key though in one of these Bonnie had requested, at
[46:12] Speaker 2: least in the poem, someday they'll go down together day
[46:15] Speaker 2: meaning them, and they'll bury them side by side. So
[46:18] Speaker 2: that seemed like that would have been her wish that
[46:20] Speaker 2: she did not.
[46:20] Speaker 1: Get no because her mom said, heck no, I read
[46:24] Speaker 1: his nephew and her niece maybe great niece have been
[46:30] Speaker 1: like trying to trying to draw up support to bury them,
[46:34] Speaker 1: rebury them together, but it hasn't gotten anywhere.
[46:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, So, as you know, I said, a lot happened.
[46:40] Speaker 2: Basically what happened from this point forward is the cops
[46:43] Speaker 2: were like, it's not good enough just to get like
[46:46] Speaker 2: Bonnie and Clyde, Like, we got them, but we need
[46:49] Speaker 2: to just dragnet the whole operation. And so all of
[46:53] Speaker 2: their friends and family that were ever aiding in a
[46:56] Speaker 2: betting or anything like that were rounded up. I think
[46:58] Speaker 2: Dallas police got twenty four family. Everybody was found guilty
[47:03] Speaker 2: and you know, not very long prison sentences. I think
[47:06] Speaker 2: the max was like a couple of years. But they
[47:09] Speaker 2: wanted to get everyone who ever touched part of this
[47:12] Speaker 2: gang and put them away.
[47:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, yeah, two years for just basically
[47:17] Speaker 1: being friends with Bonnie and Clyde. That's a lot.
[47:19] Speaker 3: You know.
[47:21] Speaker 2: Raymond Hamilton aiding in a bedding is like, yeah, we
[47:23] Speaker 2: were just friends, right, right, Like they might have stayed
[47:26] Speaker 2: at my house and I might have given him food and.
[47:28] Speaker 1: Right and give them the cops, but like ammunition, and
[47:30] Speaker 1: that's what friends do. Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, they
[47:34] Speaker 1: were both executed in Huntsville at the prison in Huntsville
[47:38] Speaker 1: on May tenth, nineteen thirty five. And Henry Methvin, he
[47:42] Speaker 1: was so there was this. I said, there was a
[47:44] Speaker 1: disputed murder of one of the patrol men. That farmer
[47:48] Speaker 1: who supposedly witnessed this, said that he saw Bonnie like
[47:51] Speaker 1: go over and execute the cop at point blank range,
[47:54] Speaker 1: blowing his head off with the shotgun and making some
[47:57] Speaker 1: greasily tasteless remark about it. She supposedly wasn't.
[48:01] Speaker 2: Even I'm about to head out or something that would.
[48:03] Speaker 1: Have been good. No, something like a look of there
[48:06] Speaker 1: his head bounced like a rubber ball or something like that. Right,
[48:09] Speaker 1: So the kind of thing where you're like, wow, she's
[48:11] Speaker 1: really despicable. And of course everybody printed it because this
[48:15] Speaker 1: farmer said he saw it.
[48:16] Speaker 2: Right.
[48:17] Speaker 1: What historians now believe is that it was actually Henry
[48:21] Speaker 1: Methvin who actually did the killing, and the reason why
[48:24] Speaker 1: he wasn't implicated was because his family's plan to bring
[48:28] Speaker 1: in Bonnie and Clyde was already in motion. So now
[48:31] Speaker 1: the authorities had to cover up his murder of a
[48:34] Speaker 1: cop before he could turn in Bonnie and Clyde, so
[48:38] Speaker 1: that it was attributed to her and almost certainly wasn't her.
