Ep. 24 - Bonnie and Clyde

 "Each of us six officers had a shotgun and an automatic rifle and pistols. We opened fire with the automatic rifles. They were emptied before the car got even with us. Then we used shotguns ... There was smoke coming from the car, and it looked like it was on fire. After shooting the shotguns, we emptied the pistols at the car, which had passed us and ran into a ditch about 50 yards on down the road. It almost turned over. We kept shooting at the car even after it stopped. We weren't taking any chances." Thus ended the crime spree and the lives of the infamous lovers, Bonnie and Clyde. And yet, that wasn't their end. Rumors claim their spirits live on in the afterlife.

At the end of her life, Bonnie Parker was a pistol-wielding, cigar-chomping bank robber, but she certainly didn't start out that way. Bonnie Parker was born to a poor family on October 1, 1910 in Rowena, Texas. Her father was a bricklayer and died when Bonnie was only four years old. This left her mother to care for Bonnie and her older brother and younger sister, on her own. So she moved the family Cement City in West Dallas to be closer to Bonnie's grandparents. Bonnie was beautiful and an honors student in school with dreams of becoming an actress. When she was fifteen, she met her first bad boy, Roy Thornton, and the two were soon married. Roy was a thief and he beat Bonnie. Three years after they were married, Roy was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison and Bonnie took her chance to get away. She moved in with her grandmother. The couple never officially divorced, but Bonnie never saw Roy again. She met Clyde Barrow in January of 1930.

Clyde Barrow was born into a poor family as well on March 24, 1909 in Telico, Texas. The family were farmers, but drought forced them to move. Clyde had dreamed of being a musician when he was a kid and he knew how to play the saxophone and guitar. But that would not be his future. He started his life of stealing when he was a young child. An older brother showed him the ropes, starting with stealing little things and moving up to cars. Finally, Clyde moved into armed robbery and by the time he was twenty, he was a wanted fugitive. 

Imagine for a moment that when Bonnie and Clyde met each other in 1930, they were performing somewhere together and moved on to lives of fame in entertainment rather than infamy. How very different things would have been for them. Hollywood has tended to romanticize the lives and crimes of Bonnie and Clyde, but they committed heinous acts and lived by the gun. And that is how they would die. When Clyde met Bonnie, she was nineteen and working as a waitress. The two were immediately smitten with each other. But things halted when Clyde was sent to prison. Bonnie wasn't keen on a life of crime at first. After Clyde was jailed, she begged him to straighten out his life. As we know, he certainly didn't agree to that and soon she smuggled in a gun and Clyde broke out. He was captured a month later after a robbery and was sentenced to 14 years in Ohio's Eastham Prison Farm. This was a harsh place and the work was tough and Clyde couldn't handle it anymore. He devised a plan to get a transfer. He figured he would need to be disabled in some way and he chose to chop off two of his toes to create that disability. He was set to be released in six days anyway in February of 1932, so it was unnecessary. He was crippled the rest of his life with a staggered gait and he could not wear shoes when driving.

Bonnie became crippled herself in 1933 when the couple were in an accident that busted the car battery. The battery acid spilled out onto Bonnie's leg giving her third degree burns and burning her all the way to the bone in places. She walked with a pronounced limp and needed to be carried at times. The couple dreamed of a carefree criminal life and formed a gang they called the Barrow Gang. Bonnie and Clyde gained notoriety mostly as bank robbers, but their specialty was small petty crime like holding up Mom and Pop Gas Stations. They usually only got away with $5 to $10. They also robbed several armories, which is why they were able to collect so many guns. 

In March of 1932, the couple had a failed robbery attempt in Kaufman, Texas and Bonnie was arrested, but she would be released on June 17, 1932. While she was in jail, Clyde murdered merchant J.W. Butcher. The couple was on the run after Bonnie was freed, but hey, why not take a break for a little dance. And that's just what they did in Atoka, Oklahoma. They were reported and the police attempted to apprehend them in the parking lot. They killed two officers and got away.

