WOMEN MOBSTERS & THEIR GANG (3): BONNIE PARKER

12 min readMay 7, 2024

BONNIE PARKER & CLYDE BARROW

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (01/10/1910–23/05/1934) was born in Rowena, Texas, the 2nd of 3 children to Charles Robert Parker and Emma Krause Parker. Her father was a bricklayer who died when Bonnie was only 4. His wife Emma, now a widower, moved her family back to her parents’ home in Cement City, an industrial suburb in West Dallas, where she worked as a seamstress.

As an adult, Bonnie wrote poems such as “The Story of Suicide Sal” and “The Trail’s End”, the latter more commonly known as “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde”. In her 2nd year in high school, Parker met Roy Thornton. The couple dropped out of school and married on September 25, 1926, six days before her 16th birthday. His frequent absences and brushes with the law marred their marriage, and it proved to be short-lived. They never divorced, but their paths never crossed again after January 1929. Parker was still wearing Thornton’s wedding ring when she died. Thornton was in prison when he heard of her death, commenting, “I’m glad they jumped out like they did. It’s much better than being caught.” Sentenced to five years for robbery in 1933 and after attempting several prison breaks from other facilities, Thornton was killed while trying to escape from the Huntsville State Prison on October 3, 1937.

At the end of her marriage, Parker moved back in with her mother and worked as a waitress in Dallas. Parker briefly kept a diary early in 1929 when she was 18, writing of her loneliness, impatience with life in Dallas, and love for photography.

Clyde Champion Barrow (24/03/1909–23/05/1934) was born into a poor farming family in Ellis County, Texas, southeast of Dallas. He was the fifth of seven children of Henry Basil Barrow and Cumae Talitha Walker. The family moved to Dallas in the early 1920s as part of a wider migration pattern from rural areas to the city, where many settled in the urban slum of West Dallas. The Barrows spent their first months living under their wagon in West Dallas until they got enough money to buy a tent.

Clyde Barrow was first arrested in late 1926, at age 17, when police confronted him over a rental car that he had failed to return on time. His second arrest was soon after, with his brother Buck for possession of stolen turkeys. Between 1927 and 1929, Barrow had some legitimate jobs, although he cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars. He met 19-year-old Bonnie Parker in January 1930, and they spent much time together during the following weeks. Their romance was interrupted when Barrow was arrested and convicted of auto theft.

Barrow was sent to Eastham Prison Farm in April 1930 at the age of 21. He escaped from the prison farm shortly after his incarceration using a weapon Parker smuggled to him. He was recaptured shortly after that and sent back to prison again. Barrow was repeatedly assaulted sexually while in prison, and he retaliated by attacking and killing his predator with a pipe, crushing his skull. This was his first murder. Another inmate who was already serving a life sentence took responsibility.

To avoid hard labor in the fields while imprisoned, Barrow purposely had two of his toes chopped off in late January 1932. Because of this, he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. However, Barrow was set free six days after his intentional injury. Without his knowledge, Barrow’s mother had successfully petitioned for his release. He was paroled from Eastham on February 2, 1932, becoming a hardened and bitter criminal. His sister, Marie, said, “Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison because he wasn’t the same person when he got out.” Fellow inmate Ralph Fults said he watched Clyde “change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake”.

After Barrow’s release from prison in February 1932, he and Fults began a series of robberies, primarily of stores and gas stations; their goal was to collect enough money and firepower to launch a raid against Eastham prison. On April 19, Parker and Fults were captured in a failed hardware store burglary in Kaufman in which they had intended to steal firearms. Parker was released from jail after a few months when the grand jury failed to indict her; Fults was tried, convicted, and served time. He never rejoined the gang. Parker wrote poetry to pass the time in Kaufman County Jail and reunited with Barrow within a few weeks of her release.

THE BONNIE & CLYDE GANG

She partnered with Barrow in 1932 during the Great Depression in their notorious 21–month–long crime spree. The two stole cars and robbed gas stations, grocery stores, rural funeral homes, and restaurants at a rate far outpacing the ten or so small-town banks attributed to them and the Barrow Gang. They evaded the FBI and the police until 1934 and in the process set free five prisoners from Eastham State Prison in Texas, killed three police officers, and kidnapped a police chief.

They soon became the legendary American criminal couple known as “Bonnie & Clyde”, who traveled the Central US with their gang, and their exploits captured the attention of the American public and press. It was during a period referred to as the “public enemy era” (1931–1934).

His favorite weapon was the M-1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). Barrow’s goal in life was not to gain fame or fortune from robbing banks but to seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses that he had sustained while serving time. His drive was anger and revenge.

W.D. Jones had been a friend of Barrow’s family since childhood. At 16, he joined Parker and Barrow on Christmas Eve 1932. Jones committed two murders in his first two weeks with Barrow using one of his “whippet” guns, a cut-down shotgun.

