American Experience (1988–…): Season 28, Episode 5 - Bonnie & Clyde - full transcript

♪♪

Thousands attend the homecoming
of Clyde Barrow.

In this Dallas funeral home,
his body lies

as a never-ending line
of men, women, and children

from every walk of life
file by his casket

for a fleeting glimpse
of the boy

who had wrought so much death
and destruction.

Everyone wants to see how such
a bad boy looked in death.

Over three days in May of 1934,

throngs of onlookers flocked
to two Dallas funeral homes,

hoping to catch a last glimpse



of the outlaws Clyde Barrow
and Bonnie Parker.

My dad said there were just
lines and lines of people.

They were mobbing the place.

They couldn't have
a decent funeral

because everybody
was just crowding around,

taking souvenirs.

Clyde's body is borne
to the grave.

He died at the hands of the law.

My grandpa went down
to the funeral home

to Clyde's viewing.

It was probably a little bit
of excitement for them.

He was only one of thousands.

Three miles across the city
from where Clyde's body lay

lies the body of Bonnie Parker,



and here the crowd
is even greater.

Bonnie and Clyde had been
on a two-year crime spree

that left a trail of dead bodies
in their wake.

They were little more
than a local curiosity

until photos of the couple
were discovered

at a crime scene in 1933.

Overnight, the country
became transfixed

by the scandalous images,

press accounts
of improbable escapes,

and their illicit romance.

Bonnie and Clyde,

who people are sort of
making up stories about

or getting sightings of,

all of a sudden,
there are pictures,

there are guns,
there's evidence.

It was a nonstop soap opera.

Everybody was tuned
into the radios,

everybody was reading
the papers, and actually,

it was almost like they were
rooting them to get away.

Bonnie and Clyde
would join the ranks

of other celebrity gangsters
like John Dillinger,

Pretty Boy Floyd,
and Baby Face Nelson,

so-called public enemies
who emerged out of nowhere

during the Great Depression

to capture the country's
imagination.

In a world where there was
very little to get excited about

in the summer of 1933,

Bonnie and Clyde
were pretty big news.

Everybody was talking
about the criminals,

the bad guys.

But Clyde and Bonnie had
the one thing the others didn't:

the whole true romance
and the sexy scandal.

Bonnie and Clyde's notoriety

would force them to take
even greater risks

to remain free
and on the open road,

as law enforcement's hunt
was kicked into overdrive.

There wasn't gonna be
any arrest or any trial;

it was going to be an execution.

Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born
in the Texas cotton belt

on March 24, 1909,
one of seven children

of itinerant farmers
Henry and Cumie Barrow.

By 1925, the whole Barrow clan

had followed a wave
of other farmers

who were flooding cities
in search of work.

With all their worldly
possessions

packed into a horse-drawn cart,

the Barrows settled
on the outskirts of Dallas

in an impoverished backwater
known as The Devil's Back Porch.

Clyde Barrow grew up
in an unincorporated slum

so poverty-stricken
we couldn't imagine it today.

And there's a campground

right on the west bank
of the Trinity River,

and it's mostly mud,

and there's one well,
there's a few outhouses,

and this is where
the indigent lived.

My grandfather and grandmother,

they were just poor people
trying to survive.

And they camped out there
in just that wagon,

that little mule,
and that's how they lived...

No money, no food,
just poor as you could be.

So from the time
this kid can really think,

all he knows is there's no hope.

"This is it.

"I'm going to be poor,
I'm going to be hungry,

and I'm going to be put down
the rest of my life."

Clyde chafed at the prospect
of a life of poverty.

Though he was slight...

Five feet, six inches,
never more than 130 pounds...

Clyde was bright, energetic,
and a dreamer.

He saw what he wanted
just across the river in Dallas:

a prosperous city
with skyscrapers,

endless entertainment,

and streets lined
with high-end shops.

Dallas exposed Clyde to a life
that was far beyond his grasp.

He had dreams.

You know,
he wanted to do something

rather than be poor
the rest of his life.

He hated poverty and he hated
looking like poverty.

With a taste for expensive suits

and little interest
in honest work,

Clyde Barrow
picked up the bad habits

of his older brother Buck,

who had already settled
into a life of petty crime.

What started with the two
brothers stealing chickens

quickly grew into armed robbery,
and by the time he was 17,

Clyde was perfecting
his signature crime.

This is the first era
of car theft.

The electric starter system
is put in cars.

You could hotwire one.

And Buck was a master of it,

and he passed the skill along
to little brother.

Clyde Barrow didn't see stealing
so much as a crime

as almost an obligation.

