The WILD Crime-Filled Love Story Of Bonnie & Clyde 22:19

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. So today I wanted to do another history video I know you guys really liked my last couple history videos and I thought it might be fun to do a historic crime So today we were talking about the most famous criminals of all time and that is Bonnie and Clyde

Clyde. The reason I wanted to talk about this is if you don't follow me on any of my social media, you may not know that I recently adopted a giant Flemish rabbit and I had her for two weeks and then she gave birth. So she had gotten pregnant before I had even gotten her.

Anyway, we ended up with eight baby rabbits and josh and I have been raising them ourselves So this is Clyde jr His father the one who accidentally impregnated aria my rabbit is also named Clyde. So we decided to name him Clyde jr So I was thinking about it and I realized I didn't actually know anything about

Bonnie and Clyde. So I thought in honor of little Clyde here, I would cover the story. So you probably have heard of Bonnie and Clyde, but maybe like me, you don't know the full story. Throughout the years, Hollywood has definitely taken the story and used it to their advantage and kind of twisted what really happened. There's the film, The Bonnie Parker Story, which came out in 1958. The film, Bonnie and Clyde, came out in 1967. I'm Miss Bonnie Parker, and this here's Mr. Clyde Barrow.

And most recently the Netflix film, The Highwaymen also came out this year, which talked about the huge manhunt that went after Bonnie and Clyde. There have also been musicals, books, TV shows. So let's go back in time here to 1930. I know it's so hard to even picture what life was like because it was almost 100 years ago now.

So in 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president. And during this time, the United States was in the middle of the great depression, which was absolutely terrible. The 1929 wall street crash had basically destroyed the market and people were absolutely freaking out. Also, there was a massive drought going on, which turned the Midwest and farmland kind of into a dust bowl. People were super, super poor. There was a lack of food.

food and desperate times called for desperate measures. There was a lot of crime at this time, which makes sense because obviously when there's not a lot of money and there's limited resources, people become desperate and they'll do anything to survive. But the most famous criminals from this time are definitely Bonnie and Clyde.

So Clyde was born in 1909 into a poor farming family in Ellis County, Texas, southeast of Dallas. And he had a huge family. They had seven kids and he was the fifth of those seven. His family moved to Dallas in the 1920s and ended up settling in kind of the West Dallas slums. So really not a great area. And they were so poor that this family literally lived underneath a wagon.

A wagon for a long time until they were able to save up for a tent. They literally had nothing to their names and so they really had nothing to lose and

And so a lot of the people in their family became criminals. Clyde was actually first arrested when he was 17 after officers basically had to track him down because he never returned a rental car that he was supposed to return. And his second arrest in his life was with his brother Buck for possession of stolen turkeys. Very interesting.

From 1927 to 1929, he had some small little jobs here and there, but nothing too serious. And on the side, he was still doing small crimes and small robberies. Car theft was actually something that was super popular at this time because of the fact that the electric starter system in cars had just been invented and rolled out to the public. So for the first time ever, people were able to hotwire cars to get them to start. And this was something that Clyde was a master of.

So now let's talk about Bonnie. Bonnie was born on October 1st, 1910 in Rowena, Texas. Her father was a bricklayer and he actually passed away when Bonnie was only four and it was extremely hard on her and her mother. So her mother ended up having to move her and the rest of her family back to her parents' home in Cement City, which is actually one of the worst slums in Dallas, Texas. When she was living there, Bonnie was working as a seamstress, but

Bonnie always wanted to be famous. She always wanted to make something out of herself and really wanted that attention and spotlight. She wanted to be a famous singer or an actress. She also loved poetry, so she thought about being a famous poet. She had pretty big dreams. Her second year of high school, she met this guy

named Roy Thornton and when she was almost 16, not even 16 yet, she and Roy both dropped out of school and got married. So pretty crazy. She did this in spite of her parents. They did not want her to do this. She was a bit of a rebel though. She even had a tattoo, which was pretty much unheard of at this time. They ended up having a terrible marriage and Roy was gone like all the time. So Bonnie was like, Oh,