On March 22, 1933, Clyde’s brother Buck was granted a full pardon and released from prison, and he and his wife Blanche set up housekeeping with Bonnie, Clyde, and Jones in a temporary hideout in Joplin, Missouri. According to family sources, Buck and Blanche were there to visit in an attempt to persuade Clyde to surrender to law enforcement, but he was relentless.

The group ran loud, alcohol-fueled card games late into the night in the quiet neighborhood; Blanche recalled that they “bought a case of beer a day”. The men came and went noisily at all hours. No neighbors visited their house, but one reported his suspicions to the Joplin Police Department. The police assembled a five-man force in two cars on April 13 to confront what they suspected were Rum-running bootleggers living at the address. The Barrow brothers and Jones opened fire. The surviving officers later testified that they had fired only fourteen rounds in the conflict; one hit Jones on the side, one struck Clyde but was deflected by his suit-coat button, and one grazed Buck after ricocheting off a wall.

The group escaped the police at Joplin, but left behind most of their possessions at the apartment, including Buck’s parole papers, a large arsenal of weapons, a handwritten poem by Bonnie, and a camera with several rolls of undeveloped film. Police developed the film at The Joplin Globe and found many photos of Barrow, Parker, and Jones posing and pointing weapons at one another. The Globe sent the poem and the photographs over the newswire, including a photo of Parker clenching a cigar in her teeth and a pistol in her hand. The Barrow Gang subsequently became front-page news throughout America.

The “cigar-smoking gun moll” was attributed to Parker’s famous pose with a cigar and a gun widely spread by the press.

John Dillinger had matinee-idol good looks and Pretty Boy Floyd had the appropriate nickname. But the Joplin photos introduced new criminal superstars on the criminal scene with the titillating trademark of illicit sex at a time of high Puritanism. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were young and wild and undoubtedly slept together.

The photos entertained the public for a while, but privately, the gang was desperate and discontent, as described by Blanche in her account written while imprisoned in the late 1930s. Their new notoriety and daily lives became more difficult as they tried evading discovery. Restaurants and motels became less secure; so, they resorted to campfire cooking and bathing in cold streams. The unrelieved, round-the-clock proximity of five people in one car gave rise to vicious bickering. On one occasion, Jones was the driver when he and Barrow stole a car in late April and he used it to leave the others. He stayed away until June 8.

The group ranged from Texas and as far north as Minnesota for the next three months. Several events took place between 1932 and 1934 in which they kidnapped police officers or robbery victims. They usually released their hostages far from home, sometimes giving them money to help them return. Stories of such encounters made headlines, as did the more violent episodes. The Barrow Gang did not hesitate to shoot anyone who got in their way, whether it was a police officer or an innocent civilian. Other members of the gang who committed murder included Hamilton, Jones, Buck, and Henry Methvin. Eventually, the cold-bloodedness of their murders opened the public’s eyes to the reality of their crimes and led to their end.

Barrow failed to see warning signs at a bridge under construction on June 10, while driving with Jones and Parker through Wellington, Texas, and the car flipped into a ravine. It is unknown whether there was a gasoline fire or if Parker was doused with acid from the car’s battery under the floorboards, but she sustained such severe third-degree burns to her right leg that the muscles contracted and caused the leg to “draw up”. Jones observed, “She’d been burned so bad that none of us thought she was gonna live. The hide on her right leg was gone, from her hip down to her ankle. I could see the bone at places.”

Parker could hardly walk; she either hopped on her good leg or was carried by Barrow. They got help from a nearby farming family. The three eventually met with Buck and Blanche and hid in a tourist resort in Arkansas, nursing Parker’s burns. Buck and Jones bungled a robbery and they all had to flee, despite Parker’s grave condition.

In July 1933, the gang checked into a tourist resort in Missouri. It consisted of two brick cabins joined by garages which the gang rented. To the south stood a popular restaurant among the patrolmen, and the gang carelessly went out of their way to draw attention. Blanche registered the party as three guests, although the owner noticed five people coming out of the car. He noted that the driver backed into the garage “gangster style”, ready for a quick getaway. Blanche paid for their cabins with coins rather than bills and did the same again when buying five dinners and beers. The next day, he noticed that his guests had taped newspapers over their windows, and Blanche’s outfit of jodhpur riding breeches attracted further attention. (Eyewitnesses still remember them forty years later). They were flamboyant and not from the area. So, the owner notified the Highway Patrol about the group.

