2 Bonnie and Clyde

He was the“Texas Rattlesnake.”Shewas“Suicide Sal”. Together they drove through Texas, robbing and killing at every turn. They never got rich. In fact, they never managed to steal more than $1,500 at any one time. But they left a trail of blood across the land.It was this willingness to kill that made Bonnie and Clyde famous. From April 1932 until May 1934,they shot and killed a dozen people.

Bonnie Parker met Clyde Barrow in 1930. She was a 19-year-old waitress who was bored with life.She wanted excitement and danger. That was exactly what 21-year-old Clyde seemed to offer. Clyde liked to gamble. He also liked to steal cars. When he needed money, he robbed stores or gas stations.Bonnie decided to hook up with him and have some “fun”.

Unfortunately for Bonnie, Clyde wasn't a very good thief. At one break-in, he forgot to wear gloves. He left fingerprints all over the place. Soon after Bonnie met him, he was caught and sent to jail.

Bonnie could have walked away from Clyde right then. But she didn't. She was in love with him. So she visited him in jail, slipping him a gun that she had taped to her leg. That night, Clyde broke out of jail.He was quickly recaptured,however,and sent to Eastman,one of the toughest prisons in the country. Clyde served two years there. When he got out,he was angry and bitter.He vowed never to spend another day in prison.“I'll die first, ”he declared.

Clyde meant what he said. With Bonnie at his side, he began robbing again. But now he was tougher. In fact, he was ruthless. He carried guns wherever he went. And he was ready to use them. On April 28, 1932, Clyde robbed a jewelry store in Hillsboro, Texas. He still wasn't a very smooth criminal, however, and during the robbery he panicked. He shot the 65-year-old owner through the heart.

Now Clyde was a murderer as well as a thief. Still, Bonnie remained loyal to him. In fact, she became as cold and hard as he was. To her, killing became a kind of joke. She had Clyde take pictures of her holding a machine gun. In one photo, she pretended to be robbing Clyde. In another, she and Clyde were both holding pistols and grinning wildly.

Like Clyde, Bonnie figured she would die young. She fully expected to be shot full of police bullets someday. That attitude earned her the nickname Suicide Sal. Bonnie actually wrote a poem by that title. The poem told the story of a woman who fell in love with a“professional killer.”One part read:

I couldn't help loving him madly;

For him even now I would die.

Bonnie also wrote a poem called “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde.” It included these lines:

They don't think they're too tough or desperate,

They know that the law

always wins;

They've been shot at before,

But they do not ignore

That death is the wages of sin.

By the spring of 1933, Bonnie and Clyde had murdered seven people. They killed an old shopkeeper for $28. Clyde killed a sheriff and a deputy who spoke to him at a barn dance.Clyde shot one man on Christmas Day just so he could take a ride in the man's car.

That June, Bonnie and Clyde were traveling down a country road. Clyde was driving. He was usually an excellent driver. But on this day, he failed to see that a bridge was closed for repairs. He tried to stop at the last minute, but it was too late. The car flew over a steep bank, crashed, and exploded in a ball of fire. Clyde was thrown clear of the wreck. Bonnie, however, was trapped in the flames. By the time Clyde pulled her out, her whole body was badly burned.

Clyde took her to a nearby farmhouse. There a farmer's wife bandaged Bonnie as best she could. But Bonnie was in terrible pain. For a while, it looked as though she might die. Clyde nursed Bonnie all summer. He also continued to rob and kill. He rounded up some other thugs to help him.One was his brother Buck.

That July, Buck was killed in a shoot-out with police. It happened at a park where the outlaws were camping. Clyde and Bonnie were there, too, but they managed to escape. Although Clyde was hit with four bullets, he did not fall. He helped Bonnie swim across a river. Then he stole a car and whisked her up into the hills.

Bonnie and Clyde spent the next few weeks in misery. Both of them needed medical attention. But they didn't dare go to a hospital. So, as Bonnie put it,“we lived in little ravines,secluded woods, down side roads for days that stretched into weeks. We were ... so sick that time went by without our knowing it. We lost track of the days.”

By September, Clyde was feeling better. He took Bonnie to visit her mother,Emma Parker.Mrs.Parker was horrified by her daughter's appearance. She said, “Bonnie was ... unable to walk without help. She was miserably thin and looked much older. Her leg was drawn up under her. Her body was covered in scars.”

Time was clearly running out for Bonnie and Clyde. Winter came. Still, the couple often had to sleep out in the open or in their unheated car. They moved from place to place, sticking to backwoods and small towns. By now, though, they weren't safe anywhere. A lawman named Frank Hamer was closing in on them.

In May of 1934, Hamer and his men set up an ambush near Gibland, Louisiana. On May 24, Bonnie and Clyde approached in a stolen car. Hamer's men shouted at them to halt. Said one officer,“We wished to give them a chance.”

“But,” added Hamer, “They both reached for their guns.”

Before Bonnie or Clyde could get off a shot,officers blasted them with a total of 187 bullets.

Clyde slumped in his seat, dead. Bonnie, too, died instantly. The car crashed into a hillside. When Hamer and his men got to it, they found a machine gun lying in Bonnie's lap. Clyde's hand still rested on a sawed-off shotgun.

In the end,then,Bonnie Parker had been right.She had predicted this day would come. Her poem called“The Story of Bonnie and Clyde”concluded with these words:

Some day they'll go down together;

And they'll bury them side by side;

To a few it'll be grief—

To the law a relief—

But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.