Bonnie and Clyde’s Final Ride

Summary

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HISTORY This Week: "Bonnie and Clyde’s Final Ride"

Date: May 18, 2026
Host: Sally Helm
Guest Expert: John Neal Phillips, Associate Professor of Art and historian

Episode Overview

This episode explores the true history behind Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the notorious outlaw couple whose crime spree and violent deaths became the stuff of American legend. Host Sally Helm, joined by expert John Neal Phillips, delves into how two young Texans became icons of Depression-era America, separating myth from fact. The discussion covers Clyde’s roots, his prison experience, Bonnie’s loyalty, the escalation of violence, their mythologization in popular culture, and the legacy of their story.

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1. The Ambush—Bonnie and Clyde’s Last Morning

[02:10]

• Sally Helm presents a vivid, cinematic retelling of Bonnie and Clyde’s final moments in rural Louisiana, 1934.
  • Notes the mythologizing of their last breakfast—sandwich vs. pear, as shown in the 1967 movie.
  • The ambush: “So many bullets. Clyde is killed instantly, shot in the head. Bonnie has time to scream. And then she’s killed too. She’s still holding her sandwich wrapped up in a paper napkin.”
    — Helm, [03:26]
  • Immediate aftermath: “People come to see the carnage. One of them even cuts away a piece of Bonnie’s bloody dress, a gruesome souvenir.”
• Sets up the central themes: How did they become criminals and what drove them?

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2. Clyde Barrow’s Early Life and Texas in the 1920s

[05:22]

• John Neal Phillips, a Dallas native and historian, introduces Clyde’s upbringing in a thriving, chaotic Dallas.
  • “Dallas was just bursting at the seams with people.”
    — Phillips, [05:22]
  • Clyde: fun, charming but could hold grudges and switch to violence abruptly.
    — Phillips, [06:38–07:05]: “He was very charming, supremely polite and friendly and had a ready smile. But if he felt he had been slighted, he would turn on a dime."
• Early crimes: petty theft with his brother, then branch into burglary and car theft.
• Pre-prison criminality was nonviolent: “He didn’t carry a weapon. He was nonviolent.”
  — Phillips, [07:50]

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3. The Brutality of Eastham Prison Farm

[08:16]

• Clyde’s incarceration at Eastham Prison Farm is pivotal.
  • Phillips details the notorious violence and cruelty, from sadistic guards to inmate “trustees.”
  • “The guards had trained their horses to knock prisoners over and stand on their backs if you made any infraction at all.”
    — Phillips, [08:56]
  • Forced “Box” punishments, “drench you in honey or molasses and then put you in there to attract insects.”
    — Helm/[Phillips], [09:15]
  • Guards financially incentivized to kill escapees: “There was a $30 reward if you captured an inmate that was escaping dead or alive, which is more than a month's wages.”
    — Phillips, [09:36]
• Clyde is targeted and sexually assaulted by inmate Ed Crowder, which leads to his first act of murder—killing Crowder with a pipe.
  • “He pulled that pipe out and just ripped the top of that guy’s head off and killed him right there on the spot.”
    — Phillips, [10:41]

Notable Quote

• “I saw Clyde Barrow change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake right in front of my eyes.”
  — Phillips recounting an inmate, [13:38]

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4. Clyde’s Transformation & "Reform"

[13:24]

• Crowder’s murder is ignored by authorities—violence is normalized.
• Clyde is released early for “nonviolent” offenders, but emerges hardened:
  • “He came into the prison as a nonviolent burglar and auto thief and he walked out of that prison a stone cold killer.”
    — Phillips, [14:24]
• Clyde’s vendetta: He blames Eastham for his transformation and is obsessed with revenge.

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5. Enter Bonnie Parker—A Reluctant Accomplice?

