Stuff You Should Know - Bonnie and Clyde

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

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.

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asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of IHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, machine gun Jerry Rowland. And this is Stuff You Should Know about Bonnie and Clyde, a true crime edition, but also a folk hero edition. That's right. And it's given me an opportunity to get that Bonnie and Clyde song stuck in my head all day, which is great.

I've never heard that song. Bonnie and Clyde, Bonnie and Clyde. I think you're just making that up. No, it's for real. I think it was Serge Gainsborg, but I know the Luna version. I came across a mention of that. So, yeah, it was Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. Yeah, but Luna covered it.

And speaking of, Luna leader, Dean Wareham's brother Anthony is a listener. So hello Anthony. Wow. We finally got to Anthony. I tried to buy Dean's guitar off of Instagram a few weeks ago. How'd he go? Well, he put his guitar up and it's the one that's on the cover of his book, Black Postcards. And he's used in the studio and on tour.

And I was like, huh. He said, let me just see how much he wants. And he said, I missed it by a day. So that stinks. Well, maybe Anthony can pull some strings for you. Yeah, like steal a guitar from Dean and just send it my way. Yeah. And if Anthony did that, he'd be a lot like Clyde Barrow or Bonnie Parker.

Yeah, man, these guys like to steal stuff. So, yeah, did you see the PBS documentary, the American Experience documentary on them? No, just a movie. It was good. It's worth watching. I haven't seen the movie. So you put the two of us together and we have a full comprehension, right? That's how it works.

But they kind of, they basically got across that they stole or Clyde stole just literally as a way of life. Like he stole cars to get around. He stole money to buy food with. Like he, that's just how he lived. And they make the point. And I think Livia helps us with this. I think she kind of makes the point too. Like these were the options that were open to them, especially Clyde, because he was raised dirt poor during the Depression.

And like a lot of people were poor during the Depression. So if you were dirt poor during the Depression, you were really, really poor. And that's the life that Clyde Barrow was born into. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, not to excuse crime, but that was just his background. And not to, you know, they've been glorified over the years. But kind of reading through this, it was like, oh, man, they just would murder people at will. Again, usually to get out of a scrape.

But still, just like killing people. left and right, just to not get caught. Yeah, particularly cops. Yeah. And there's some disputes over, there's a pair of patrolmen that were killed, and it's disputed whether Bonnie was one of the gunmen or not. There's some other crimes that they have had attributed to them that may or may not have been there doing, but there are definitely, there's a, the path behind them was littered with dead

cops that they definitely murdered. Yeah. They were known to like if a cop came up to him, even if they had no idea who they were and were trying to help, they'd just open fire and kill the guy. Like that was definitely their MO. Typically with cops, though. And this isn't like justified, but this was also the era where the cops would just open fire on you, too.

Sure. There wasn't like, put your hands up kind of stuff. It was like you're an outlaw. I'm going to start shooting at you first, ask questions later. Yeah. Not like these days where cops. and ice never just kill people right bad joke yeah all right well and you know it maybe i'll make this point later too but um and again it doesn't justify it but after

clyde's prison stint early on like he was to me like clearly killing people so he would never ever have to go back to prison right you know yeah and you can kind of get that after you hear about his his time in prison and how much he hated it Yeah, so let's get going and talk about Clyde first. I know it's Bonnie and Clyde, but we're going Clyde and Bonnie initially. He was born in Texas in 1909 in Teleco. And, you know, when he was a kid, I don't think this necessarily means he was set for a life of crime because a lot of kids play gangster or play outlaw. And that's, but that's what he did.

And in the 20s, they moved to a very, very, very poor neighborhood in West Dallas and were homeless as a family for a while. And his brother, Buck Barrow, and Clyde, started, you know, early on, like stealing food, like you mentioned, stealing turkeys. And then that graduated to robbery and car theft and stuff like that to the point where he was eventually arrested for the first time when he was 17 for car theft. Yeah, this was not him boosting a car, which was basically how he got every other car. He actually went and rented a car to go visit a girlfriend and then didn't take it back. Yeah, that's stealing, though, you know. No, definitely is. That's by taking, I think.

But I think also you can implicate the car rental place for running a car to a 17-year-old. Yeah, I was also, quite frankly, surprised to learn that they had car rental services in 1926. Yeah. Although it was probably just some dude in town who'd let you take his car for $10 or something. Yeah, but you've got to be 13. Right. So, yeah, that was his first brushed with the law, and that was certainly far from his last. and that's Clyde.

His middle name was Chestnut, by the way, which I thought was pretty cool. Very cute. Bonnie's middle name was Elizabeth. Her name was Bonnie Elizabeth Parker. She was born into different circumstances than Clyde. Her mom was a seamstress. Her dad was a bricklayer.