[48:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, Methan was eventually paroled in forty two and died
[48:46] Speaker 2: six years after that. And the story is he was
[48:50] Speaker 2: hit by a train. He was either drunk and got
[48:52] Speaker 2: hit by a train or maybe he was shoved into
[48:54] Speaker 2: a train and murdered, but no one was ever tapped
[48:57] Speaker 2: for that. As far as Blanche, she was Bucks, you know,
[49:02] Speaker 2: Clyde's sister in law and Buck's wife who was blinded
[49:05] Speaker 2: in one eye. She served six years, was proled in
[49:07] Speaker 2: thirty nine and wrote her book, My Life with Bonnie
[49:11] Speaker 2: and Clyde No Colin's and went back to Dallas and
[49:15] Speaker 2: you know, lived a life there, worked as a taxi
[49:17] Speaker 2: dispatcher and a beautician, cared for her dad, got married again.
[49:22] Speaker 2: The death car eventually, you know, it would end up
[49:26] Speaker 2: at Buffalo Bill's resorting casino in prem Nevada. I think
[49:29] Speaker 2: that's where it is now, But for a while it
[49:32] Speaker 2: was you know a lot of this stuff, like the
[49:34] Speaker 2: guns and the cars, like everyone wanted a piece of this.
[49:37] Speaker 2: I think everyone knew it was going to be worth
[49:39] Speaker 2: a lot of money, so various family members had to
[49:42] Speaker 2: sue various institutions to get this stuff back. And in
[49:46] Speaker 2: the case of the guns, Clyde's mom was like, I
[49:48] Speaker 2: want those guns back because Clyde had never been convicted
[49:54] Speaker 2: of the murders, like he was just shot in cold blood,
[49:58] Speaker 2: So I want those guns back. And I think the car,
[50:01] Speaker 2: like the original car owner Ruth Warren, was like, Hey,
[50:04] Speaker 2: that was my car to begin with. Yeah, the cops
[50:07] Speaker 2: can't keep that thing, so she sooned to get it
[50:09] Speaker 2: back and got it back.
[50:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, And before it ended up at the Prim Valley
[50:13] Speaker 1: Casino resort, it was a traveling amusement at like circuses
[50:18] Speaker 1: and carnivals and state fairs and stuff.
[50:21] Speaker 2: That's right.
[50:22] Speaker 1: I don't know entirely that we would just know and
[50:26] Speaker 1: everybody would be walking around knowing that there was such
[50:29] Speaker 1: a couple as Bonnie and Clyde were it not for
[50:32] Speaker 1: that nineteen sixty seven movie starring Fade Unaway and Warren Beatty.
[50:39] Speaker 1: I never saw the movie, so it's not like my
[50:41] Speaker 1: understanding of them comes directly from it, but all the
[50:44] Speaker 1: people it informed, I think it brought them back up
[50:48] Speaker 1: into the popular culture again and they never really left
[50:50] Speaker 1: since then.
[50:52] Speaker 2: It's a good movie. The great Arthur Penn was the
[50:54] Speaker 2: director who had another Stuff you Should Know connection, and
[50:57] Speaker 2: that he directed The Miracle Work as well.
[51:01] Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, that's he's basically a friend of the podcast.
[51:04] Speaker 2: Then yeah, two Stuff you Should Know movies. A good
[51:06] Speaker 2: movie though, but it was the year after the Hayes
[51:09] Speaker 2: Code ended, you know, the movie Codes that tried to
[51:11] Speaker 2: rein in sex and violence, and so there was a
[51:13] Speaker 2: lot of sex and violence in this movie and glamorization
[51:16] Speaker 2: of crime and stuff like that. And that ambush scene
[51:19] Speaker 2: is like a sort of a legendary film scene because
[51:22] Speaker 2: it shows it all and it's pretty gory. But it
[51:25] Speaker 2: was a It was a big, big movie, and I
[51:27] Speaker 2: think a lot of gangster movies kind of started coming
[51:30] Speaker 2: around in its wake because it was so popular.