[15:47]

• Bonnie as loving, fiercely loyal, and determined: “There was just no keeping her away from him.”
  — Phillips, [17:09]
• Clyde tries to shield her from his criminal activities; Bonnie refuses to be left behind.
• Early getaway attempt results in comic misadventure—mud, lost shoes, getaway mules, then capture.
• Bonnie’s criminal ineptitude: “One time, she picked up one of Clyde's pistols and accidentally shot herself in the foot.”
  — Phillips, [20:22]
• Ralph Fultz, fellow accomplice, tries to shield Bonnie: “She's no criminal, he says. I mean, she's terrible with guns. That much was true.”
  — Helm, [19:42]

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6. Escalation and the “Snowball Effect”

[21:01]

• After first killings, violence escalates:
  • “If you start carrying guns around, guns are going to go off.”
    — Phillips, [21:14]
  • “Things go to snowballing”—an internal term for rapid spiraling of criminality.
  • “Like a snowball rolling downhill, Barrow's crime record began to grow.”
    — Phillips, [21:39]
• The infamous Joplin shootout (April 1933) brings national notoriety.
  • Abandoned IDs and a camera left at the scene allow newspapers to print their names and, crucially, pictures of the Barrow Gang.

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7. The Birth of the Bonnie and Clyde Legend

[23:00]

• Iconic photos make their images legendary: Bonnie as the gun-toting moll, cigar in mouth.
  • “Reading about Bonnie and Clyde becomes a form of entertainment.”
    — Helm, [23:54]
  • “Anyone who could make a fool out of law enforcement or bankers was just fine with them in the Great Depression.”
    — Phillips, [24:08]
• They are adopted by the disaffected as dark Robin Hood figures.
• This celebrity comes at a cost: $1,500 bounty on Clyde’s head—about $35,000 today.

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8. Life on the Run: Violence and Loss

[26:00]

• From one gunfight to the next, Bonnie and Clyde continually evade law enforcement.
• Major gun battle at a Missouri motel nearly kills the gang; Buck (Clyde’s brother) and Blanche gravely injured.
  • “Buck had been shot through the head...Blanche...the glass had penetrated all of her face and her skull.”
    — Phillips, [27:13]
• Grisly, desperate scenes at the abandoned amusement park in Iowa—eventually, Buck dies of his wounds; Blanche is imprisoned.
• Bonnie and Clyde vanish, rumored to be dead.

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9. The Final Act—The Eastham Raid and Execution

[31:46]

• Clyde’s true aim: Revenge on Eastham, the prison that destroyed him.
• The failed mass jailbreak: “He really wanted to do this. I mean, that's all he talked about when he was in prison.”
  — Phillips, [15:41]
• Clyde, Bonnie, and their accomplices orchestrate a violent breakout, killing guards.
  • Authorities are humiliated; Texas prison manager Lee Simmons:
    • “Lee Simmons was extremely embarrassed by that raid...the newspapers were portraying it [as] basically Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker just walked onto the property...and the guards ran away.”
      — Phillips, [33:38]
  • Simmons privately authorizes legendary ex-Texas Ranger Frank Hamer to take them down:
    • “I told Frank Hamer to put Clyde and Bonnie on the spot and shoot everyone in sight.”
      — Lee Simmons via Phillips, [34:06]
• Hamer succeeds—executing the ambush that ends their lives.

Notable Quote

• Bonnie's own poem, composed before her death, printed in the newspapers:
  • “Someday they will go down together and they will bury them side by side. To a few it means grief. To the law it’s relief. But it is death to Bonnie and Clyde.”
    — Helm, [35:04]

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10. The Aftermath & The Making of Myths

[35:10]