"I want to get out of here.

This is the only way
I can do it."

By 1929, Clyde's crimes
were regularly drawing

the attention of local police.

In November of that year,
Clyde, Buck, and an accomplice

broke into an auto shop
in the town of Denton,

just outside Dallas.

Local law enforcement spotted
the robbers trying to flee

and opened fire.

They shoot Buck
and they capture Buck,

but Clyde runs
all the way back home.

It's a close call,
but it's worth it

because as long as
he's stealing cars

and getting
a few dollars for them,

he's somebody, and to him,
that's worth any risk.

Despite his brush with the law,

Clyde's family was happy
to have him close to home,

and just a few months later,

he would meet a young girl
from the same side of the tracks

who shared his yearning
for a better life.

Smack dab in the middle of Texas

in the small town of Rowena,

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born
on October 1, 1910.

Four years later, after her
father's unexpected death,

Bonnie's mother, Emma,

moved the family not far
from the slums of West Dallas.

Despite the impoverished
conditions,

Emma made sure to raise
her three children

with the knowledge that
they were somehow better

than their surroundings.

My dad was Bonnie's brother,
and daddy was the oldest,

and then Bonnie,
and then my Aunt Billie Jean.

She raised those three kids
by herself.

She literally was
their everything.

My daddy and Billie Jean
I know were spoiled,

so I'm quite sure Bonnie
was spoiled too.

Bonnie was just a cute
little Texas girl.

Not quite five feet tall,

with blue eyes
and strawberry blonde hair,

Bonnie Parker
excelled at school,

was a good singer and dancer,
and enjoyed writing poetry.

Like Clyde, she longed to escape

the ceaseless poverty
she saw everywhere.

As a teenager,

Bonnie would lose herself
in the picture houses

on the other side of the river
in Dallas.

Bonnie was tremendously
influenced by motion pictures.

What movies brought
to the ordinary person

was the roadmap
to reinvention for yourself.

"You can be someone else.

"You can create a story
for yourself and live it.

You don't have to be locked
into the way you were born."

In 1926, 15-year-old Bonnie,
against her mother's wishes,

dropped out of school
to marry her boyfriend,

a small-time thief
named Roy Thornton.

She had a little bit
of a wild side to her.

She had a tattoo
on the inside of her thigh

with Roy's name on it.

Just imagine a woman doing that
back in the '20s.

You know, that was
a daring thing to do.

Bonnie thinks she's going
to have a storybook romance,

true love just like you can see
at the picture shows.

Instead,
Roy starts disappearing,

won't tell her where he's going.

When she bothers him about it,
he beats her up.

The third time he leaves her,
he doesn't come back.

After her break from Roy,

Bonnie's dissatisfaction with
the unending boredom of poverty

gushed forth in the pages
of her journal.

"Blue as usual.

Not a darn thing to do,"
she wrote.

"Why don't something happen?"

On January 5, 1930,

Clyde Barrow
walked into her life.

Clyde came along
just at the right time for her.

This guy with a new car
that's stolen, but so what?

It's a new car, and he's dressed
in these fine clothes,

and he's got lots of money,

and he's got a good line,
and he's got a great smile,

and it just worked.

Buster, her brother,
Buster told me, he said,

"Little Ted," he says,

"When those two saw each other,"
he said,

"you could see the sparks fly
right there."

Just weeks into their courtship,

Clyde's outlaw ways
finally caught up to him.

Dallas police showed up
at Bonnie's house

with a warrant for his arrest.

Clyde was sent
to the county jail in Waco

to await his trial
and sentencing.

But Clyde Barrow
had no intention

of being separated
from Bonnie Parker for long.

He knows where there's a gun,
and he gets the idea

to get her to go get that gun
and bring it to him.

On one visit,

Clyde slipped Bonnie a note
detailing his escape plan.

He signed it,

"You are the sweetest baby
in the world to me."

This is where Bonnie
has to make a choice.

This is breaking the law
herself.

She can go to jail for this.

On the other hand,
if she does break him out,

that's the kind of daring thing

some of the pretty starlets do
in the picture shows,

so she says she'll do it.

Bonnie hid the gun
under her dress

and successfully smuggled it
into the jail.

She was now Clyde's accomplice.

The escape plan worked.

Clyde and two other inmates
fled the Waco jail that evening.

However, their freedom
was short-lived;

they were arrested
just seven days later.

Bonnie returned to her mother
in West Dallas,

but Clyde was slapped
with a 14-year sentence

and was now on his way

to one of the most notorious
institutions in Texas,

a prison so violent and untamed

it had earned the nickname
"The Bloody Ham."

