Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, during their crime spree, playfully pose with guns outdoors for the camera.

Clyde Champion Barrow and his companion, Bonnie Parker, were shot to death past officers in an ambush nearly Sailes, Bienville Parish, Louisiana on May 23, 1934, after one of the most colorful and spectacular manhunts the nation had seen up to that time.

Barrow was suspected of numerous killings and was wanted for murder, robbery, and state charges of kidnapping.

The FBI, so called the Bureau of Investigation, became interested in Barrow and his paramour tardily in December 1932 through a atypical bit of evidence. A Ford automobile, which had been stolen in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, was found abandoned about Jackson, Michigan in September of that year. At Pawhuska, it was learned another Ford car had been abased in that location which had been stolen in Illinois. A search of this car revealed it had been occupied by a man and a woman, indicated by abandoned manufactures therein. In this car was found a prescription bottle, which led special agents to a drug store in Nacogdoches, Texas, where investigation disclosed the woman for whom the prescription had been filled was Clyde Barrow's aunt.

Further investigation revealed that the woman who obtained the prescription had been visited recently by Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and Clyde'due south blood brother, L. C. Barrow. It also was learned that these iii were driving a Ford automobile, identified as the one stolen in Illinois. It was further shown that L. C. Barrow had secured the empty prescription bottle from a son of the adult female who had originally obtained it.

On May 20, 1933, the Usa Commissioner at Dallas, Texas, issued a warrant against Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, charging them with the interstate transportation, from Dallas to Oklahoma, of the car stolen in Illinois. The FBI then started its chase for this elusive pair.

Background

Bonnie and Clyde met in Texas in January, 1930. At the time, Bonnie was xix and married to an imprisoned murderer; Clyde was 21 and unmarried. Soon subsequently, he was arrested for a burglary and sent to jail. He escaped, using a gun Bonnie had smuggled to him, was recaptured and was sent back to prison. Clyde was paroled in February 1932, rejoined Bonnie, and resumed a life of crime.

In addition to the automobile theft charge, Bonnie and Clyde were suspects in other crimes. At the time they were killed in 1934, they were believed to have committed 13 murders and several robberies and burglaries. Barrow, for case, was suspected of murdering two police officers at Joplin, Missouri and kidnapping a man and a woman in rural Louisiana. He released them nearly Waldo, Texas. Numerous sightings followed, linking this pair with bank robberies and automobile thefts. Clyde allegedly murdered a man at Hillsboro, Texas; committed robberies at Lufkin and Dallas, Texas; murdered one sheriff and wounded another at Stringtown, Oklahoma; kidnaped a deputy at Carlsbad, New Mexico; stole an automobile at Victoria, Texas; attempted to murder a deputy at Wharton, Texas; committed murder and robbery at Abilene and Sherman, Texas; committed murder at Dallas, Texas; abducted a sheriff and the chief of police at Wellington, Texas; and committed murder at Joplin and Columbia, Missouri.

The Crime Spree Begins

Later in 1932, Bonnie and Clyde began traveling with Raymond Hamilton, a immature gunman. Hamilton left them several months later and was replaced by William Daniel Jones in Nov 1932.

Ivan M. "Cadet" Barrow, brother of Clyde, was released from the Texas State Prison house on March 23, 1933, having been granted a full pardon by the governor. He quickly joined Clyde, bringing his wife, Blanche, and so the grouping now numbered five persons. This gang embarked upon a series of bold robberies which fabricated headlines across the country. They escaped capture in various encounters with the law. However, their activities made law enforcement efforts to apprehend them even more intense. During a shootout with police in Iowa on July 29, 1933, Cadet Barrow was fatally wounded and Blanche was captured. Jones, who was frequently mistaken for "Pretty Male child" Floyd, was captured in November 1933 in Houston, Texas by the sheriff'south role. Bonnie and Clyde went on together.

The Bureau joined the chase for Bonnie and Clyde in 1933. Until then, we lacked the jurisdiction to get involved in what were local crimes. But in the spring of that year we gathered evidence from a stolen car that had crossed state lines—and traced it to the elusive pair. That led to federal interstate car theft charges and enabled us to officially join the manhunt in May 1933.

On Nov 22, 1933, a trap was set past the Dallas, Texas sheriff and his deputies in an attempt to capture Bonnie and Clyde nigh Thousand Prairie, Texas, simply the couple escaped the officeholder'due south gunfire. They held upwards an chaser on the highway and took his car, which they abandoned at Miami, Oklahoma. On December 21, 1933, Bonnie and Clyde held up and robbed a citizen at Shreveport, Louisiana.

On January 16, 1934, five prisoners, including Raymond Hamilton (who was serving sentences totaling more than than 200 years), were liberated from the Eastham Land Prison Farm at Waldo, Texas past Clyde Barrow, accompanied by Bonnie Parker. Two guards were shot past the escaping prisoners with automatic pistols, which had been previously concealed in a ditch by Barrow. As the prisoners ran, Barrow covered their retreat with bursts of machine-gun burn. Among the escapees was Henry Methvin of Louisiana.

The Last Months

On April i, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde encountered two young highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas. Before the officers could draw their guns, they were shot. On April 6, 1934, a constable at Miami, Oklahoma fell mortally wounded by Bonnie and Clyde, who too abducted a police master, whom they wounded.

Identification Order No. 1227 for Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, dated May 21, 1934.

The FBI had jurisdiction solely on the accuse of transporting a stolen automobile, although the activities of the Bureau agents were vigorous and incessant. Every inkling was followed. "Wanted notices" furnishing fingerprints, photograph, description, criminal record, and other data were distributed to all officers. The agents followed the trail through many states and into various haunts of the Barrow gang, particularly Louisiana. The association with Henry Methvin and the Methvin family unit of Louisiana was discovered past FBI agents, and they found that Bonnie and Clyde had been driving a motorcar stolen in New Orleans.

On Apr thirteen, 1934, an FBI agent, through investigation in the vicinity of Ruston, Louisiana, obtained information which definitely placed Bonnie and Clyde in a remote section southwest of that community. The home of the Methvins was non far away, and the agent learned of visits there past Bonnie and Clyde. Special agents in Texas had learned that Clyde and his companion had been traveling from Texas to Louisiana, sometimes accompanied past Henry Methvin.

The FBI and local law enforcement government in Louisiana and Texas full-bodied on apprehending Bonnie and Clyde, whom they strongly believed to be in the area. It was learned that Bonnie and Clyde, with some of the Methvins, had staged a political party at Black Lake, Louisiana on the nighttime of May 21, 1934 and were due to render to the area ii days afterwards.

A crowd gathers around Bonnie and Clyde's bullet-ridden Ford sedan not long after the fatal ambush on May 23, 1934, when the couple drove down a dusty back road in Louisiana and straight into an ambush.