• Romanticization: “Much of it is extremely romanticized. Here’s a young guy and a young girl who through thick and thin are going to die together for whatever it is they stand for.”
  — Phillips, [35:10]
• Prison origins: For Phillips, at the root of the story is “the violence of the Texas prison system.”
  • “We're still producing Clyde Barrows.”
    — Phillips, [35:35]
• Clyde’s death wish: “He told more than one person, ‘I am never going back to that hellhole. They will have to kill me.’ …And since Bonnie was sticking with him, she knew it, too.”
  — Phillips, [35:54]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “[Clyde was] very charming, supremely polite and friendly...But if he felt he had been slighted, he would turn on a dime.” — John Neal Phillips, [07:05]
• "I saw Clyde Barrow change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake right in front of my eyes." — inmate recollected by Phillips, [13:38]
• “There was just no keeping her away from him.” — Phillips on Bonnie, [17:09]
• “Anyone who could make a fool out of law enforcement or bankers was just fine with them in the Great Depression.” — Phillips, [24:08]
• “Lee Simmons was extremely embarrassed by that raid...the newspapers were portraying it as basically Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker just walked onto the property there and took as many people as they wanted and the guards ran away.” — Phillips, [33:38]
• "We're still producing Clyde Barrows." — Phillips, [35:35]

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Key Episode Takeaways

• Clyde’s transformation from petty thief to killer was catalyzed not by natural inclination, but by the abuse and violence he suffered at Eastham Prison.
• Bonnie was more partner in romance than criminal mastermind, unwilling (and often unable) to be separated from Clyde.
• Their violent trajectories were propelled by a combination of the era’s economic despair, media sensationalism, and a desire for revenge.
• The legendary, romantic image of Bonnie and Clyde is, as the expert makes clear, a myth built on brutal realities—rooted in institutional violence and deprivation, not just rebellious love.
• The crackdown by law enforcement, culminating in a bloody, extrajudicial ambush, reflected the desperation to put an end to what had become a public spectacle.

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Important Timestamps

• 02:10 — Bonnie and Clyde's final ride and ambush
• 05:22 — Clyde's beginnings and character
• 08:16 — Life and abuses at Eastham Prison Farm
• 10:41 — Clyde's transformation via his first murder
• 15:41 — Clyde's post-prison vendetta and Bonnie's devotion
• 23:00 — Media myth-making: iconic photos and press frenzy
• 27:13 — Violent encounters, injuries, and loss of gang members
• 31:46 — The climactic Eastham prison raid
• 34:06 — Frank Hamer's deadly commission
• 35:04 — Bonnie’s prescient poem, legacy, and myth

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This summary omits all advertisements, sponsor messages, and segments not related to the core narrative of the episode.

Transcript

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[Host (Sally Helm)]

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your Outside the History Channel Original Podcast

[Host (Sally Helm)]

the following contains accounts of sexual abuse and violence that may be disturbing to some. Listener discretion is advised. History this week, May 23, 1934. SALLY I'm Sally Helm. 9:15 on a hot, muggy morning in Louisiana, Clyde Barrow is speeding down the road, heading toward the Texas state line. Beside him in the car is his girlfriend, Bonnie Parker. These two are wanted for dozens of robberies and more than a dozen murders, and Americans have been breathlessly following the manhunt the search for Bonnie and Clyde in the most famous movie version of their story, which came out in 1967. Bonnie reaches into the back seat and pulls a pear out of a cardboard box. She takes a bite and then holds it out so that Clyde can take a bite too. It's an intimate moment, a sign of their love, which was famously unbreakable. In real life, it wasn't a pear. Bonnie was eating a sandwich. Witnesses disagree on whether it was fried bologna or a hamburger or a blt. But the next part of the story, the movie gets pretty much right. Bonnie and Clyde see a broken down truck on the side of the road and realize that it belongs to a friend of theirs who seems to need some help. So they slow down, which is exactly what the lawmen waiting in the bushes had planned. And then, so many bullets. Clyde is killed instantly, shot in the head. Bonnie has time to scream. And then she's killed too. She's still holding her sandwich wrapped up in a paper napkin. Before the gunsmoke has even cleared, people come to see the carnage. One of them even cuts away a piece of Bonnie's bloody dress, a gruesome souvenir. Because by the time they died, Bonnie and Clyde were folk heroes to many, though villains to some. And when they died again decades later on the big screen, they became full blown American myths. Today, the true story of Bonnie and Clyde. How did two kids from Texas become robbers and killers? And what really motivated them to do all the damage? Dallas, Texas, in 1929 is a boomtown, thriving on oil, textiles too. Over the last decade, job seekers have poured in.