Okay, I'm done with this and they never officially got a divorce which is interesting but they pretty much just agreed to go their own separate ways. They were only together for a few years and then Bonnie moved in with her mother. During this time she worked as a waitress in Dallas and

you know, was living a pretty average life. So how did Bonnie and Clyde meet? Well, there are a few different stories. He was 20 years old. Bonnie was 19 and actually at the time that she met Clyde, she had just been fired from her job. So she was out of work and living at a friend's house. But the most common story is that they met

at one of their common friend's house when Bonnie was in the kitchen of this friend's house making hot chocolate and Clyde walked in and it was just love at first sight. It was January 5th, 1930 and the two of them were just instantly over the moon for each other. They spent a ton of time together initially when they first started dating, but unfortunately that, you know, whirlwind romance was cut short because Clyde was convicted of auto-fraud

and arrested and went to jail. He was sent to the Easton prison farm in April, 1930 at age 21. Bonnie was so in love with Clyde. She could not even bear to be away from him. So she decided she was going to help this guy that she just met to get out of prison. So she ended up smuggling him a weapon and he used it to escape. This didn't last very long though. He was captured pretty shortly after and brought back to prison.

Now, this prison that he was in was absolutely brutal. Like, it was really, really dingy and disgusting. Think of Alcatraz-type situations if you've ever been there. It's nasty. The guards there were physically abusive. It's just terrible living conditions. You have no protection. And Clyde was a pretty skinny little guy, so he got pretty badly assaulted. I will let your imagination run.

of what exactly happened but definitely had some issues with other men in the jail. One of them was really bullying Clyde and so eventually he decided that enough was enough and he killed this guy. So another inmate in the jail though ended up taking the blame for it because he was going to be in jail for the rest of his life and he knew Clyde was young and felt bad for him you know being bullied so this dude decided to take the blame knowing that it didn't matter.

for him because he wasn't going anywhere anyway. So Clyde was able to get out of jail. So he and Bonnie reunited in 1932 and got right back to work committing crimes. Clyde liked to work in groups, so he kind of formed a little gang and they would rob banks, rob little gas stations and do kind of petty crimes around. And he had a really good gun. This was really interesting to me. The police backed

were not given guns. They had to provide their own guns. So most of them could only afford like a pistol, like a small gun. And Clyde had nicer guns than all of them. He had automatic weapons. So this gave him a huge advantage against the police. So Clyde ended up

hating that prison that he came from. And he had met a lot of friends in there and he wanted to retaliate against the prison and free all the inmates, which was a crazy idea. But Bonnie also hated this prison and decided to try to help him. At one point along the way,

Bonnie was actually arrested for attempting to rob a hardware store. They tried to put her in jail. They tried to convict her, but a jury failed to indict her. So she was released and they continued on. Then another time, April 30th, 1932, they decided to do a robbery and Clyde was the driver of the car.

And the store owner for the store that they ended up robbing ended up getting shot and killed in this. And there's not a lot of detail because, you know, we don't know exactly how this all went down. Clyde ended up being identified as one of the shooters by a witness, even though he was actually out in the car.

But because of this he was now wanted for murder. So Clyde was arrested and he was actually facing the electric chair So super super scary, but Bonnie decided to not give up on him In fact Clyde ended up escaping again and now they were on the run from the police and this time for his life because if they didn't get away He would be getting the electric chair and he knew that so you'd think Clyde would be on his best behavior But that was not the case on August 5th of that year Clyde and a few of his buddies were at

a country dance thing in Stringtown, Oklahoma and they were drinking alcohol. Now this was the time of prohibition, which is crazy. That might need a whole nother video on that, but basically it was illegal to drink. So a sheriff and a deputy actually approached them and told them that they couldn't drink and Clive and his friend did not like this answer and they decided to open fire on them and killed one of them. They escaped the scene

but they felt like they should probably get out of that area. Clyde, I mean, at this point was involved with a bunch of different murders, so it was good for them to just go to a different place. Now, what was also interesting about this time is police could not follow you into another state. They could not pursue a felon, like chase someone over state lines. They had to stay in their own jurisdiction, which makes no sense. And it's not like that anymore, obviously, but Clyde used this to his advantage to stay one step ahead of the police.

So in March of 1933, Clyde's older brother named Buck Barrow was granted full pardon and released from prison. And he and his wife Blanche actually hooked up with Bonnie and Clyde and they started their own little housekeeping business together where they would clean apartments. And at first they were actually trying to get Clyde to make the right decision and actually turn himself in. Blanche, Buck's wife, was worried that Clyde's bad behavior would rub off on

buck and she was right. They ended up joining together in this life of crime and they ended up partying all the time and just living as rebels. They were super, super into drinking. They basically sat around and drank and like played card games all the time cause they were constantly hiding so they couldn't like go anywhere. And at one point they were going through over a case of beer a day, which doesn't seem like that much between four of them. But you know, back then it was a lot, especially during prohibition. And then,

In their apartment one time, Clyde was cleaning a gun and he accidentally fired it inside the apartment. And so neighbors were really suspicious about the apartment and everything and they reported suspicions to police. So the police decided to assemble a five-man force with two cars to confront who they thought were bootleggers living in the apartment. But it was actually Bonnie and Clyde. So when they approached the house, Clyde and Buck ended up actually shooting at them, open firing at them.