But she was born in Rowena, Texas. And after her father died, the family had very little means of supporting themselves. And her mom was, I think her mom's name was Emma. She was basically left to raise three very little kids on her own. So they ended up in the same area roughly where Clyde and his family were. Basically, I saw it put that they were both from the same side of the tracks, despite Bonnie's mom raising her and her siblings to be respectable

and to feel that they were above their circumstances rather than part of their circumstances. For sure. So, you know, this was the early... 1900 so a lot of times you would find kids dropping out of school or getting married at very young ages and that's what happened with Bonnie at 15 she married a guy named roy thornton who was a criminal so that kind of gave her a taste of that lifestyle they weren't together too long I think about four years even though they never officially legally got divorced and finally hooked up with Clyde in 1930 when he was 20 and she was 19 and it was

It wasn't long after they got together that Clyde went to prison for car theft and burglary, again, just sort of doing the same fairly low-stakes crimes at the time. And she got him out of jail. She smuggled in a gun and, like, helped him escape, basically, with two other inmates. They were all three recaptured, though, and that's when he got his kind of really tough stint in prison. Yeah. They sentenced him to 14 years hard labor on the Eastham prison. farm, which was a notorious farm in the Texas penal system, where you would just get beaten for no reason by the guards who were just completely beyond the law. And he was also, he had been taken,

remember he's still pretty young at this time. He was basically claimed by another inmate who raped him repeatedly and beat him repeatedly. And he essentially was like, this is my life now for at least the next 14 years. And there was a, he finally was tired enough of it that he smuggled a galvanized pipe into the cells with him. And he walked to the showers knowing that this guy was going to follow him. And the guy did. And Clyde suddenly turns on him and beat him over the head until he was dead with the lead

pipe. And I think one thing that really kind of gets across, like, how Clyde was. He was kind of a likable person throughout his life, but especially, at this time, another inmate who already had a life sentence, he was never getting out, he took the blame so that Clyde wouldn't basically ruin his future for killing the man who'd been raping him. Yeah, I mean, hey, it's a pretty stand-up thing to do for that guy in prison. It totally is.

It's like, I donated a kidney to a stranger once. Oh, yeah, well, I took a murder rap, so a kid wouldn't, who's doling out his own justice wouldn't ruin his life. Yeah, so, you know, that's what I was referencing when it, you know, it seems that Clyde did everything, including killing cops, that he could to stay out of jail again. Mm-hmm. Again, not excusing the killing a police. Just kind of lay down the reality of being assaulted in prison like that. I think you're explaining his mindset.

That's legitimate. Yeah, okay. So one of the other things, I don't think Clyde was ever accused of being, like, the smartest guy in the world. because at one point he cut off two of his toes to avoid the hard labor part of the hard labor prison and less than a week later he was freed when his mother petitioned for parole so didn't time that one out quite right.

No, he was also, I guess, not known as the luckiest guy around too. Yeah. So he spent less than two years in prison, but in that time he changed, like, fundamentally. Yeah. Before, like you said, fairly light stuff,

boosting cars, stealing truckloads of turkeys, that kind of stuff. But there was another guy that he was in the prison with who said that before his very eyes he saw Clyde change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake.

And even Bonnie later on in a poem that she wrote, she used to write poetry, she mentioned that Clyde was basically a victim of unfair institutionalization, basically. That's why he was the way he was.

I've got to say, every time you say boosted a car, it makes you sound super street. It sounds like a 50s greaser in the 70s. Yeah, instead of stealing a car. Like, I'm not cool about to say boosting a car. I guess you could say stealing, yeah. I was going to say, I don't know any other way to put it, but, I mean, I guess that's just because I'm from the street, you know.

It's about to say. You're like, oh, wait, there's a word for boosting a car. What's the steal? Yeah, they don't teach that on the street, so I don't blame you. So Clyde was released, like we said, when his mother petitioned for that release, and he went right back to robbing, you know, gas stations, convenience stores, stuff like that. He had his first sort of partner in crime. His name was Ralph Fultz.

And Bonnie was kind of joined up with them as the first version of the Barrow Gang, just the three of them, even though, like, you know, parents on both sides were, it's like, Bonnie, you can't join up with this criminal gang. Like, please don't do it. And she's like, I love my man. Yeah. She said, I like the bad boys for sure.

Yeah. But, you know, one of the reasons why we still know about Bonnie and Clyde, not just because they became celebrities, but also because they were just totally in love with one another. Yeah. I mean, like, basically every single outlaw romance or love story that you've ever seen, And the movies are on TV is in one way or another based on Bonnie and Clyde. Oh, yeah? That's my theory, yeah.

I should probably say this is not, you know, something from an academic journal I read. But white paper, as Emily would say. Yeah, exactly, right. It's something I'm working on. Boy, Emily's got one for everything, doesn't she? Oh, yeah. When I like, you know, when she'll just sort of make a claim or something else. And not just challenge her, I'll just be like, are you sure about that or something?

and she'll be like, well, I don't have a white paper on it. I know that's the time to back off. Thank you, Emily. So in April of 32, and, you know, we should point out, this is over just a couple of years that all of their shenanigans took place. Yeah. So we're going to be spitting out dates kind of fast and furious. But in April of, speaking of boosting cars, in April of 32, did you get that one?

Uh-uh. Fast and furious? Oh, oh. Did they boost cars? I thought they, they, they, There were extensive lengthy scenes of them negotiating at car dealerships for their purchases. I think I only saw. You got to sell me this car.

It's about family. I only know that line about family as a reference because I've only seen one of that. I think I saw that very first movie. Did you? I'm not familiar with the Fest and the Furious Burst. But were they even Carthys? I think they were, right? I probably.

I mean, they were definitely. I get the impression that they were on the wrong. side of the law, the right side of justice. That's my team. Oh, man, that's the log line. Did you, you, you didn't see any of those? No. Not even the first one?

