Home » Entertainment » This Week in 1934: “Rain of a Thousand Gunshots” Ends Bonnie and Clyde’s Romance Murder | Abroad

This Week in 1934: “Rain of a Thousand Gunshots” Ends Bonnie and Clyde’s Romance Murder | Abroad

They became world famous in the 1930s when the Great Depression wreaked havoc in the US. American criminal couple Bonnie and Clyde robbed ten banks and murdered thirteen people, including nine police officers. But on May 23, 1934, exactly 88 years ago this week, Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by the American police on a Louisiana country road and shot and killed in cold blood.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow met on January 5, 1930, at a mutual friend’s house in Dallas, Texas. Bonnie was 19 at the time and unemployed. Just before her sixteenth birthday, she had married her classmate Roy Thornton, who soon ended up in prison. The two would never see each other again after early 1929. Yet they would never officially divorce each other. When she was riddled with bullets, she was still wearing her wedding ring. On her right thigh she also had a tattoo of their two names, Bonnie and Roy, with two entwined hearts.

Parker worked as a waitress in Dallas for a while. One of her regulars was Ted Hinton, then a postman and later a police officer. Hinton was part of the six-man team that ended Bonnie and Clyde’s murderous journey through Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, New Mexico and Louisiana in 1934.

Bonnie Parker poses with a rifle next to Clyde Borrow. © Photo News


Clyde Barrow was 20 and single when he met Bonnie. Clyde came from a poor farming family near Dallas, Texas. Clyde wanted to join the army as a teenager, but was rejected due to the consequences of a childhood illness. A blow for Clyde: he already had USN (US Navy) tattooed on his left arm. In late 1926, when he was seventeen, he was first arrested for car theft for failing to return a rented car. Three weeks later, he and his older brother had another prize: they had stolen turkeys.

After their meeting, Bonnie and Clyde fell in love, spent a lot of time together and also found each other in crime. Their romance was interrupted in April 1930 by Clyde’s arrest for a burglary. Bonnie didn’t drop it and smuggled a weapon into the prison where Clyde was held. This allowed her lover, then 21, to escape. Clyde was caught again. Back in jail, he is said to have been repeatedly sexually assaulted, after which he killed his rapist. His first kill, not his last.

In late January 1932, Clyde cut off two of his toes with an ax in prison to escape the hard labor of the prison farm. He would limp permanently because of this. And it was useless: six days later he was released unexpectedly. Bonnie also limped after a serious car accident in which she suffered severe burns to her right leg. Clyde had lost control of the wheel due to excessive speed.

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in Arthur Penn's movie 'Bonnie and Clyde'.

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in Arthur Penn’s movie ‘Bonnie and Clyde’. © Photo News


According to his sister Marie, he was no longer the same man after his time in prison and he became a tough criminal. With his infamous Barrow gang, he quickly began raiding grocers, shops and gas stations. Bonnie joined that gang. Bonnie and Clyde managed to evade the police for a long time. Their cat-and-mouse game with the arm of the law received a lot of media attention. The two were extremely popular and perpetuated their own myth by sending self-made photos and poems to the press. Some saw a sort of Robin Hood in them, as they robbed banks during the Great Depression.

But on May 23, 1934, it was game over for then 23-year-old Bonnie Parker and 24-year-old Clyde Barrow. They drove their car into a police ambush on a country road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, and were felled by “a hail of a thousand gunshots.” Their stolen Ford V8 took 167 rounds in less than 20 seconds. According to the autopsy, Clyde had 17 bullet wounds and Bonnie 26. Clyde Barrow was killed instantly, Bonnie Parker did not. The officers heard her scream.

Clyde Borrow en Bonnie Parker.

Clyde Borrow en Bonnie Parker. © Photo News


Bonnie and Clyde were not buried together, even though Bonnie had expressed that hope in a prophetic poem.

Some day they’ll go down together;
And they’ll bury them side by side,
To a few it’ll be grief—
To the law a relief—
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde

(One day they’ll go down together/And they’ll bury them side by side/Some will mourn/Before the law it’ll be a relief/But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde).

But Bonnie Parker’s mother had disapproved of her daughter’s relationship with Clyde and had her buried in another Dallas cemetery. Clyde was buried next to his brother Marvin under a headstone with his self-chosen epitaph: “Gone but not forgotten”.

The crime story of Bonnie and Clyde was fervently romanticized and filmed both in the 1930s and beyond. The most famous film is Arthur Penn’s 1967 Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beaty and Faye Dunaway in the lead roles.

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