Murder was becoming a part of their normal routine now. They traveled through Missouri, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, killing another police officer and a grocery-store clerk. On April 13, 1933, the Barrow Gang, consisting of Bonnie, Clyde, his brother Buck and Buck's wife Blanche and a man named William Daniel Jones, who went by W.D., was holed up in an apartment in Joplin, Missouri. The local police had been raiding joints they heard were running bootlegging operations. Beer was legal at this time, but not other spirits. They had word of illegal activity coming out of this apartment and they busted down the door, surprising the gang. A firefight ensued with W.D. getting hit with a bullet in his side. The Barrow Gang killed two of the police officers and escaped. The gang left behind everything except their guns and the clothes on their backs. The infamous pictures of Bonnie and Clyde posing with guns around a stolen car were confiscated by the police and released to the local newspaper. This made Bonnie and Clyde famous and now the whole nation was on the lookout for the gang.

The crime spree continued until July 1933 when another shootout with police occurred. The gang consisted of five members and they were about to be down one, as Buck had been mortally wounded. He eventually surrendered with his wife Blanche, and died shortly thereafter. But Bonnie and Clyde got away again. In January 1934, Clyde decided to help break some inmates out of the Eastham Prison and a prison guard was killed during the jailbreak. An inmate named Henry Methvin joined the Barrow Gang and the robberies continued. The two men killed two highway patrolmen on April 1, 1934 and then Methvin killed a constable a few days later. The public had enough and the law in Texas set out to put an end to the Barrow Gang. Methvin took Bonnie and Clyde to his family home in Louisiana, but Methvin's father contacted the police and gave them Bonnie and Clyde in exchange for amnesty for his son. Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer gathered a posse and went to get the couple.

It was an ambush that Bonnie and Clyde had no idea was coming. The date was May 23, 1934. Bonnie and Clyde were returning to the house when they saw Methvin's father on the side of the road with a car that appeared broken down. They stopped to help him and Hamer and his men opened fire. The five men emptied multiple guns into the stolen Ford V8 the couple was driving, firing over 130 bullets. Both were killed. Clyde had been hit by 17 bullets and Bonnie was hit by 26. Each shot was a fatal wound. The car was towed to town with the dead couple still inside. Gawkers tried to take souvenirs and some actually did manage to get locks of hair and pieces of clothing. One man tried to cut off Clyde's ear and trigger finger. 

The couple were buried in separate cemeteries, but this was not the end of the gangster couple. Their spirits seem to continue in the afterlife. A marker now stands on the spot along Highway 54 in Louisiana where Bonnie and Clyde's crime spree was brought to a final end. The marker seems to be a magnet of sorts for their spirits. People who try to take a picture of the marker claim to capture weird anomalies and ghostly figures. EVPs have been captured at the location that are both male and female and incorporate pieces of Bonnie and Clyde's names. Disembodied chatting, screaming and laughing have been heard. There is also the sound of gun fire. Southern Sinister Paranormal investigated the ambush site in 2020 and they claimed to capture 9 EVPs. They also used a Spirit Box, but it was really hard to hear. They did ask, "What happened here?" and about thirty seconds later a clearly female voice said what sounded like "police," but could've been "please." Then they asked "Did they shoot you?" And a female voice responded, but I couldn't make out what was said. I did hear a distant scream on their video as well. There also was the sound of footsteps on the gravel.

The blood-splattered, bullet-ridden Death Car became an instant attraction and went on a tour for 30 years. The car could be seen at flea markets, amusement parks, carnivals and state fairs. After that, it was acquired by the Museum of Antique Autos in Princeton, Massachusetts. The car turned up in the 1970s at a Nevada race track. People were charged a dollar to sit in it. In the 1980s, it was in a Las Vegas car museum, which is where I saw it. It then moved to a different casino on the other side of the freeway and then did another tour through the early 2000s. The Death Car can now be seen on display at Whiskey Pete's Casino, part of the Primm Valley Resorts, in Primm, Nevada. Clyde's bullet-shredded shirt is also on display, although time has faded out the bloodstains. This is reputed to be a haunted vehicle. Standing near the car gives one a creepy feeling and photographs of the car feature weird anomalies.