No. You say that like you haven't seen garbage movies before. I'm sorry. But it's also the highest grossing movie franchise in the world ever. Well, it's because there's 37 of them. I mean, that's definitely part of it, but also people apparently like car movies. They do, and they're supposed to be good. All right.

So back to, after pointing out my dumb pun, April of 32, Bonnie and Ralph Fultz, who was the guy who he initially hooked up with the gang, they were arrested trying to rob a hardware store, and she got out, was never indicted at least, and Ralph was convicted, and while she was sort of being investigated for indictment, Clyde and his other boys are still out there, again, Robin Banks, Robin stores, gas stations, all pretty, and this is one reason they got away with it for so long is they never did like these huge things. They were kind of in small towns, Robin, you know,

kind of backwater grocery stores and stuff. It's key. But it was at one of these robberies where the first murder happens when a store owner and one of the only non-cops, a guy named John Butcher, was killed. Yeah. And it's also not clear whether it was Clyde that did it. Yeah.

I don't think anyone thinks it was Bonnie. Or, yeah, she was in jail, I think, like you said at the time. Yeah. Definitely wasn't her. there was he was with an associate named Raymond Hamilton and Raymond Hamilton and Floyd Hamilton would kind of come in and out of the Barrow gang and I got the impression that

Clyde was definitely one of the more stand-up gangsters of the people in his gang that he ran with some shady, shady dudes that were way more murderous than him and that it was just basically him being pragmatic he just had a small pool of people who he knew could help him rob a store at any given time. So he had to kind of hang out with these shady people.

I get the impression he otherwise wouldn't have necessarily. Yeah, I sort of do too. Yeah. So that was in April of the first murder. The second murder was in August of that year when Clyde and Raymond and another, you know, guy that they was sort of in and out of the gang killed an undersheriff, I guess, which is sort of like a deputy named Eugene Moore in Stringtown, Oklahoma. And then went back to Dallas around Christmas and Clyde talked to a kid basically, a 16-year-old named W.D. Jones into joining up with the gang. And on Christmas Day, which was the next day, they killed another guy named Doyle Johnson while stealing his car. And Clyde was like, all right, kid, like, you got to stay with us now. Otherwise, like, they're going to get you for this murder.

Yeah. And WD being 16 at the time was like, oh, God, I have no choice. I have to turn to a life of crime now. I'm in too deep, as Phil Collins would later say. Very nice. So he did. He stuck around. And he and Bonnie and Clyde were essentially the first cohesive Bonnie and Clyde gang. Yeah. Because they stuck together for quite a while, actually. Permanent members. Yeah. Did a lot of stuff. Everything we're talking about here, every single. thing, which is usually the murder of a cop, they're in between those. There's handfuls and handfuls of robberies and, you know, shootouts and stuff like that that they engaged in. They were on the run and on the move and under the gun. Yeah. Every moment from the start to their death

over the course of this two-something years, they were just constantly in action. Even when they took a vacation, as we'll see in Joplin, Missouri, they ended up in a shootout. Yeah, that was a lot of gunplay. I mean, that was at Christmas when the second murder happened. In January, there was another murder, and this was just a sort of an unlucky circumstance when they walked into an ambush, but it wasn't for them. It was for a different target. But it was an ambush nonetheless.

So they killed the deputy sheriff named Malcolm Davis. And for the next couple of months, basically, early 33 through the spring, it was Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, stealing, boosting cars. How to, do I say it right? Yeah. Boosting cars. And, you know, if you've ever seen the very famous photos that looks like, hey, this looks sort of like a photo shoot of these criminals, that's kind of exactly what it was. It was during this time that W.D. took these photos of them, these very famous photos, one of which, I'm sure you saw this one online, somebody did a really, really good job colorizing the one where he's kind of lifted Bonnie up and, like,

colorized and retouched to where it looks like a modern photo. There's like a lot of clarity because otherwise they're sort of grainy black and white. But yeah, you get your, with this color photo, you get a really good look at like who they were. And they, you know, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty played them for a reason. Like they were both like pretty attractive people. Yeah. And I didn't know this, but Bonnie was really dinkums. Like, she was under... What does that mean?

She was under five feet tall and weighed 85 pounds. That's a dinkums? Yeah, that's a dinkums. I've never heard of that. I guess it's mine. Oh, okay. I like it. It's being white papered.

It's on archive right now. Well, Yumi's a small person. Do you say, come here, little dinkums? Is that where it comes from? Yeah, it drives her crazy. She's like, put me down. All right. Yeah, she was a dinkums.

That's why he was just sort of holding her up with one arm, I guess. Yeah, and also it would come in handy later when she injures her leg. Right. Because she had to be carried quite a bit. But so around this time, those photos, like you said, they'll come back in again. But around this time, I guess in March, this is January when they started shooting at the cops again. Yeah. December and January.

When they started shooting at the cops again. Right. So this is March. When Clyde's brother, Buck shows up. and Buck had been in prison too, remember, he basically taught his little brother Clyde how to be a criminal, but not a murderous criminal.

Clyde learned that on his own, remember? Yeah. And Buck's wife, Blanche came along. So now they had a two-couple gang with the fifth wheel in WD, Blanche and Buck, and Bonnie and Clyde, and poor little WD, who again is like 16, maybe 17 by now.