[John Neal Phillips]

Dallas was just bursting at the seams with people.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

John Neal Phillips is an associate professor of art and he lives in Dallas himself. He grew up hearing stories about the outlaws who prowled in and around Texas back in the 20s and 30s. Public enemies like Pretty Boy Floyd and maybe most famous, Bonnie and Clyde.

[John Neal Phillips]

The 1967 Warren Beatty movie piqued my interest.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Do you like that movie?

[John Neal Phillips]

Oh, it's a great movie. It's not accurate at all, but it really is a fabulous movie.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Phillips says he's the kind of guy who starts reading about one thing and notices a detail and starts reading about that, and before you know it, he's tracking down all of Bonnie and Clyde's living family members. That's basically what happened. He just got curious, then talked to everyone, the accomplices and the cops.

[John Neal Phillips]

I wound up interviewing more than 60 people on both sides of the law. And the more layers I peeled away, the more I realized, man, this story's never actually really been told.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

It begins in 1929, when Clyde Barrow is about 19 years old. The Barrows are a large, close knit family, a bunch of siblings.

[John Neal Phillips]

Members of the family told me that the brothers and sisters were kind of divided down the middle. Half of them, if they got angry, they would blow off steam and then that was it. They'd never go back to it again. But then the other half, if they got angry, they never forgot it. And it just always festered in them. And Clyde was one of them.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Clyde knows how to hold a grudge, but he's also fun, charismatic.

[John Neal Phillips]

He was very charming, supremely polite and friendly and had a ready smile. But if he felt he had been slighted, he would turn on a dime. And he was really dangerous when he'd get like that. There are multiple layers to that guy.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Clyde starts getting into trouble when he's just a kid. He and his brother Buck steal metal for their dad to sell at local scrapyards. When they get older, they ride around Dallas robbing local businesses. Then Clyde branches out on his own.

[John Neal Phillips]

He perpetrated burglaries and auto theft, but

[Host (Sally Helm)]

he doesn't take things too far.

[John Neal Phillips]

He didn't carry a weapon. He was non violent.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

In February 1930, Clyde gets picked up for a petty crime and goes to jail. Someone smuggles in a gun and he uses it to escape. But the police catch up to him, and even though what he's done is relatively minor, they send him off to a notorious place, the Eastham Prison Farm.

[John Neal Phillips]

An institution called the Osborne association on prisons in the US declared the Texas prison system the worst in the nation. And in particular, they cited Eastham for the brutality of the guards there and the living conditions of the inmates there.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Philip says one of the most brutal people involved with Eastham was a man named Lee Simmons.

[John Neal Phillips]

Lee Simmons was the general manager of the whole prison system throughout the whole state.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Simmons tells his guards to maintain rigid control, and they do.

[John Neal Phillips]

The guards had trained their horses to knock prisoners over and stand on their backs if you made any infraction at all.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Some prisoners are forced to stand for hours at a time in a small tin structure called the Box. It's outside in the harsh sun, so

[John Neal Phillips]

you can imagine what that was like in August. And if they were particularly mad at you, they'd drench you in honey or molasses and then put you in there to attract insects.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Supposedly the guards were being harsh in order to reduce escapes. And if they caught someone trying to make a break for it, they'd get a payout.

[John Neal Phillips]

There was a $30 reward if you captured an inmate that was escaping dead or alive, which is more than a month's wages.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Some guards saw this as an opportunity.

[John Neal Phillips]

Clyde would be Working in the fields. And the guards would come, pick somebody out of the crew and march them over behind some trees. And you hear shots. And then they'd come back. Oh, they tried to escape. And then they collect the 30 bucks.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

And it isn't just the guards. Some inmates are given the power to rule over the dorms at night. One of them is a man named Ed Crowder. What he does to Clyde changes both their fates.

[John Neal Phillips]

He was picking on Clyde and raped him at least once.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Crowder expects Clyde to just take the abuse. After all, Clyde is a young man with no power. Power in prison. This is just how Eastham works. So Crowder torments him for about a year until Clyde strikes back.