One of the locations we have presented on the regular podcast is the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas. Bonnie and Clyde stayed at this hotel when they were alive and some claim that they are there after death. They either have returned here because they enjoyed their stay or because the hotel once showcased items from the couple including a love poem Bonnie wrote to Clyde, her .38 revolver and photographs of the couple. There are claims that their spirits prefer two areas, the Brazos Room and the Ballroom. A ghostly woman in a dated dress has been seen in the lobby walking between the pillars. The spirits of the couple have been seen dancing in the ballroom.

Another haunted location connected to the couple is a former deli in Gibsland where they bought their last meal of sandwiches. That deli is now a museum and is said to be haunted by the woman who had sold them the sandwiches. They say she stays because of her remorse about selling them sandwiches. The spirits of Bonnie and Clyde have also been seen at the museum. The apartment in Joplin is reportedly haunted as well, although some believe that the two dead officers may be the ghosts rather than Bonnie and Clyde.

MMorbid commented on YouTube, "I ran into an investigator this year at the Bonnie & Clyde Festival. They investigate it every year the evening of the festival and Clyde communicates with them intelligently through EVP and spirit box regularly. My favorite response they told me about was they asked if they wished they had been able to live a long life. A male voice replied, “Blanche is dead.” basically indicating sure she lived a long life, but in the end you die anyway no matter how long you get. If it’s really him he doesn’t seem to have any regrets."

In 2020, Zak Bagans of Ghost Adventures purchased the tackle box that the Barrow Gang used to keep themselves fed while on the run and it is on display at his Haunted Museum in Las Vegas.

Bonnie wrote this poem before their deaths in 1934:

     The Story of Bonnie and Clyde
    You've read the story of Jesse James
    Of how he lived and died;
    If you're still in need
    Of something to read,
    Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.

    Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang,
    I'm sure you all have read
    How they rob and steal
    And those who squeal
    Are usually found dying or dead.

    There's lots of untruths to these write-ups;
    They're not so ruthless as that;
    Their nature is raw;
    They hate all the law
    The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.

    They call them cold-blooded killers;
    They say they are heartless and mean;
    But I say this with pride,
    That I once knew Clyde
    When he was honest and upright and clean.

    But the laws fooled around,
    Kept taking him down
    And locking him up in a cell,
    Till he said to me,
    "I'll never be free,
    So I'll meet a few of them in hell."

    The road was so dimly lighted;
    There were no highway signs to guide;
    But they made up their minds
    If all roads were blind,
    They wouldn't give up till they died.

    The road gets dimmer and dimmer;
    Sometimes you can hardly see;
    But it's fight, man to man,
    And do all you can,
    For they know they can never be free.

    From heart-break some people have suffered;
    From weariness some people have died;
    But take it all in all,
    Our troubles are small
    Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.

    If a policeman is killed in Dallas,
    And they have no clue or guide;
    If they can't find a fiend,
    They just wipe their slate clean
    And hand it on Bonnie and Clyde.

    There's two crimes committed in America
    Not accredited to the Barrow mob;
    They had no hand
    In the kidnap demand,
    Nor the Kansas City depot job.

    A newsboy once said to his buddy;
    "I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
    In these awful hard times
    We'd make a few dimes
    If five or six cops would get bumped."

    The police haven't got the report yet,
    But Clyde called me up today;
    He said, "Don't start any fights
    We aren't working nights
    We're joining the NRA."

    From Irving to West Dallas viaduct
    Is known as the Great Divide,
    Where the women are kin,
    And the men are men,
    And they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.

    If they try to act like citizens
    And rent them a nice little flat,
    About the third night
    They're invited to fight
    By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.

    They don't think they're too tough or desperate,
    They know that the law always wins;
    They've been shot at before,
    But they do not ignore
    That death is the wages of sin.

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

Do the spirits of Bonnie and Clyde haunt the places where they spent some of their time? Particularly the place where their lives came to an end. That is for you to decide!