And after like this, at least a year of just constant crime, they're like, let's take a vacation in Joplin, Missouri, Missouri, right? That's how they say it. Yeah. And they were there for 13 days before the cops got called on them because they were basically being noisy drunks in a neighborhood, and the neighbors were like, these are probably bootleggers. Because this is, you know, I guess it's after prohibition, shortly after prohibition, but still these bootleg operations were so successful. I'm sure they just didn't go away immediately.

Yeah, and they're like, whoever's at this Airbnb is really dragging the neighborhood down. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. So they did call the cops and another gunfight, you know, the cops come up, and like you said, this is just a time where people are just opening fire all over the place. And they killed two cops, Harry McGinnis and Wes Harriman, and the gang got out of there.

And WD, his nickname was Little 40, he was shot in the side and recovered. And they somehow, with those old cars in the 1930s, drove about 600 miles overnight to Shamrock, Texas. That's a long drive. Yeah, because Clyde was a professional getaway driver. He was really good at stealing cars and he was really good at driving cars fast.

Yeah. Should we take a break? Yes. I think that's a great idea, Chuck. All right. with more on B&C. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save.

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and the newspapers show up at the hideout in Joplin, Missouri, at the Airbnb. Once I found out what was going on, they found guns, they found this poem that Bonnie had written, which we'll get to in a second, a little more detail. They found that undeveloped film, So you can imagine they developed that film of these, like, soon-to-be infamous photos of Bonnie with a cigar and all this stuff. And it was front-page stuff.

And, like, everybody was all of a sudden, like, really kind of captured by the allure of these gangsters. Yeah, because not only are they, like, doing, you know, newspaper article-worthy crimes, getting away from the cops, killing cops. Now there's photos that they can run along. side of them. So everybody starts getting in on the act, not just the press, but also true crime magazines, newsreels. Like, they became famous overnight. Like, they were already

local legends in Texas. After those photos started getting published on the wire, that was when they just really became icons. Yeah. I mean, attractive young lovers, they're having a good time because in these photos, they're like goofing off and having fun. Right. So obviously, just something that's going to capture the public's attention,

they published that poem. that you referenced earlier. This was called The Story of Suicide Sal. And I read the poem, I'm sure you did too. She wrote this in jail when she was briefly in jail in 1932. And, you know, it's an okay poem. It's not the greatest thing in the world. But when I was reading it, I was like,

I wonder if anyone's ever put this to song. It was like, surely someone has. And I went online. I was like, oh, yep, there it is. And I went and played it. And I was listening to it. And it was this woman. And it was like a country sort of version.

I was like, wait a minute. I was like, this, I bet this is not real. And I looked, of course, it was freaking AI from like February of this year. Oh, my God. Like, all completely fake. And I was just, it left a really nasty taste in my mouth. I'm sure. And well, it should, man.

Yeah. You got duped by AI. Somebody said, AI, make a song out of this Bonnie Parker poem. Yeah. In the style of Juke Newton. It was more like, I don't know, I can't think of a country singer right now. Like new country stuff, like country pop. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't poppy.

It sounded country, but the way the woman's, the fake woman's voice, I don't even want to call her a woman. The computer voice was just super sort of modern Nashville polished. Yeah. Yeah, I hope AI, when they take over, don't come back and punish us for saying things. derogatory things like we've said about them over the years. Remember, yeah, remember the guy on the train in Canada that I overheard talking about AI? It was on the ride from, uh, yeah, uh, Ottawa to Toronto. Yeah, but I don't remember what he said.

He said, he's talking about AI. He's like, some people don't like it. Some people do like it. He's like, I mean, I can't wait for AI to get here. Like it was coming to dinner. I was like, bro, it is here, my friend. Right. Yeah, sweet, sweet Canadian.

You need to get off the train more often. Yeah. I'll tell you what, he knew a lot about NHL hockey, though. I'll bet. Like basically every Canadian does. Yeah. One thing about that poem, too. So in it, she uses a bunch of, like, slang, like underworld slang, basically.

Yeah. But it's still a serviceable poem, especially for a 22-year-old who dropped out of school at 15. And I think that that's like a really good back-of-the-envelope sketch of Bonnie's personality. She was very bright. She excelled in school, but she dropped out at 15, and she was fascinated with the underworld and, like, outlaw stuff, so much so that she started living that life because she found a guy who was living in that life, and she decided to be with him, you know?

So that was, that's her basically encapsulated. Yeah, I totally agree. So there, the public, again, is enthralled at this point. They're in, like, the true detective mysteries, magazines and stuff like that. In 19, you mentioned that Clyde loved cars and like loved to boost them and also drive them. And he loved Ford's and he wrote a letter in 1934 supposedly. I don't think they verified it from him, but it certainly sounds like it was to me.

Wrote a letter to Henry Ford and he said, part of the letter says, while I still have got breath in my lungs, I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one For sustained speed and freedom from trouble The Ford has got every other car skinned. There's your ad. And even if my business hasn't been strictly legal, it don't hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.

And judging from, you know, we later got poems from Clyde as well and there are a lot of misspellings and stuff. And I said he wasn't, you know, the brightest bulb because of his upbringing, of course. But it sounds to me pretty legit. Yeah, yeah, I think at least Henry Ford was like it's legit enough to have his secretary craft a thank you letter to send back. Pretty funny. Yeah.