When Clyde Barrow goes
to prison,

he's going
into a state prison system

that is not meant
to rehabilitate prisoners.

It is meant to be
the worst possible hellhole.

The convicts are treated
like slave labor.

They work all day long

under the supervision
of armed guards on horseback.

They're given no break

besides maybe five minutes
for a cup of water

and a crust of stale bread.

They're beaten
for the slightest transgression,

and sometimes they're beaten
for no reason at all.

Clyde was assigned
to the Eastham Prison Farm,

a 13,000-acre cotton plantation

filled with the system's
most violent offenders.

And Clyde Barrow,
this skinny little kid,

is put among the worst
of the worst on Eastham.

And what happens is inevitable.

One of the inmates decides

he's going to make
this kid his own,

and for months,
Clyde is continually raped,

and no one is going to save him.

Clyde's attacker was a convict
named Ed Crowder.

Over six feet tall
and 200 pounds,

Crowder was an imposing figure.

On October 29, 1931,

Clyde decided to try
to put an end to the abuse.

Clyde sneaks a piece
of galvanized pipe

into the building

and he lures Ed Crowder
back to the open toilets.

Clyde goes back there by himself

because he knows Crowder
will follow him,

and as soon as Crowder
catches up to him,

he wheels around and just rips
the top of his head open

with this galvanized pipe.

Crowder was dead,

and another inmate
serving a life sentence

took the blame for the murder,

but Clyde was still stuck
in the Bloody Ham.

The inmate slave labor
would go on for years,

and he decided
there was only one way out.

At a certain point,
he just lost it

and he gave
another prisoner an ax

and told him to cut off
two of his toes

so that he wouldn't have to go
into the fields any more.

He's brought into the infirmary

so he doesn't have to work
in the field,

and just as he does this,

he finds out that his mother
actually got him pardoned.

Cumie Barrow had successfully
petitioned the governor

to release her son.

Paroles were not uncommon
at the time...

They were used
to help ease overcrowding.

Clyde left prison just six days
later on February 2, 1932.

He would have a limp
for the rest of his life.

He became a killer in prison.

This fellow convict,
Ralph Fults, put it so well.

He said, "I saw Clyde Barrow
change from a schoolboy

to a rattlesnake
right in front of my eyes."

He had his mind made up

that he wasn't going
back to the pen.

He told both of his parents,

"I'm not going back
to that hellhole.

They'll have to kill me first."

He's somebody.

He's in the big-time,
doing things in a big way.

And look at us, just a couple
of nobodies, nothin'.

When Clyde comes out of prison
in 1932,

it was the beginning

of the true crime era
in America.

The Depression is still there.

It's still awful.

People are poor
all over the country.

People are suffering.

So many Americans
think of the government,

the police, the banks,
as the villains.

Those elements created
the perfect audience.

Everybody was talking about
the criminals, the bad guys,

and not in any sense
being derogatory.

The gangster figure
represented somebody

at the bottom
of the social scale

condemned to a life of nothing

who did not accept that
as their fate

and who found a way
to change it,

which was through violence.

So it's socially acceptable
to like this gangster

who does everything you can't do

and does it
with so much success.

That's the appeal.

By the spring of 1932,

Bonnie Parker had reunited
with Clyde Barrow

as he resumed his life of crime.

After a botched robbery attempt,

she was captured
while Clyde got away.

Bonnie found herself alone
in a jail cell

in Kaufman, Texas, awaiting
a decision by a grand jury.

Now, 21-year-old Bonnie

was playing out a scene
in her own movie.

In a poem she wrote
from her jail cell,

Bonnie plays the part
of a jilted girlfriend

determined to win her man back.

"If he had returned
to me sometime,

"though he hadn't a penny
to give,

"I'd forget all this hell
that he caused me

"and love him as long as I live.

"But there's no chance
of his ever coming,

"for he and his moll
have no fears

"but that I will die in prison
or flatten this 50 years."

She picked up that language

from the pulp fiction magazines,
from the tabloids,

and from Hollywood.

It says everything in there.

She's using all the lingo

and she wants to be
part of that world.

Her mother reads these poems
and says,

"This is not the daughter
I raised.

This is not the daughter
I love."

She says, "I began to see
a strange and terrifying change

in the mind of my child."

Bonnie has made a switch
to investing in this persona

in which what honor means

is to stick to your man
no matter what.

In June, a Kaufman grand jury
set Bonnie free,

unwilling to believe
that any woman

would choose to accompany
criminals of her own volition.

Just days after her release,
Bonnie did just that.

