Transcript
Lindsey Graham (0:00)
There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad free. Listen with Wondry plus in the Wondery app as a member of Noiser plus at Noizr.com or in Apple Podcasts. Or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts@ebookist.com it's early evening on April 13, 1933. In a garage apartment in Joplin, Missouri. 22 year old Bonnie Parker lays on a mattress on the floor listening to music and waiting for her boyfriend to get back. Clyde Barrow and his outfit, which will come to be known as the Barrow Gang, spend their days traveling around, robbing, looting, and sometimes killing. But lately, Bonnie and Clyde have been holed up in this rented apartment with several other gang members. Tonight, Bonnie is bored because Clyde is out running errands with one of his cohorts. So Bonnie decides to pass the time with one of her favorite activities, writing poetry. As she scribbles away, Bonnie's eyes light up when she hears a car pull into the driveway. Clyde is back, so she heads for the door, anxious for her lover to walk in the room. But instead she hears a shout coming from the streets and then the crack of gunshots. Inside, other gang members take cover. Bonnie leaps to her feet and sprints to the window. She sees Clyde and another member of the gang making a beeline for the garage. As police cars swoop in and block the driveway. Bonnie grabs a machine gun propped up against the wall, throws open the window. She leans out and takes aim. A squeeze of the trigger sends a torrent of lead into the street. Bonnie grabs a spare magazine to reload. She looks out into the driveway and sees Clyde dragging a dead cop across the pavement. Bonnie knows there are still officers outside and likely reinforcements on the way, so she slams the fresh magazine into place and empties the gun again. Then she drops the weapon and runs for the door. Outside, she jumps straight into the passenger seat of a waiting Ford V8 sedan. Clyde's behind the wheel and the rest of the gang hops in the back. And with the scream of tires, the couple is in the wind. When the police sweep the apartment, they find a staggering cache of weapons, military rifles and machine guns. But it's the poetry notebooks, the camera, and the rolls of undeveloped film that are the real find. By morning, those photographs will be on the front page of newspapers across America, and the country will get its first glimpse at one of the most infamous couples of all time. Two wild lovers who lived by their own rules and answered to no one. But in reality. The bloody crime spree they enacted was violent and deadly, and it came to an equally lethal end when the couple went down in a hail of gunfire on May 23, 1934. History Daily is sponsored by Express Pros. Managing your workforce can be exhausting, and if you're tired of a costly and lengthy hiring process, simplify and speed up your recruitment. With one connection, the experts at Express Employment Professionals reduce time to hire, cut down on interviews, and lower your recruitment costs. Visit ExpressPros.com today. Express is more efficient than hiring on your own. Check out ExpressPros.com to see see how Express Employment professionals can take care of your hiring with the Spark Cash plus card from Capital One, you earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase and you get big purchasing power so your business can spend more and earn more. Steven, Brandon and Bruno, the business owners of Sandcloud, reinvested their 2% cash back to help build their retail presence. Now that's serious business. What could the SparkCash plus card from Capital One do for your business? Capital One? What's in your wallet? Find out more@capital1.com SparkCashPlus terms apply from Noiser and Airship I'm Lindsey Graham and this is History Daily. History is made every day on this podcast. Every day we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is May 23, 1934 the death of Bonnie and Clyde. It's January 5, 1930 in the neighborhood of West Dallas, Texas. In the kitchen of a simple house at 105 Herbert Street, 19 year old Bonnie Parker makes a cup of hot chocolate. Bonnie is currently staying here at her friend's home. She's been out of work for some time and needed a place to stay. Her friend is recovering from a bad injury, so Bonnie decided to move in and help her heal. But right now, Bonnie's not thinking about being a caregiver. She's thinking about how she can't stop staring at her friend's handsome guest who stands across from her in the kitchen. 20 year old Clyde Barrow is a good looking man and he seems to be thinking that Bonnie is a good looking woman. The two strangers can't stop gawking at each other. They're both experiencing a similar suspicion that this encounter feels like love at first sight. And from this moment forward, Bonnie and Clyde are inseparable. They spend every waking moment together. They swoon in dark corners and call each other pet names. But their whirlwind romance doesn't last. Not long after they meet, Clyde is Arrested and put behind bars for auto theft, Bonnie can't stand being apart from her new beau even for a moment. So she smuggles him a gun inside the jail. Clyde uses it to break out and for a brief time, the lovebirds are reunited. But one week later, Clyde is arrested again. This time the judge sentences Clyde to 14 years at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. From there, he's sent off to Eastham to do manual labor on a prison farm. By January of 1932, Clyde, two years after meeting Bonnie Clyde is despondent and desperate for a reprieve from the backbreaking work. One day while out on work duty, a hopeless Clyde takes an axe and chops off his big toe in an attempt to secure a place in a softer prison. But the self mutilation turns out to be unnecessary. Unknown to Clyde, his mother has already successfully petitioned for his release. Six days later, Clyde limps out of Eastham. But Clyde is scarred in other ways too. A family member will later remark something awful sure must have happened to him in prison, because he wasn't the same person when he got out. As Clyde walks through the outer gate and takes his first breath of fresh air as a free man, he makes a vow to he'll never again set foot in a prison and he'll exact revenge on the system that tried to break him. His girlfriend Bonnie is all too eager to join him on his quest for vengeance. And eventually Clyde forms a gang with Bonnie, his brother Buck and wife Blanche and a slew of other unsavory characters. They rob small town stores, gas stations and banks. They stage jailbreaks and gun down cops and civilians. And as they try to stay one step ahead of the authorities, they have several close calls with the law, including the bloody shootout in that garage apartment in Joplin, Missouri in April of 1933. The gang makes out of Joplin alive thanks to their shoot first style. But they leave two dead officers in their wake. And they also leave behind evidence, including Bonnie's notebooks and a roll of film. By morning, the pictures of the Barrow Gang are splashed over front pages all across the country. There are several photos, but the image that will captivate America is that of Bonnie, all 4 foot 11 of her in a black dress with a beret pushed back on her head. She has one foot resting on the bumper of Clyde's Ford. Her left hand hangs casually over the headlight and her right hand holds a revolver. The stub of a cigar is clamped between her lips. Throughout the spring of 1933, the Barrow Gang continues to roam the countryside stealing and looting. And by the time Bonnie and Clyde's crime spree is over, they will have killed at least nine officers of the law and four civilians. Soon their notoriety will capture the attention of powerful politicians and public officials who decide the violence needs to stop. One of these officials will enlist the services of a retired Texas Ranger named Frank Hamer. Frank will be deputized and made a special investigator, charged with a single task to find Bonnie and Clyde and bring them to justice. AT T Mobile we'll give you four free 5G phones and four lines for only $25 per line per month with eligible trade ins. And no, it's not a contest, it's every day for a limited time. Everyone's a winner on America's largest 5G network. Minimum of 4 lines for $25 per line per month with autopay discount using debit or bank account $5 more per line without autopay up to $830 off each phone via 24 monthly bill credits plus taxes, fees and $10 device connection charge for well qualified customers. 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