[John Neal Phillips]

Clyde smuggled a piece of galvanized pipe into the dormitory and lured this guy into the back of the dormitory. And when that guy came back here, he pulled that pipe out and just ripped the top of that guy's head off and killed him right there on the spot.

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[Host (Sally Helm)]

What if everything you learned in history class was only half the story? I'm Dr. Harini Bhatt, host of Hidden History. Every Monday, I go where history gets mysterious. Vanished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena and events that science still can't fully explain. On Hidden History. I treat these moments like open case files. Not myths, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look. Listen to and follow Hidden History available now wherever you get your podcasts, this

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[Host (Sally Helm)]

It's Clyde Barrow's first violent crime. John Neil Phillips later talked about it with one of Clyde's fellow inmates who said that afterwards, Clyde was not the same.

[John Neal Phillips]

He said, I saw Clyde Barrow change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake right in front of my eyes.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

The next morning, officials remove Ed Crowder's body from the dorm. John Neal Phillips says nobody really cares how it got there.

[John Neal Phillips]

At the time, an inmate killing another inmate meant almost nothing.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Soon after this, Clyde catches a break. Eastham Prison farm is drastically overcrowded, so they release some nonviolent offenders. Clyde qualifies. To the prison officials, Crowder's death doesn't count. So In February of 1932, Clyde Barrow leaves the Eastham prison farm on parole.

[John Neal Phillips]

He came into the prison as a nonviolent burglar and auto thief and he walked out of that prison a stone cold killer.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

John Neal Phillips says that part of Clyde that knows how to nurse a grudge, that part has only gotten stronger. He's bitter and more dangerous.

[John Neal Phillips]

This kind of thing just became a monster inside him.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

The world that Clyde walks into is in terrible trouble. It's the Great Depression. Millions have been thrown out of work, children are going hungry and people are angry, resentful of an economic system that seems designed for the rich, not for them. They are only too ready to embrace a dark Robin Hood, an avenging figure who will strike out against the state and the police. That's how some Americans will come to see Clyde. But it's not what he sets out to be. Philip says Clyde takes aim at a very specific, very personal target, the Eastham Prison farm. He wants to raid it.

[John Neal Phillips]

He really wanted to do this. I mean, that's all he talked about when he was in prison.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Clyde is out for revenge. But first there's a girlfriend situation he needs to deal with. The woman in question is a 21 year old waitress named Bonnie Parker. They'd met two years earlier at her brother's house in Dallas.

[John Neal Phillips]

Apparently they bumped into each other in the kitchen and by all accounts, it was love at first sight.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Remember how someone smuggled Quide a gun so he could bust out of jail? That was Bonnie. She'd been captivated by his swagger and his charisma. And he'd fallen for her in return. He wasn't the only one.

[John Neal Phillips]

Everyone I ever interviewed that actually knew her, really liked her. They described her as real bubbly and vivacious and a lot of fun. Fun full of jokes.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

While Clyde was locked up at Eastham, Bonnie waited for him. Now he's out on parole in Dallas. But as he begins thinking once again about a life of crime, he keeps his distance from Bonnie.

[John Neal Phillips]

He always was afraid for her safety. He always tried to keep her away from what he did on the road.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

That is not what Bonnie wants. She's determined to be with Clyde.

[John Neal Phillips]

She would go out riding with him and he'd bring her back to Dallas and tell her, stay away from me. And she'd make her way back. She'd hitchhike to him. She'd take buses to wherever he was. There was just no keeping her away from him.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Before long, Clyde gathers up some criminal accomplices and makes a proposal.

[John Neal Phillips]

He said, let's get a gang together.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

And they do. The Barrow Gang takes to robbing stores and banks, even an oil refinery. They'll kidnap anyone who gets in their way and drop them off a few states over. For Clyde, it's all a means to an end.

[John Neal Phillips]

Any robbery they pulled was to get funds so that they could get a gang together and get some vehicles and some weapons and go down and raid Eastham.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

That's the end game. He tells his gang, this is what I want to do.