Taking their fate
into their own hands,

Bonnie, Clyde,
and a revolving cast of ex-cons

that would make up
the Barrow Gang

set out on the open road,

burning a path
through two dozen states,

robbing gas stations, banks,
and grocery stores,

often scoring just enough money
to make it to the county line.

They had to go to places
where they weren't known,

where they could more easily
commit crimes.

Once they committed
those crimes,

they would move as quickly
as possible to get far away.

From Dallas, they would go up
through Oklahoma and Missouri.

Clyde loved hitting banks
in Iowa.

They would go as far as Indiana,
in one case all the way to Ohio.

They once even did a western
trip out to New Mexico.

He told his Mom, he said,
"Mom," he says,

"all the money in the world
is not going to make me free."

So all he was interested in

was getting down the road
and living of the day.

There was no incentive for him
to go straight whatsoever,

whereas he actually knew
he was good at crime.

He was good at stealing things,
he was really good at driving,

he was good at stealing cars.

Fortunately for Clyde,

Ford had just introduced
the V-8 engine,

creating the most powerful car
in mass production.

With 300,000 miles
of newly paved highway

stretching before them

and small town cops
ill equipped for a chase,

Bonnie and Clyde
were hard to catch.

There were days
when Clyde stole four cars.

And he prides himself
in stealing only the best,

most powerful cars,

and those Ford flathead V-8s
could flat out move.

I mean, Clyde could...
And did often... escape

because he could go
70, 80, 90 miles an hour,

and the law's chugging along
at 35 miles after him.

My father said that
you were chasing Clyde,

and it looked like
that little Ford

would coil up like a snake
and launch.

And every time it launched,

he'd gain
about 100 yards on you.

And he said,
"After four corners, forget it.

You're not going to find him,
he's gone."

Though Clyde would later
tell his family

that he always preferred to run
rather than fight,

he was preparing for both.

He amassed an arsenal,
including his gun of choice:

the massive Browning
automatic rifle, or BAR,

complete
with armor-piercing bullets.

National Guard armories
were all over the states.

Clyde, on a regular basis,

would break in and steal
the Browning automatic rifles,

the fancy pistols,
the good weapons.

These weapons
were not made available

to local law enforcement
officials.

So if the Barrow Gang
was ever in a situation

where for some reason
they couldn't outdrive pursuit,

they would always be
in a position to outshoot them.

What started out as a joyriding
romance on the open highways

slowly took a darker turn

as Clyde began to deploy
his deadly force more readily.

Clyde could change at the snap.

If you hemmed him up
or if you snapped on him first,

you had a war on your hands,

and the little man knew
how to wage war.

Clyde Barrow and his gang

were responsible for the deaths
of four men

from April 1932
through January 1933.

Eugene Moore, an undersheriff
in Stringtown, Oklahoma,

was gunned down
at a community dance.

Doyle Johnson was shot

in front of his family
on Christmas day

trying to prevent Clyde
from stealing his car.

Clyde killed Malcolm Davis,
a Fort Worth deputy,

with a shotgun blast
at point-blank range.

Killing an officer of the law
meant that, if caught,

Clyde would surely face
the electric chair.

I remember his sister
asking Clyde how he felt

now that he killed someone.

He said, "Sis, it makes me sick
to my stomach."

He said, "They've got guns,
I've got guns."

You know,
"They're trying to kill me

and I'm trying
to just get away."

He says, "I feel bad.

It makes me feel sick that
I had to take a human life."

He said,
"But it was them or me."

Clyde has a certain personal
justification system.

From Clyde's perspective,
it was simply him reacting

to a situation
that he couldn't help.

From his perspective,
he was doing what he had to do.

Remember, Clyde says

he's never going back to prison.

This means if there's a deputy

standing between him
and freedom,

that deputy's going to go.

By 1933, the Barrow Gang's
exploits were making news

in a handful of western states.

Despite the risks, Bonnie
and Clyde always found a way

to see their families
in West Dallas.

Bonnie and Clyde,

they were really very close
to the family, very close,

and they kept coming back.

You know, back then,
families banded together.

They assumed the lines
would be tapped,

so Clyde would put a message
in a Coke bottle

and he'd drive down the road

and he'd toss out the Coke
bottle with the message in it.

Cumie would go call
all the family members.

She'd say, "Look, I've got
a great big pot of beans

and some corn bread
or some fried chicken."

She said,
"Any way you can come over?"

"Yep, we'll be there."

So that was the signal

that all the family
were going to meet.

The Barrows and Parkers

rendezvoused
with Bonnie and Clyde

in secluded parks
outside Dallas,

where they'd feast
on Cumie's home cooking.