When Barrow and Jones went into town to purchase bandages, atropine sulfate to treat Parker’s leg, and some snacks, the concerned druggist informed the local Sheriff who put the cabins under surveillance. Reinforcements including an armored car were mobilized. The Sheriff led a group of officers armed with Thompson submachine guns toward the cabins at 11 pm. The .45 caliber Thompsons proved no match for Barrow’s .30 caliber BAR in the gunfight. The gang managed to escape when a bullet short-circuited the horn on the armored Patrol giving the police the impression it was a cease-fire signal. They did not pursue the retreating Barrow vehicle. Although, they evaded the law once again, Buck had been wounded by a bullet that blasted a large hole in the bone of his forehead and exposed his injured brain, and Blanche was nearly blinded in both eyes by glass fragments.

The Barrow Gang camped at an abandoned amusement park in Iowa, on July 24. Buck was regularly semiconscious, although he spoke and ate normally, his massive head wound and loss of blood were so severe that Barrow and Jones dug a grave for him. Residents noticed the bloody bandages and officers in the area determined that the campers were the Barrow Gang. Local police officers and approximately 100 spectators surrounded the group, and the Barrows soon came under fire. Barrow, Parker, and Jones escaped on foot. When Buck was shot in the back, he and his wife were captured by the officers. Buck died of his head wound and pneumonia in the hospital, 5 days after his surgery.

For the next six weeks, the remaining perpetrators ranged far afield from their usual area of operations, yet they persistently committed armed robberies. They restocked their arsenal after Barrow and Jones robbed an armory in Illinois on August 20, acquiring three BARs, handguns, and a large quantity of ammunition.

By early September, the gang risked a run to Dallas to see their families for the first time in four months. Jones parted company with them, continuing to Houston where his mother had moved. He was arrested there without incident on November 16 and returned to Dallas. Through the autumn, Barrow committed several robberies with small-time local accomplices, while his family and Parker attended to her medical needs. On November 22, they narrowly evaded arrest while trying to meet with family members in Texas. The Dallas Sheriff and his 2 Deputies lay in wait nearby. As Barrow drove up, he sensed a trap and drove past his family’s car, at which point the Sheriff and his deputies stood up and opened fire with machine guns and a BAR. A BAR bullet passed through the vehicle, striking the legs of both Barrow and Parker. They escaped later that night.

On November 28, a Dallas grand jury delivered a murder indictment against Parker and Barrow for the killing of Tarrant County Deputy nearly ten months earlier, in January of that year. It was Parker’s first warrant for murder.

On January 16, 1934, Barrow orchestrated the escape of Hamilton, Methvin, and several others in the “Eastham Breakout”. The brazened raid generated such negative publicity for Texas, that Barrow appeared to have achieved his overriding goal of revenge on the Texas Department of Corrections.

This attack now attracted the full power of the Texas and federal government to the manhunt for Barrow and Parker.

Starting on February 10, Hamer, a former Texas Ranger became the constant shadow of Barrow and Parker, living out of his car just a town or two behind them. Three of Hamer’s four brothers were also Texas Rangers; brother Harrison was the best shot amongst the four, but Frank was considered the most tenacious.

On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1934, at the intersection of Route 114 and Dove Road near Grapevine, now Southlake Texas, highway patrolmen H.D. Murphy and Edward Bryant Wheeler stopped their motorcycles thinking a motorist needed assistance. Barrow and Parker opened fire with a shotgun and handgun, killing both officers. An eyewitness account said that Parker fired the fatal shots and this story received widespread coverage. Barrow joined in, firing at Patrolman Murphy. The massive negative publicity increased the public clamor for the extermination of the Barrow Gang. The outcry galvanized the authorities into action, and Highway Patrol boss L.G. Phares offered a reward of $1,000 for “the dead bodies of the Grapevine slayers”. The Texas Governor added another reward of $500 for each of the two killers. For the first time, “there was a specific price on Bonnie’s head since she was so widely believed to have shot H.D. Murphy”.

Public hostility increased five days later, when Barrow and Methvin murdered 60-year-old Constable William “Cal” Campbell, a widower and father, near Commerce, Oklahoma. They kidnapped Commerce police chief, crossed the state line into Kansas, and let him go, giving him a clean shirt, a few dollars, and a request from Parker to tell the world that she did not smoke cigars. Boyd identified Barrow and Parker to authorities but never learned Methvin’s name. The resultant arrest warrant for the Campbell murder specified “Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and John Doe”. The Dallas Journal ran a cartoon on its editorial page, showing an empty electric chair with a sign saying “Reserved”, adding the words “Clyde and Bonnie”. Valuing his life, Methvin turned on the gang as the police set up their ambush of Barrow and Parker. The couple were ambushed and shot to death by the police in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. They are believed to have murdered at least nine police officers and four civilians.

You may wish to read the following stories in the same genre, and also published on MEDIUM:

1.1. https://medium.com/@srn.abuj/women-mobsters-their-gang-1-kate-barker-e4edc2b400e9

2. https://medium.com/@srn.abuj/women-mobsters-their-gang-2-sophie-lyons-29cd1074e287