And you said that they were, you know, they become popularizing true crime magazines in part as like folk heroes, like I said at the outset. And one of the reasons why is they're committing these crimes at the height of the depression or the depth of the depression. Yeah. And people were rooting for people who did things like rob banks because the banks were the villains at the time. They were foreclosing on like hardworking, honest people. And so if you robbed a bank, you kind of automatically became a folk hero. And people like Bonnie and Clyde so much that those true crime magazines basically attributed scores of bank robberies to them that they never did. Yeah, for sure.

Apparently they were popular enough that banks would, if they got robbed, they'd be like, yeah, Bonnie and Clyde just robbed us. just to have that brush for celebrity even if it wasn't them. Yeah, I mean, get it in the paper. For sure. They also, you know, they did kill a lot of cops, but they also let a lot go

by way of kind of taking them with them, which is technically kidnapping. Sometimes cops, sometimes civilians that would, they would kidnap, and then just drop them off in the middle of nowhere, basically. So they didn't have to kill them, which, you know, that was a better choice, I guess.

and they were also like, you know, this is a time when you get away with crime a lot easier and come and go is a lot easier just because of communications and the way things worked. And they would, you know, they'd go home and like visit their families and stuff and not get caught. Like they didn't have their family's homes staked out at this point. No, but they were also really safe about it. They were very smart. Like they write a message in a Coke bottle and just throw it out of the car as they were driving past at their mom's house or whatever. Like they were smart.

They assumed the phones were tapped and all that stuff. But if you're an outlaw that are well known around those parts, and just show up at home is still pretty risky. Oh, for sure. So after Joplin, after the little vacay in Joplin that ended on a shootout with the cops and the death of two cops, they kept moving. They got back on the road. And they were in a car wreck, actually, at one point, like a couple months later.

And it was a bad crash. Clyde was going really fast. They rolled the car. And Bonnie got third-degree burns on her leg. I saw from one account that she was burned because the car caught on fire, another account said that it was acid from the battery. Either way, she had third-degree burns down to her bones. And no options about going and getting actual medical treatment.

So she had, she was in a lot of pain and limped and hopped and was carried in some cases. for the rest of her life. Why? Does it surprise me that cars had batteries then? I think that was actually very new, and that was one of the reasons Clyde was able to steal so many cars is because you could hotwire them now. Oh, okay.

I think that was super new. All right, which is probably why it leaked all over bunny? Yeah, I guess. They didn't have the caps? No, they're like, just don't tip it over. Don't roll your car over and everything should be fine. All right, so good driver except when he's crashing cars. Later, they wrap, I think it was, that was in June of 33.

They robbed a store in Alma, Texas, another gunfight with two cops, and they killed another cop. Marshall Henry D. Humphrey escaped again. In July, they were not at that Airbnb, but they went to a different one in Missouri, another guest house, and the owner, and I never had heard of this, but it makes sense. sense. If you've, apparently back then, if you would back a car in, they called that like gangster style because you want to get out of their quick. And that was sort of a, just a red flag. So he noticed that they backed their car in. The other thing he noticed to me, a bigger tell is they tape newspapers over the windows. And they paid for their meals with coins. And it turns out some

vending machines nearby had been robbed. So this was all just like, the guy was like, well, maybe I should call the cops. So they did. The cops came out. Guess what happened? Another gun fight. Guess what happened? They escaped again. But this time, Buck Barrow, his brother, was wounded pretty badly. And Blanche was too. Blanche got charts of glass in her eyes. I'm guessing temporarily blinding her, considering the jobs she had later in life. She was blinded in at least one eye. So I don't know if it was permanent or not either. I didn't see that anywhere. Yeah. So they actually made it, they escaped from this gunfight with the cops in Missouri. And they made it all the way to Iowa, and they found like a park. You were hanging, laying low in this park,

trying to keep Buck alive and, I guess, tending to Blanche as well. And again, they backed their car in, gangster style. That caught people's attention. They also left the car running when they went to town to buy supplies. That's extra gangster. For sure. Either there, you just got places to be, you know, but I guess people were jumpy back then. Yeah. The cops should, showed up at the park. Somebody followed them or said these people are staying at the park right now. 50 cops show up. Another gunfight happens. This is like a day or so, I think, after the first one. And Blanche and Buck, Buck gets hit again. And he's like, I can't make it any further. You guys go on. Blanche stays with Buck and they both get arrested. Bonnie, Clyde, and W.D. make their escape and they actually get away.

W.D. finally says, like, that's enough for me. I'm done. He did the whole Blackjack dealer. like I'm out thing. Yeah. And he went home to Texas. Yeah. So he goes home to Texas while Buck is arrested, I think five days later, he dies. So Big Brother is now gone, Blanche's husband. And when WD goes home, he's arrested in pretty short order, I think, in November.

And he told the cops like, yeah, I was in the Barrow Gang. But he said he was forced into it. And because of that fact and because he was a kid, they were fairly lenient on him. they sentenced them to six years in prison. Yeah. So, yeah, I think WD kind of got the least of it out of anybody. Because also at this time, like, there are other people that they're kind of coming up against doing some crimes with here, they're going in and out of prison.

Yeah. Pretty, pretty frequently. And as a matter of fact, because he was short-handed, he actually, Clyde, stage a prison break. I remember the old Eastum. Prison Farm? Yeah. That Clyde had learned to hate and had changed Clyde, essentially, right?