Bonnie would shower her family
with gifts and cash,

much needed
during the Depression.

Her mother, Emma, pleaded
with her to give herself up,

and even Clyde tried
to convince Bonnie to leave him.

You know, Clyde tried
to get her to leave.

He said, "They're not after you,
they're after me,

and they're after
me to kill me."

But she wouldn't do it.

And I guess
he admired that in her.

The love was so strong,

no matter what he tried to do,
she wasn't going to go.

And her loyalty to him

is a love that you don't see
in today's world.

I don't condone what they did.

I resent her for the fact that
she hurt the family so much.

But on the other hand,

I kind of admire her, you know,
having that love

and being capable
of loving that deeply.

By the spring of 1933,

Bonnie and Clyde's
criminal odyssey

was into its second year.

Now, two new travelers
joined the ride:

Clyde's brother Buck,

who was just recently paroled
from prison,

and his wife Blanche.

Both were welcomed additions
to the gang.

In April, the two couples

and a young criminal protégé
named W.D. Jones

were holed up in an apartment
in Joplin, Missouri,

taking a break from the road.

Of all the places you could've
picked to go for a vacation

if you were on the run
from the law,

Joplin was a hotbed
of bootleggers,

so the cops
were always on the lookout

for anybody suspicious.

On April 13,
the local authorities

decided to investigate
the Barrow Gang's hideout.

John Harryman,

a farmer moonlighting
as a part-time peace officer,

approached the house
with Joplin police.

They were armed
only with pistols.

Here are these Joplin cops
thinking,

"We're going to bust
a couple of bootleggers."

And instead, as one of them
swings a car up

to block the driveway
so no one can get out,

through the actual garage door

comes this blast
of powerful gunfire.

And, of course,
it's the Barrow Gang.

If you're in a gunfight

and all you've got
is a little pistol

and you hear that BAR go off,

you know that
it's time to go home.

Harryman died at the scene.

His colleague,
Joplin policeman Harry McGinnis,

was so riddled with bullets
his arm was nearly detached.

He would die before daybreak.

The gang made off in one
of their stolen Ford V-8s,

but what they left behind
would change everything.

After the gunfight at Joplin,

because the group
had to leave so fast,

they left everything:
clothes, jewelry, weapons,

and a couple rolls
of unprocessed film.

And on this roll of film,

there's some pictures
of Bonnie Parker

holding Clyde at gunpoint
with a rifle.

And the best picture of all.

At a time when girls
had to know their place

and how to act like ladies,

here's Bonnie Parker
leaning on a stolen car.

In one hand
she's dangling a pistol,

and in her mouth is a stogie.

She always hated that picture.

Of course, it was never intended
to be published.

None of those photos were.

But on April 15,
the pictures were splashed

across the front page
of the Joplin Globe,

and soon, the images of Bonnie,

a gun-toting,
cigar-chewing sexpot,

and Clyde,
her handsome leading man,

were appearing in newspapers
and magazines

across the country.

You have local reporters,
who are AP or UPI runners,

who jump on the story

and are trying
to sell the story,

so it becomes a reason
to read the newspaper.

They became a symbol
that, actually,

people could seize control
of their own fates.

People could defy authority
and they could get away with it.

The legend of Bonnie and Clyde
was born.

With the photos, the duo went
from two-bit Texas hoods

to mythic outlaws.

They came at a time

when you can really
literally say

a lot of American needed them.

It's this whole Romeo and Juliet
illicit romance...

A little spice,
a little soap opera drama...

At a time when the country's
desperate for entertainment.

Their cultural timing
was absolutely perfect.

After Joplin, Bonnie and Clyde
were in near constant motion.

Their fame was bringing
too much attention.

At first, running
up and down the road

was maybe kind of exciting,

but after thousands
and thousands of miles,

I'm sure the excitement
went away.

Don't you know that they had
to be the loneliest people?

That had to be
such a lonely life, you know,

and to know that there's
just another country road

when you got through
with that one.

A lot of people say
it was glamorous... no.

I don't think living in a car
and bathing in rivers

and eating out of a sardine can
is a way of life.

They were just trying
to stay alive

is all they were doing,
you know, just existing.

One night in early June 1933,

just outside the small town
of Wellington, Texas,

Clyde's legendary driving skills
finally failed him.

Clyde's coming in
on the new road, but it ends,

and there's a detour
to the old road

to use the bridge
that's in place.

Clyde's driving so fast,
he doesn't see it.

And the car flips over,
catches fire.

It's a wonder they weren't all
killed right there.

