Bonnie and Clyde: Outlaw Lovers or Reluctant Killers?

On May 23, 1934, a posse of six Texas Rangers waited on a rural Louisiana road. When a gray Ford V8 pulled up beside a disabled car, they opened fire without warning. Clyde Barrow was hit seventeen times, Bonnie Parker twenty-six. The car was so riddled with bullets that souvenir seekers later tried to cut off pieces of the upholstery—and one man reportedly attempted to remove Clyde's ear. The two outlaws were 23 and 24 years old.

From Dirt-Poor Beginnings to a Life of Crime

Clyde Chestnut Barrow grew up in West Dallas during the Depression, in a family so poor they were homeless for a time. He started small—stealing food, then cars—and was first arrested at seventeen for renting a car and never returning it. Prison changed him fundamentally. Sentenced to fourteen years hard labor at Eastham Prison Farm, he was repeatedly beaten by guards and raped by another inmate. He finally killed his attacker with a galvanized pipe in the shower; another inmate with a life sentence took the blame so Clyde wouldn't ruin his future. After his mother successfully petitioned for parole, Clyde emerged a different person—"from a Boy to a rattlesnake," as the hosts put it. He would do anything to avoid going back.