[John Neal Phillips]

We come back down, we'll turn everybody loose and I want to shoot every damned one of these guards.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Around the time he gathers up this gang, Clyde finally gives in to Bonnie's pleas. He lets her come with him. Him on a trip to Tyler, Texas. An accomplice, Ralph Fultz, comes to. Their plan is to steal weapons and cars.

[John Neal Phillips]

Clyde just wanted to be with Bonnie and he thought this was going to be an easy job. And so Bonnie came along just for the ride.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

And she's along for the ride when things go sour. They're breaking into a store when a night watchman spots them and raises the alarm. The three of them all run, hop into their stolen cars and speed out of town. They don't get far.

[John Neal Phillips]

They stick both of the cars in the mud, and they take off on foot. Bonnie loses her shoes.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

It's pouring rain, and a posse is coming after them. They need to be moving.

[John Neal Phillips]

So they commandeer a couple of mules and ride these mules into a little tiny town.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Getaway mules.

[John Neal Phillips]

They steal a car there, and they're

[Host (Sally Helm)]

back on the road again.

[John Neal Phillips]

But that car runs out of gas, because nobody can afford gas in the Depression.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Bonnie, Clyde, and Ralph ditch the car and hide out until that posse does indeed catch up to them. They're angry. They start firing at the outlaws. Ralph fires back over their heads. He's trying to scare them. Clyde runs through the posse while they're reloading their guns and escapes. But Ralph and Bonnie are captured. Ralph takes the fall. He tells the police that he and Clyde kidnapped Bonnie. She's no criminal, he says. I mean, she's terrible with guns. That much was true.

[John Neal Phillips]

One time, she picked up one of Clyde's pistols and accidentally shot herself in the foot. That's how good she was with weapons.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

The police eventually let Bonnie out of jail. She goes right back to Clyde. And John Neal Phillips says a new phase of their criminal careers begins. On April 30, 1932, Clyde cases A store in Hillsborough, Texas. That night, his accomplice orders the store owner to open his safe. When the store owner reaches for a gun, the accomplice shoots him.

[John Neal Phillips]

It really escalates from there. Within a couple of months, there are a couple of more murders. As he starts getting more and more desperate to not be arrested.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

And why does it escalate to so many murders?

[John Neal Phillips]

Just the nature of the beast. If you start carrying guns around, guns are going to go off.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

John Neal Phillips says the people he interviewed how had a word for this?

[John Neal Phillips]

Everybody that was in that game told me that the term they used was things go to snowballing. So things go to snowballing for Clyde, and now he's wanted for murder, robbing

[Host (Sally Helm)]

banks, killing without mercy.

[John Neal Phillips]

Like a snowball rolling downhill, Barrow's crime record began to grow.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Are they already, at this point in the story, becoming legends to the broader world?

[John Neal Phillips]

It was the shootout in Joppa, Missouri, that that made their names appear in the newspaper.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Joplin, Missouri, April 1933. Two couples are renting a garage. One is Bonnie and Clyde. The other is Clyde's brother Buck, and his wife Blanche. For a couple of weeks, they're all contentedly living a normal life. They stay up late playing card games, buy new linens for their beds, drink hot chocolate. But Clyde makes his living by robbery, so he pulls a few jobs in town. When four lawmen show up at the door of the garage, things go to snowballing. Clyde opens fire. And as two of the officers lie dying of their wounds, the couples escape in a stolen car with a handful of weapons.

[John Neal Phillips]

They had to leave in such a hurry that they left all of their identification.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

And there's something else.

[John Neal Phillips]

Blanche's camera. She was the camera buff, and she had this Kodak camera.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

The police find that, plus a couple of unprocessed rolls of film. So now everyone knows the names of the gang that has been on a crime spree in Texas for nearly a year. And they can see their faces. One photo especially stands out. It's Bonnie posing with a pistol in her hand, a cigar dangling from her mouth. In another, she playfully aims a rifle at Clyde's stomach. Those photos, as much as anything, make them famous. Newspapers cannot cover the Barrow Gang enough, and reading about Bonnie and Clyde becomes a form of entertainment.