Clyde was thrown from the car,

but Bonnie was trapped
in the burning wreckage.

With the help
of a nearby family,

Clyde eventually freed her.

Bonnie's right leg
had been horribly burnt.

The farm family comes
to try to get everyone out

and they manage to save
Bonnie's leg

by rubbing in baking powder
and grease into it.

But after this, Bonnie Elizabeth
Parker is a cripple.

When police arrived
to investigate,

Clyde commandeered their car
and kidnapped the two officers,

eventually setting them free
50 miles down the road.

Bonnie and Clyde headed east
for a rendezvous

with Clyde's brother Buck
in Oklahoma.

Back on the road,
Clyde ducked into small towns

to pick up bandages and salve
for Bonnie's burns.

Can you imagine the pain
that she went through

and not being able to go
to a hospital or anything?

He could have brought her home
and dumped her

and gone on his way.

I think both of them
were dedicated to each other

because he took care of her.

And if you ever wanted proof

of that absolute complete
commitment, it's at this moment.

And, of course,
this is also the time

when it all starts to go
downhill from there.

In learning self-defense,
they were told,

if you are forced to shoot,
then shoot straight.

In 1933, the federal government
began its national war on crime.

A new crop of violent gangsters
had suddenly emerged

and was making headlines
across the country.

True crime was already popular
in America,

and some of the big-name
criminals were celebrities.

I mean, John Dillinger
was movie-star handsome.

You had Ma Barker and her boys.

You had the guy with the best
nickname, Pretty Boy Floyd.

They were doing some things
on a large scale.

J. Edgar Hoover,

head of the justice department's
division of investigation,

warned of a criminal army

that was sapping the spiritual
and moral strength of America.

Hoover advocated for a stronger
federal police force

to restore law and order
for a nervous American public.

From, like, '33, '34

is this pivot point
in American culture

where you're coming out of the
nadir of the Great Depression,

but Roosevelt has been elected,

J. Edgar Hoover is getting
the FBI organized,

and you see the gangster figure
kind of representing

both our vicarious need
for rebellion

against the economic
and the political system,

but also the need we have
for order and stability,

because we are in a very
terrifying time.

Clyde Barrow now found himself
on Hoover's list of wanted men,

and federal agents in Dallas

were assigned
to track his movements.

This desperate public enemy

now rises to fame
as an underworld hero.

But it was the bank robber
John Dillinger

who was the centerpiece
of Hoover's crusade,

commanding no less than
38 agents alone.

The Barrow Gang was in no way

up there at the top level.

The public, though,
perceived that they were,

and newspapers
and true crime magazines

would exaggerate their takes
from different robberies,

would give them credit
for huge heists

they had nothing to do with.

Despite what the press
was writing,

the Barrow gang remained very
much a problem for local police,

who had spent a year
chasing the crime duo

across multiple states.

If they wanted to stop
Bonnie and Clyde,

they'd have to match
their firepower.

On July 20, 1933,

police officers, this time armed
with heavy weapons and armor,

cornered Clyde and the gang
in a motel

in Platte City, Missouri.

After a bloody shootout,
the gang managed to escape,

but Clyde's brother Buck

sustained a bullet wound
to the head,

and his wife Blanche

was blinded by glass
from a shattering windshield.

Four days later,
near Dexter, Iowa,

the battered Barrow Gang
was again surrounded.

Eager onlookers and the press,

hoping to catch a glimpse
of the now famous outlaws,

watched as police opened fire.

Clyde is trying
to have everybody

run towards the brush
by the side of the river,

and Bonnie, of course,
can't run.

She has to be carried.

Halfway towards the river,
Buck says he can't make it,

and Clyde realizes he has
to leave his brother.

That's the only way
he can save Bonnie.

Buck and Blanche
are taken prisoner,

and the Des Moines photographer
from the newspaper

runs up with his camera
to take a picture of Blanche,

and Blanche can barely see,

and she thinks somebody's
got a gun

and is just going
to execute them.

Blanche went to prison,

and Buck died a few days later.

Before,
death is an abstraction...

"Yeah, it'll happen sometime,
but aren't we having fun?"

Well, now it's found them.

After the shootout in Iowa,

Clyde was taking even greater
risks to stay on the road,

and now with Buck's death,
he needed a new gang.

In January of 1934,
Bonnie and Clyde took part

in an early morning raid
of Eastham Prison

that freed five inmates.

It was a satisfying bit
of revenge,

but set off a chain of events

that not even the great escape
artist Clyde Barrow could elude.

After Clyde staged the raid
on Eastham,

the head of the prison system,

an extraordinarily effective
bureaucrat named Lee Simmons,

said, "I'm going to bring
these people in."

