Parker/Barrow

Bonnie Parker
Clyde Barrow

Biography
Bonnie Parker was born in Rowena, Texas, on October 1, 1910. Her father, a bricklayer, died in 1914, and her family moved to Cement City, Texas, to live with her maternal grandparents. She was an excellent student, a spelling bee champion, and a fan of romance novels and magazines. She met Roy Thornton in 1925, and they married the following year. By this time, Bonnie had a job in East Dallas as a waitress. In 1927, Roy wandered and left Bonnie alone in West Dallas.
Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born on March 21, 1909, in Teleco, Texas. He was the sixth child born in his family, which farmed for a living. They gave up farming when Clyde was twelve, and moved to West Dallas. There, his father opened a service station. Clyde attended Cedar Valley School for a little while, but dropped out soon enough to sell stolen turkeys with his brother, Buck. Clyde loved to play the saxophone and his idols were Bill Cody and the actor William S. Heart. He moved out of his parents’ house in 1928, and became involved in more criminal activities.

Murder
Clyde met and fell in love with Bonnie Parker while visiting a friend in West Dallas in January of 1930. She soon became aware of his criminal background when he was arrested and taken to Denton, Texas for questioning about stolen merchandise. He was transferred to Waco where he confessed to a number of burglaries and car thefts. He was sentenced to two years for each count, with the sentences running alongside each other. His cell mate turned out to be William Turner, a man with whom he had committed a previous crime. Bonnie smuggled a gun to Clyde, and he escaped with Will and another prisoner named Emory Abernathy. He was recaptured in Middletown, Ohio, and sentenced to fourteen more years, but was pardoned on February 2, 1932. After attempting to work in Massachusetts for a very brief time, Clyde returned to Bonnie in Texas and they left in a stolen car.
Soon afterwards, the police caught up with them again. Clyde escaped and began yet another criminal career with his childhood friend Raymond Hamilton. Meanwhile Bonnie spent jail time in Kaufman, Texas. After her release in June, Bonnie rejoined Clyde and they continued their life of crime, robbing banks and. After Raymond Hamilton was arrested and sent back to Texas, Bonnie and Clyde picked up a few more criminals and went on a crime spree, robbing more banks and killing guards.
On Easter Sunday of 1934, Clyde and a fellow gang member, Henry Methvin, killed two policemen who offered assistance to them. Henry’s father, Ivan Methvin, was apprehensive when the police investigated into the crimes because he had often housed Bonnie and Clyde’s gang. He made an agreement with the head of the Texas Prison System, Lee Simmons, to provide information about the gang in exchange for pardon for his son. Methvin gave Simmons the location of a large board on a farm near Plain Dealing, Louisiana. The Barrow gang members used this board to communicate with friends and family. Frank Hamer, a Texas Ranger, gathered a group of men to ambush Bonnie and Clyde. At 9:10 in the morning on May 23, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde sped towards the policemen, who instructed them to stop the car. They did not heed the policemen’s instructions, and were shot to death.

TRIAL
After the deaths of the leaders of the Barrow gang, Ivan Methvin’s son Henry was pardoned in the state of Texas, but he was arrested in Oklahoma and received a death sentence. This was later converted to a life sentence. After spending twelve years in jail, Henry was released and later run over by a train. Bonnie and Clyde were buried in their individual families’ burial sites.

-page author: Kyle
-photos courtesy of http://www.peoples.ru/