They ended up killing two men detective McGuinness and constable Harriman So Bonnie also ended up shooting and ended up killing Highway Patrol Sergeant GB collar because he was hiding behind an oak tree and she shot him and literally shards of Splinters a wood from the tree went into his face. It was pretty bad They all got in the car after this and they all escaped from the police and another thing that's crazy is

The police weren't even given like squad cars from the department. They were just driving whatever car they had So oftentimes Clyde had better cars than them They left a bunch of stuff in the apartment including papers a large selection of weapons handwritten poems by Bonnie a camera with several rolls of undeveloped films

And for the next three months, the group traveled all over the place from Texas all the way to Minnesota. They kept robbing banks. They robbed one in Lucerne, Indiana, and then another one in Okabana, Minnesota. And then they ended up kidnapping people, which is crazy. They kidnapped a couple...

named Sophia Stone and Dillard Darby. And what was weird is anytime they kidnapped people, they would normally release their hostages and were actually really nice to them, sometimes even giving them some money to help them return home. In July of 1933, the gang checked into the Red Crown Taurus Court south of Platte City, Missouri. They ended up having another shootout with the police and

Buck got really really badly injured. Basically he got a bullet wound in his forehead and his skull and even parts of his brain were exposed. Pretty gnarly injury. And Blanche, his wife, also ended up with a bunch of shards of glass in her eyes from the shootout and was blinded completely in both eyes. But surprisingly they survived this. Buck survived even though part of his skull and brain were exposed and

They were basically running around with these terrible injuries on the streets trying to hide from police They were in such bad shape that police could kind of follow their trail by drops of blood on the ground or dirty bandages and eventually they found them and a bunch of people with the police surrounded them all and Started opening fire like it was a crazy time back then

The police basically told the public like go ahead and shoot out them if you see them So Bonnie Klein somehow escaped this shit, but Buck actually was shot during this He and Blanche ended up getting arrested taken in by the officers and Buck was given surgery But while he was recovering in the hospital He ended up getting pneumonia and ended up passing away in a hospital in Perry, Iowa. So

So over the next couple of weeks, the rest of the gang ended up going to Colorado and then north to Minnesota and then southeast to Mississippi and continued to commit crimes in all of these states. And by early September, they had traveled back to Dallas to see their family for the first time in four months.

And this is where they ended up getting in another altercation and shooting with police. On November 28th, a grand jury in Dallas gave a murder indictment against the Barrow gang for a murder against the police officer that previous January. And so Bonnie now had a warrant out for her arrest as well, and this was Bonnie's first warrant. On January 16th of 1934, they ended up working to help some of the inmates escape from that prison.

prison, that Easton prison. And this is actually known as the Easton breakout and inmates there actually ended up shooting one of the majors in the prison. And this made the federal government get involved with things. And this is when a national manhunt was launched for Bonnie and Clyde.

Starting February 10th, Frank Hammer started closely following the Barrow gang and he was so dedicated to this that he was literally living out of his car at the time. He was working with several of his siblings, like three or four of his brothers were Texas Rangers as well. And then on Sunday, April 1st of 1934, Clyde and another one of the gang members, his name was actually Henry Methvin, killed highway patrolman H.D. Murphy and Edward Bryant Wheeler at an intersection near Grapevine, Texas, which is now called South Lake, Texas.

An eyewitness to this said that Bonnie and Clyde were the ones that fired the shots and that Bonnie was the one who actually killed the officer. It's now been reported that

Bonnie was actually sleeping in the car during this and wasn't involved in it at all. So it's never been fully determined what happened, but it was them as a whole that did it. The public was super, super upset about this. They put major pressure on the police to finally catch Bonnie and Clyde. And so it became balls to the wall, find these people. They finally offered a thousand dollar reward, which really doesn't sound like a lot, but they offered a thousand dollars for the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde. So basically they were wanted dead or alive.

So a few days after the shooting at the intersection with the police, Clyde and Henry ended up killing a 60 year old widower and father in Commerce, Oklahoma. They also kidnapped the police chief there named Percy Boyd and crossed the state line into Texas. But when they let him go, they gave him a clean shirt and a few dollars to help him get back on his feet, which is super weird. But as soon as he was let go, he obviously went and told the police and identified them immediately.