There was no state police

that were going
to come in and help them,

so Simmons felt like
he had to do it himself.

Simmons reached out
to Frank Hamer,

the most famous lawman in Texas.

A former member of the notorious
Texas Rangers,

Hamer had spent half his life
hunting criminals

and had already killed 53 men
during his service.

Captain Frank Hamer was a legend

among Texas Rangers.

He was the roughest and toughest
of them all.

He used to tell
new Ranger recruits that

the best way to enforce the law
is a .45 slug in the gut,

and he meant it.

Lee Simmons told Frank Hamer

to put Clyde and Bonnie
on the spot

and shoot everyone in sight.

From the word go,

there wasn't going to be
any arrest or any trial;

it was an execution.

Hamer set out on the road
in a rented Ford V-8,

meticulously retracing
Bonnie and Clyde's path,

looking for a pattern
to their travels

or for anyone willing
to give them up.

In Louisiana,
Hamer caught a break.

The family of a fugitive
named Henry Methvin,

whom Clyde had just busted
out of Eastham Prison,

wanted to cut a deal:
clemency for their son

in exchange
for Bonnie and Clyde.

About 10:30 Sunday morning,

I noticed a car
parked on that hill,

a man and woman in it.

In May of 1934,

a newsreel played before
feature films across the country

detailing the cold-blooded
killings

of two Texas motorcycle
officers.

In it, an eyewitness claims
to have seen a man and a woman

step from a car
to deliver the death blows.

One was standing
on either side of the car.

They reached down
and got their gun and came up

when they was
about ten feet away

and says,
"Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!"

William Schieffer,

who was a farmer
who lived a ways across,

he claims that he heard Bonnie

shooting one of the officers
on the ground

and saying, "Lookie, Clyde,
watch his head bounce!"

And here's the notorious couple
farmer Schieffer says he saw:

bandit Barrow and his girl
companion Bonnie Parker.

These photographs of the outlaws

are being circulated
by the police

through the southwest
to aid in their identification.

The girl always carries
at least two guns.

They don't tell you that

there were two versions
of witnesses:

one was old man Schieffer,
who was at his house

that was three-quarters
of a mile across the valley,

and then you've got
another couple.

They looked up the road in time

to see a tall man
and a smaller man shoot them.

The tall man was Henry Methvin,
the smaller man was Clyde.

Henry Methvin was traveling
with Bonnie and Clyde

on Easter Sunday

when the trio pulled over
to rest near Grapevine, Texas.

When the officer pulls up
on the hill,

Henry Methvin notifies Clyde.

He says,
"Hey, look, it's the police."

Clyde says, "Let's take them."

Knowing Clyde
and some of his escapades,

it probably meant that
he wanted to kidnap them.

He wanted to take them on a ride
like he had done with others.

But Henry Methvin
didn't take it that way.

He thought it meant
to kill them,

and so he started shooting.

Despite the shooting,
Henry Methvin's role

in the Grapevine murders
seemed to be overlooked.

This plan to pardon
Henry Methvin

was already in the works
in the state of Texas

if he helped to bring them in
over in Louisiana,

and now he's involved
in this double murder,

and there's a clear attempt
to hide the fact

that he was there at all,

and to replace Methvin
with Bonnie.

On May 6, Bonnie and Clyde

held another secret rendezvous
with their family.

It would be their last.

Their criminal exploits
had taken a toll

not only on themselves,
but everyone around them.

Buck was dead,
Blanche was in prison,

and the police were keeping up
a steady stream of harassment,

even hauling Clyde's mother
Cumie down for interrogation.

Henry and Cumie Barrow
explained to Clyde that,

"We haven't bought a headstone
for Buck yet

"because we know
you're going to die soon too,

"and we can bury you with him.

"We don't have much money,

and that way we can just use
one headstone for both of you."

And Clyde asked them to have
something inscribed on it:

"Gone but not forgotten."

During the visit,
Bonnie presented her mother

with a poem
she had been working on

called "The End of the Line."

Over the course of 16 stanzas,

it tells the story
of the couple's life on the run.

"They don't think they're
too smart 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."

"Someday, they'll go down
together.

"They'll bury them side by side.

"To a few, it will be grief.

To the law, a relief."

"But it's death
for Bonnie and Clyde."

I can imagine my grandmother

just waiting for the phone call
every day

and knowing that
it was going to come,

it's just when.

That was so, to me, thoughtless
of Bonnie.

There's no doubt about it,

Clyde Barrow knew exactly
what he was doing,

Bonnie Parker knew exactly
what she was doing,

and they wanted to be there

all the way up
to the bitter end.