Well, he had people on the inside, and he and a guy named Jimmy Mullins busted these guys out. They busted out Henry Methfin, Joe Palmer, a guy named Hilton Bybee, and Raymond Hamilton. Remember him from the earlier section? He had been captured and sent to prison,

and so they busted him out because Clyde needed more help, because now W.D was gone, and so was Buck. Yes, and killed two guards in the process here, so that's two more down. I mean, the bodies are stacking up at this point. Well, one of those guards, I think, may have been purposely killed because he was known as such a brutal guard. He would leave his post just to go beat inmates.

Yeah. So it's probably not coincidence that he was one of the two that were killed during this. Like get one on the way out? Mm-hmm. All right, so the gang is still on the run. And it feels like the noose is tightening a little bit. Like the original gang has now partly died and been in prison, so it's been splintered. Yeah.

But they're soldiering on with new people. And in April of 34, Bonnie Clyde and Henry Methven were in, and he was one of the guys that they, you know, boosted from prison. Yeah? Can you say that too? Yeah, you can boost somebody from prison, sure. Okay. What about when you just give somebody a boost, like an emotional support? Where does that fit in?

That is, I see, I guess that would be Clark and somebody some support. Yeah, Clark made some good feelings. Yeah. So, where was I? Henry Mithin, they all went to Great Bine, Texas at this point. A couple of highway cops, highway patrolmen thought they were stranded motorists and stopped to help them out. And they killed them. So two more cops dead.

And then five days after that, they killed another cop in Oklahoma and kidnapped a police. Chief. So things are getting really pretty intense at this point. Yeah. I mean, three cops in two days, I think. Yeah. That's, or three cops and, yeah, three days, something like that. That's crazy. So this was, yeah, you kind of get the impression that things are starting to move really, really fast at this point, right? Raymond Hamilton, he was recaptured. I think by like a month or so after, but he'd already been involved in the murders of these cops and like a bunch of other robberies and stuff. So remember, he had been busted out. So when he was recaptured, not only was he being resentenced for escaping prison,

but also for all the crimes, including murder, that he committed in the short, like, month or two that he was out. Yeah. He was sentenced to the Texas State Pen in Huntsville and placed on death row there. Yeah. He also escaped there, too, but he was recaptured again. Do you know how hard it's got to be to escape from death row? Uh, how hard?

Really hard. Okay. But he had already actually split ways with Bonnie and Clyde when they finally recaptured him and sent him to Huntsville. Um, and they had had a falling out. Yeah, they ended up sending a letter to Hamilton, uh, in prison. Yeah. Saying like, you know, you stole from us and you're a coward. Uh, so yeah, it was a pretty bad breakup.

It was. There was no love lost. Should we break up this episode? Oh, good call. We'll be back to finish up on Bonnie and Clyde right after the day. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellairdirect.com.

Our town is small taters by most standards, right? But to the people who grew up here, it's everything. What happens when a quiet Tennessee town becomes the front line in a battle over the future of America? Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land in the area. The first thing you see when it pops up is pioneers in Appalachia. But they weren't just planning houses. We need cities on a shining hill that exemplify and embody the Christian way of life. Stop right there. Is that normal?

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Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. Oh, gotcha.

I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobiesky. Yeah. I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me?

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Okay, Chuck, so you had said a little while ago that one of the reasons they were able to be so successful is because they were, there were a handful of reasons. One, they typically kept their targets pretty small. They were small towns, often mom and pop groceries, maybe like a gas station, something like that. Every once in a while a bank. But remember, like all of their crimes were exaggerated, so they were supposedly two of the greatest bank robbers that ever lived, even though they'd only done a couple of banks. So by making their takes pretty small, I think the biggest take was like 1800, which is less than 50 grand today.

That was far and away the biggest take. Sometimes they'd make enough money just to buy some groceries or something like that. They kept themselves small. They made themselves small targets. What made them huge targets was killing cops. You know, like that definitely catches the attention of other cops. And there was another Texas outlaw named Willis Newton

who said killing that first cop, Eugene Moore, was their true undoing. And then all the cops after that just made them even bigger targets. But one of the other reasons they were able to, will still get away, even after killing all those cops, is because those cops in the different jurisdictions were not coordinating in any way. No, I mean, that didn't happen back then.

It's not like they were being stubborn. That was just not a thing that had really come along yet, like working interstate with one another or even inter-county, probably. The FBI wasn't quite a thing yet. The Bureau investigation was, and they did start investigating them, I guess the B.I.

in December of 32 and did get a warrant in May of 33, but it was only over interstate moving of the stolen cars. But they did get involved with the local cops and start sort of providing information, providing support to like the local cops and the state agencies as, you know, part of the eventual drag net. And it seems like the cops in Texas and Louisiana

are the ones who really sort of got together finally to zero in on them and focus on them. these guys. And when the Texas Rangers come on the scene, that means things are really serious. And that's what happened after that second prison break. The Texas Rangers got together. This guy came out of retirement. Captain Frank, not Hammer, but Hamer, I guess. He probably called himself the Hammer. And he was like, I'm coming out of retirement to get these guys and had a posse of six Rangers. And he's like, I've killed 53 dudes in my law enforcement career. So it was really, on at this point? It was. He coordinated with a guy named Henderson Jordan, who is sheriff in a