[51:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, it was huge in the UK apparently, and it
[51:36] Speaker 1: set the stage for other bloody movies to come, everything
[51:39] Speaker 1: from The Wild Bunch two years later, to Pulp Fiction,
[51:43] Speaker 1: which was originally written by Eleanor Roosevelt, to basically every
[51:48] Speaker 1: violent movie you've ever seen. Bonnie and Clyde essentially set
[51:51] Speaker 1: the stage for that that's right.
[51:54] Speaker 2: I'll tell you what. If I'm ever near prim Nevada,
[51:56] Speaker 2: I'm gonna go over to Buffalo Bill's Resort and Casino
[51:59] Speaker 2: to check that car out.
[52:01] Speaker 1: Uh, I'd like to see that and his death shirt too.
[52:05] Speaker 2: Yeah they got a shirt.
[52:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy. I mean it's full of holes.
[52:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, and not in a bad plot sort of way.
[52:16] Speaker 1: Boy, you're pulling all those ingers today, aren't you? That
[52:19] Speaker 1: little shorty for w D or a little forty?
[52:22] Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah? Did you catch that one?
[52:24] Speaker 1: Yeah? I was killing Uh you got any other little zingers?
[52:28] Speaker 2: I got no other zingers?
[52:29] Speaker 1: Okay, Well, then that means this is the end of
[52:31] Speaker 1: the road for Bonnie and Clyde as far as stuff
[52:34] Speaker 1: you should know goes. And I think that means it's
[52:36] Speaker 1: time for listener mail.
[52:39] Speaker 2: That's right, and uh, we did not plan this everyone,
[52:42] Speaker 2: but here's the listener mail. Hey guys, I wanted to
[52:44] Speaker 2: share a moment from the Eleanor Roosevelt episode that gets
[52:47] Speaker 2: a gold star for Josh. I have a long history
[52:49] Speaker 2: of Josh like moments where I will add in an absurd,
[52:52] Speaker 2: impossible fact when talked to my wife, such as a
[52:55] Speaker 2: local construction site being a dining with your pets restaurant
[52:59] Speaker 2: or coming or a Lava Fields in the California Desert
[53:02] Speaker 2: being a huge disposal site for used asphalt. And my wife,
[53:05] Speaker 2: over twenty five years of marriage, has become very canny
[53:07] Speaker 2: about my quote unquote facts, and it's very difficult to
[53:10] Speaker 2: fooler anymore. However, when Josh said in her writings Eleanor
[53:13] Speaker 2: Roosevelt wrote an initial treatment that became the script of
[53:16] Speaker 2: pulp Fiction, I saw my wife process that fact for
[53:20] Speaker 2: about ten seconds with narrow eyes and complete confusion, followed
[53:23] Speaker 2: by a loud no. So thank you Josh for that
[53:26] Speaker 2: magic moment, and thank you both for all you do.
[53:27] Speaker 2: Very long time listener, I started listening when there were
[53:30] Speaker 2: only about one hundred back episode, so one hundred episodes
[53:33] Speaker 2: in and that is from Sam and Lisa.
[53:36] Speaker 1: Nice. Thanks Sam, And yeah that wasn't planned. How what
[53:38] Speaker 1: a coincidence? Huh.
[53:40] Speaker 2: As soon as you said it, I was like, oh,
[53:41] Speaker 2: boo ah, I'm just going to be so excited.
[53:44] Speaker 1: And I was and I still will be, probably for
[53:47] Speaker 1: hours after this, Sam and Lisa, Right, that's right. Sam
[53:52] Speaker 1: and Lisa, thanks for the email. Thanks for listening to
[53:54] Speaker 1: us for so long too, And if you want to
[53:56] Speaker 1: be like Sam and Lisa and send us an email.
[53:59] Speaker 1: You can do that too. There's nothing stopping you except
[54:02] Speaker 1: no access to the internet. If you have access to
[54:05] Speaker 1: the internet, you can send us that email to Stuff
[54:07] Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartRadio dot Stuff You Should Know is a
[54:14] Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
[54:16] Speaker 2: For more podcasts Myheartradio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[54:20] Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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