In mid-May, Bonnie and Clyde
were in Louisiana.

They had plans to meet Henry
Methvin at his parents' home

on Wednesday, May 23,
at 9:00 a.m.

The trap was set.

Frank Hamer
had assembled a posse

that included deputy sheriffs
of Dallas County

Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn,

and other officers
from Texas and Louisiana.

Armed with automatic rifles
and heavy gauge shotguns,

the posse took their place,

hidden in the brush
along Highway 154,

the only road Clyde could take
to the Methvin house.

To make sure the couple
didn't speed right by,

Henry's father, Ivy, pretended
his truck had broken down

on the side of the road.

If Clyde
had come down through there

driving the way he normally did
at 70 to 90 miles an hour,

they'd have had a skeet shoot.

If you're on the bluff,

you can see almost
half a mile down the road

to see who's coming.

But if you're in a car
coming that way,

you can't see anything
ahead of you at all.

Around 9:15 a.m.,

the posse could hear
the high-pitched whine

of a Ford V-8
barreling down the road.

Clyde took the bait

and slowed
to help out Ivy Methvin.

Prentiss Oakley, the deputy
from Bienville Parish,

he popped off
the first two rounds

and hit Clyde right in the head.

Clyde's foot slips
off the clutch,

car goes idling off
up into the ditch,

Dad says one thought
ran through everyone's mind:

"This clown's gotten out
of 11 traps before now.

Is this number 12?"

And with that,
everybody unloaded.

They unleashed
an incredible volley

that basically shredded that car
and the people in it.

The shootout lasted
only seconds, but in the end,

the car was riddled
with more than 150 bullets.

Ted Hinton says

when they pulled them
out of the car,

they were nothing but wet rags.

So, you can understand
what a steel jacketed bullet

can do to a young body.

Clyde's head
was pretty well blown off,

and she's blown all to pieces.

My father had a 16-millimeter
home movie camera.

The staff photographer
for the Dallas Times Herald

gave it to him.

He told him, he said,

"You're going to get him
eventually,

and when you do, you're going
to need to document it."

He carried that camera
for 17 months.

The posse sorted through
Bonnie and Clyde's possessions:

Bonnie's makeup case,

several suitcases, roadmaps,
and true crime magazines.

Hamer claimed their guns
and fishing tackle as a reward.

Word spread quickly,

and people began to crowd
Highway 154.

Souvenir hunters scavenged
through the carnage.

People started coming and
clipping off pieces of clothing.

One man took a pocket knife,

was trying to cut off Clyde's
trigger finger as a trophy.

One person was stopped
by one of the officers

from trying to take Bonnie's
wedding ring off her hand.

Later that evening,

Bonnie and Clyde's parents
retrieved the bodies,

having learned of their deaths

when reporters called
for comment.

My grandfather said, you know,
it was terrible what he saw.

It broke him down to tears,

you know, having to go
pick his son up

and seeing what the condition
they were.

In life, his very presence

would have struck fear
to their hearts,

but now they fear him not.

Clyde's body is borne
to the grave;

again, tragedy and shame descend
upon his aged father and mother.

Back in Dallas, the spectacle
of Bonnie and Clyde's demise

drew tens of thousands
of onlookers,

all of them anxious
to catch a last glimpse

of the outlaw lovers
they had read so much about.

A large floral arrangement

was sent from the Dallas
newspaper vendors;

in two days, they had sold
almost half a million copies

of extra editions.

"To a few, it means grief,
to the law, it's relief,

but it's death
to Bonnie and Clyde."

The couple, who had always
been inseparable in life,

were buried in family plots
in different cemeteries.

My grandmother,

she would not allow them
to be buried side by side.

She said he had her in life;
he couldn't have her in death.

Fools stop for these criminals,
dead ones.

Here, you'll find
notorious names

that made evil headlines
of crime.

By 1935, just a year
after Bonnie and Clyde's deaths,

Hoover's lawmen had eradicated

all of the Depression-era
gangsters.

Bonnie and Clyde may have been
the first to go down,

but their story overshadowed
all the rest,

not because of their crimes
or even their violent downfall,

but for their enduring
true romance.

This type of story
has been with us

pretty much
from the first printed word,

and it carries down.

Whether you're talking
about the fall of Troy,

Romeo and Juliet, it's always
going to end in tragedy.

We've always got this
star-crossed aspect.

Bonnie and Clyde
fit that perfectly,

and they fit it naturally.

And it's because
they fit it so naturally,

because that's who they were,
that they continue to resonate.

Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.