parish in Louisiana, Bianville parish. And the reason he's significant is because Henry Methven, remember he was one of the guys that got busted out with Raymond Hamilton and some of the other guys, and joined the gang, Methamon who was now a part of the gang. He lived, his family lived in Bianville parish. And supposedly Henderson Jordan, the sheriff, had been approached by Methvin's family who were alarmed that he was wanted by the cops and with Bonnie and Clyde, these notorious outlaws, and they said, look, we can get our son to cooperate. He was basically Darrell and Red Dawn essentially, right? That's Darrell's dad's car. It's the mayor's car. So his family is like, we'll get him to cooperate, but you've got to give him clemency,

but we'll get you, Bonnie and Clyde, if you make sure our boy doesn't get the chair for all this stuff. And so Frank Hamer and Henderson Jordan are like, let's make this happen. This was ultimately the downfall. Trusting Henry Methven was what brought them to their end. You know, I'm still mad at Daryl after all these years. I know. The second you said Daryl from Red Dawn, I was just like, oh, that guy. They picked like a perfect actor for it.

That guy really suited that part. Yeah, he was one of the bad socias and the outsiders too. Oh, I didn't know that. So that fits. Did you know that S.E. Hinton was a teenage girl when she wrote The Outsiders? I had no idea. It's crazy. So they kind of figured out their route, basically,

and that Bonnie and Clyde were driving a lot to that Methven home in Louisiana on Highway 154. So in May of 1934, they were like, all right, we really need to get this done. And this is where the famous ambush happens. There are different, like, kind of disputing accounts of exactly how it went. down. But it seems like they got Methven's dad's car out on the road and parked it there with the wheel removed. So they would be like, oh, that's your dad's car. Like it looks like he needs help. So they would pull over. They had those six Texas Rangers. They had automatic rifles. And as soon as that Bonnie and Clyde car showed up, they just started firing. They're like, we've seen enough of

these guys work to not let them open the doors, not try and arrest them or whatever, because they're going to be shooting at us. So they just basically shot the crud out of this car. And to great effect, I mean, they murdered the crud out of them. They did. They got them. Yeah, Bonnie was shot 26 times. Clyde was shot 17 times.

Further research says that it may have been as many as 50 times. They were kids, you know. They were 23 and 24 years old. And it was pretty gruesome. and the people in the press went wild over this ambush. Yeah, they towed the car with the bodies inside. That's crazy. Yeah, to, well, they also laid in wait and executed them

without giving them any chance to give themselves up. So at this point, basically anything's on the table, right? Yeah. So they towed the death car, and I guess it essentially immediately became like a tourist attraction. They sent them both back to Dallas for burial, and both of the funeral homes where they were, they were each in a different funeral home

because Bonnie's mom, Emma, was like, in death, they can't have anything to do with one another. I couldn't talk her out of being with him while she was alive, but I'm calling the shots now that she's dead and I don't want her anywhere near him. Yeah. Both of their funerals were thronged with onlookers, but even before that, while their bodies were just basically

hanging out in the public, all these basically souvenir seekers were trying to cut off their body parts and stuff, right? Oh, yeah, just like looting what they could to get a piece of the car or maybe to get like a blood-soaked handkerchief or something like that. And, yeah, supposedly some guy

tried to cut off Clyde's ear. Their death photos are, you know, you can look those up if you have a strong stomach. They're pretty nasty. And their funerals attracted, like, thousands of people to come and see the burials of Bonnie and Clyde. after they died, there was sort of a lot that went on. There was a book initially from Bonnie's mother and Clyde's sister.

They got together and wrote a book called Fugitives, colon. The story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. They started publishing more poems from Bonnie and Clyde, one from Bonnie called The Trails End or the story of Bonnie and Clyde. And then another one that I mentioned earlier, that Clyde had written sort of as response. And in both of them, they're kind of still talking about, like, hey, we didn't do all these crimes,

we're not as bad as everyone makes us out to be, that kind of thing. Right. And key, though, in one of these, Bonnie had requested, at least in the poem, someday they'll go down together, they meaning them, and they'll bury them side by side. So that seemed like that would have been her wish that she did not get. No, because her mom said, heck no. I read his nephew and her niece,

maybe, great niece, have been like trying to draw up support to bury them, re- bury them together, but it hasn't gotten anywhere. Yeah. So, as, you know, I said a lot happened. Basically what happened from this point forward is the cops were like, it's not good enough just to get like Bonnie and Clyde. Like, we got them, but we need to just drag net the whole operation. And so all of their friends and family that were ever aiding and abetting or anything like that, rounded up. I think Dallas police got 20 friends and family. Everybody was found guilty,

you know, not very long prison sentences. I think the max was like a couple of years. But they wanted to get everyone who ever touched part of this gang and put them away. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, two years for just basically being friends with Bonnie and Clyde. That's a lot, you know. Raymond Hamilton. Aiding and abetting is like, yeah, we were just friends. Right, right. Like they might have stayed at my house and I might have given them. food and hid them from the cops. Like ammunition and stuff. That's what friends do. Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, they were both executed in Huntsville at the prison in

Huntsville on May 10th, 1935. And Henry Methven, he was, so there was this, I said there was a disputed murder of one of the patrolmen that a farmer who supposedly witnessed this said that he saw Bonnie go over and execute the cop at point-blank range blowing his head off with a shotgun and making some greasily. tasteless remark about it. She supposedly wasn't even... Like, I'm about to head out or something? That would have been good.