So this is when Frank Hammer, you know, the lead of the manhunt was like, we are going to find these people, take them down. After following them for a while, they realized that they would skirt around the edges of states to take advantage of that state line. And then they would also go and visit different family members along the way. So they realized that they were visiting haves

Henry's family at the time. This was in Louisiana and they were able to track them down. It was a group of four people that were part of the group that were going to finally take down Bonnie and Clyde. Heard that they were planning to go to Bienville Parish that evening with Henry and they decided that they were going to stake

out Henry's parents house because they figured they would have to be coming home at some point and that was kind of their home base. So they waited around for them in like bushes and stuff. So they were all in place at 9:00 PM waiting for them and they ended up having to wait a full 24 hours behind these bushes for them. They almost gave up. But then at 9:15 AM on May 23rd they heard a Clyde stolen car. He was driving a Ford V8 because he was like the fastest car at the time and they heard him pulling up to the house.

And they ended up staging Henry's father outside in a truck so that Clyde would stop and talk to him and distract him. And that's exactly what happened. He pulled up and he started talking to Henry's father. And this is when the police just open fired at Bonnie and Clyde, which is not how they would do it today, but,

But back then no one gave a shit and they just unloaded into them. They had shot 130 rounds at them. Clyde was killed instantly and Bonnie died very shortly after. The officers did not hold back at all. They ended up emptying all of

of their weapons to make sure that they knew that they were dead. Now we're not sure exactly how many times each of them were shot. Some people say 25, some people say 50 each, which is crazy. So they were both just riddled with bullets. When they inspected their car, they discovered a huge collection of weapons and they also had a bunch of ammunitions and 15 different sets of license plates from various states. The word got out

Bonnie and Clyde had been killed and it wasn't long before people were literally coming to the crime scene Tons of people came to the crime scene people were trying to collect memorabilia from the scene like because they knew it was gonna be famous and at one point they hadn't even moved the bodies yet and this one man walked right up to Clyde and started trying to cut his ear off to like take home and they were like no dude you can't do that and I guess the population of this tiny town in Louisiana

went from 2000 to 12,000 in like a few hours once the word got out about Bonnie and Clyde being captured. Bonnie and Clyde actually wanted to be buried next to each other, but Bonnie's family did not allow that to happen. They wanted to bring her back to her hometown

but they had major trouble with this. There were tons of mobs literally surrounding their house all the time and it made it basically impossible for them. So Bonnie's funeral was held on Saturday, May 26th, 1934, and more than 20,000 people showed up to attend this funeral.

There were flowers sent from a ton of different people and companies, which is so weird. I think it was basically because she was a girl and at the time people were like, "Girls don't do this. This is so strange." There was one in particular, a group in Dallas City Newspaper that sent a huge thing of flowers because the story allowed them to sell more than 500,000 newspapers in Dallas alone.

Bonnie was buried in the Fish Trap Cemetery and then in 1945 she was moved to a new cemetery called Crown Hill Cemetery in Dallas. Thousands of people gathered outside both funeral homes where Bonnie and Clyde were being buried in hopes for a chance to view their bodies. Clyde's family actually had a private funeral for him on Friday, May 25th, 1934 and he was buried in Western Heights Cemetery in Dallas next to his brother Marvin.

the famous Ford V8 car that they were driving and along with his shirt that he was wearing during the time of his death has been kept inside the casino of whiskey Pete's in prim Nevada since 2011. So the six men that ended up killing Bonnie and Clyde and finally taking them down were

gonna split up the insurance money from their life insurance policies, but they ended up only getting like 200 bucks each, which is really shitty. So they were actually told to take whatever they wanted from their car. So the people ended up taking like a bunch of personal items, but most of them ended up feeling bad and giving it back to their families or they just ended up selling them for money. In February of 1935, the police ended up arresting 20 different family members for being involved with Bonnie and Clyde somewhere along the way.

All 20 pleaded guilty or were found guilty. Both of their mothers were jailed for 30 days Some of them had punishments as long as only an hour in jail, which was interesting But everyone kind of had to serve some time for Bonnie and Clyde. As for Blanche Barr

She was permanently blinded in her left eye during 1933. She was taken into custody and charged with assault with the intent to kill. She was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was paroled in 1939 for good behavior and she returned to Dallas, leaving her life of crime in the past and she lived with her father as his caretaker.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.