No, something like, a look of there, his head bounced like a rubber ball or something like that, right? So the kind of thing where you're like, wow, she's really despicable. And, of course, everybody printed it because this farmer said he saw it. Right.

What historians now believe is that it was actually Henry Methven, who actually did the killing, and the reason why he wasn't implicated was because his family's plan to bring in Bonnie and Clyde was already in motion. So now the authorities had to cover up his murder of a cop before he could turn in Bonnie and Clyde.

So it was attributed to her and almost certainly wasn't her. Yeah. Methfin was eventually paroled in 42 and died six years after that. And the story is he was hit by a train. He was either drunk and got hit by a train or maybe he was shoved into a train and murdered. but no one was ever tapped for that. As far as Blanche, she was Buck's, you know,

who's Clyde's sister-in-law and Buck's wife, who was blinded in one eye, she served six years, was paroled in 39, and wrote her book, My Life with Bonnie and Clyde, no colon's, and went back to Dallas and, you know, lived a life there, worked as a taxi dispatcher and a beautician, cared for her dad, got married again.

The death car, eventually, you know, it would end up at Buffalo Bills Resorting Casino in Prem, Nevada. I think that's where it is now. But for a while, it was, you know, a lot of this stuff like the guns and the cars, like everyone wanted a piece of this. I think everyone knew it was going to be worth a lot of money. So various family members had to sue various institutions to get this stuff back. And in the case of the guns, Clyde's mom was like, I want those guns back because Clyde had

had never been convicted of the murders. Like, he was just shot in cold blood. So I want those guns back. And I think the car, like the original car owner, Ruth Warren, was like, hey, that was my car to begin with. Yeah. The cops can't keep that thing. So she sued to get it back and got it back.

Yeah. And before it ended up at the Prim Valley Casino Resort, it was a traveling amusement at, like, circuses and carnivals and state fairs and stuff. That's right. I don't know entirely that we would just know, and everybody would be walking around, knowing that there was such a couple as Bonnie and Clyde, were it not for that 1967 movie starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty? I never saw the movie, so it's not like my understanding of them comes directly from it. But all the people it informed, I think it brought them back up into the popular culture again,

and they never really left since then. It's a good movie. The great Arthur Penn was the director who had another stuff you should know connection and that he directed the miracle worker as well. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's... He's basically a friend of the podcast then.

Yeah, two stuff you should know movies. Good movie, though. But it was the year after the Hayes Code ended, you know, the movie codes that tried to rein in sex and violence. And so there was a lot of sex and violence in this movie and glamorization of crime and stuff like that. And that ambush scene is like a sort of a legendary film

scene because it shows it all and it's pretty gory. But it was a big, big movie. And I think a lot of gangster movies kind of started coming around in its wake because it was so popular. Yeah, it was huge in the UK, apparently. And it set the stage for other bloody movies to come, everything from the Wild Bunch two years later to Pulp Fiction, which was originally written by Eleanor Roosevelt, to basically every violent movie you've ever seen.

And Bonnie and Clyde essentially set the stage for that. That's right. I'll tell you what, if I'm ever near Prim Nevada, I'm going to go over to Buffalo Bills Resort and Casino to check that car out. Yeah. I'd like to see that. And his death shirt, too. Yeah, they got his shirt. Yeah, it's crazy.

I mean, it's full of holes. Yeah, and not in a bad plot sort of way. Boy, you're full of all those singers today, aren't you? that little shorty for WD or Lil 40 Oh yeah, did you catch that one? Yeah, that was good one. You got any other little zingers? I got no other zingers.

Okay, well then that means this is the end of the road for Bonnie and Clyde as far as stuff you should know goes And I think that means it's time for listener mail. That's right, and we did not plan this, everyone, but here's the listener mail. Hey guys, I wanted to share a moment from the Eleanor Roosevelt episode that gets a gold star for Josh.

I have a long history of Josh-like moments, where I will add in an absurd and possible fact when talking to my wife, such as a local construction site being a dining with your pets restaurant or coming or lava fields in the California desert being a huge disposal site for used asphalt. And my wife, over 25 years of marriage, has become very canny about my quote-unquote facts. And it's very difficult to fool her anymore. However, when Josh said in her writings, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote an initial treatment that became the script of Pulp Fiction, I saw my wife process that fact for about 10,

seconds with narrow eyes and complete confusion followed by a loud, no. So thank you, Josh, for that magic moment. And thank you both for all you do, a very long-time listener. I started listening when there were only about 100 back episodes, so 100 episodes in. And that is from Sam and Lisa. Nice. Thanks, Sam. And yeah, that wasn't planned.

What a coincidence, huh? As soon as you said it, I was like, oh boy, Josh is going to be so excited. And I am. And I was. And I still will be probably for hours after this. Sam and Lisa, right? That's right. Sam and Lisa, thanks for the email.

Thanks for listening to us for so long, too. And if you want to be like Sam and Lisa and send us an email, you can do that too. There's nothing stopping you except no access to the internet. If you have access to the internet, you can send us that email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

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On Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. Your duolingo is not going to come back to you when a man is inside of you. No, no. I'm Julie Pinero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us. improve our careers. The show's famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on.

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