[John Neal Phillips]

It was an escape.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

An escape from the grinding reality of an economy gone to pieces. Some people even start to see Bonnie and Clyde as those dark Robin Hood figures, agents of chaos that the country

[John Neal Phillips]

needs more than one person told me anybody that could make a fool out of law enforcement or politicians or bankers was just fine with them in the Great Depression because they were the three groups seen to be the most responsible for the economic woes of the land.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

But for the Barrow Gang, all this attention comes at a cost. One newspaper reports a $1,500 bounty on Clyde's head. About $35,000 today. And in the midst of the Great Depression, a lot of people would be desperate to claim it. You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone? Yeah, so do we. Here at Designer Shoe Warehouse, we'll give you something to brag about, like the latest styles from brands you love or the trends everyone's obsessing over, or shoes that make you feel like, well, you. So go ahead, show off a little. Find shoes that get you at prices

[John Neal Phillips]

that get your budget.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Head to your DSW store or dsw.com today. DSW. Let us surprise you.

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[Host (Sally Helm)]

Where is Daredevil a Miner? Don't miss the return of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again. So what's next? I feel liberated. We're going to take this city back over medicated in an all new season, now streaming only on Disney plus. They're hunting us. It's time we started hunting them. I can work with them, be tons of fun. Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again now streaming only on Disney Plus. June 1933. The Barrow Gang, Bonnie and Clyde and Buck and Blanche are still outrunning the law, shooting as they go.

[John Neal Phillips]

These people were going from one gunfight to another. Some of them were what you would call a minor scrape. And then others were just major firefights.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

In late July, the group is hiding out at a motel in Missouri when a dozen lawmen catch up to them and ambush them outside their room.

[John Neal Phillips]

They left that place so fast, Blanche said she and Bonnie didn't have time to dress. They were in their nightgowns and they nearly froze to death in that car because they didn't have anything to wear.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

But that's the least of their problems.

[John Neal Phillips]

Buck had been shot through the head and he was still conscious and flying glass and a bullet shard had struck Blanche in the head. The glass had penetrated all of her face and her skull and had damaged one of her eyes. The back seat of that car was just full of blood.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Clyde finds a hideout where they can lay low and heal up.

[John Neal Phillips]

They arrive in Iowa at this remnant of this old amusement park. It had been a very popular place in the 1920s.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

It's an eerie site. Spacious, unkempt grounds, rusted Ferris wheel, empty dance hall.

[John Neal Phillips]

It had rides and a baseball field and a big giant swimming pool and all kinds of things. But it was abandoned.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

The group camps out in the woods next to the park. Clyde goes into town to buy gauze and first aid supplies and food, chicken dinners. He's polite. He wears a newly purchased shirt and shoes. Bonnie occasionally goes with him. She stays in the car because she has a badly injured leg. And some people in town are like, seems like a nice guy.

[John Neal Phillips]

Others in town are starting to wonder about this couple. Why does the woman never get out of the car. Why is this guy dressed to the nines?

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Then one day, a local farmer is out walking his dog when he stumbles across the campsite.

[John Neal Phillips]

First he saw a bunch of bloody rags, and then he saw a car full of bullet holes. And then he saw one or two people, and he was really suspicious.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

The fire farmer contacts the sheriff. The sheriff contacts some other officers. Everyone's like, is it the Barrow gang? Could it be? People want to find out, so they show up to watch.

[John Neal Phillips]

Some reports say over a hundred people were out there in the woods all night long. Some of them drinking, some of them brought dates, thinking they're going to see a movie or something. I don't know what they thought they were going to see.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

In the morning, Bonnie spots the crowd. They're moving toward the campsite, and in front of them are six armed officers. She shouts a warning to the gang.

[John Neal Phillips]

Clyde yells for everybody to get in the car. The officers open up on that car, and they shoot all the tires out. And so everybody gets out of that car and they go to the other car. They pile in that car and. And Clyde's trying to drive off, and he accidentally drives over a tree stump and completely sticks the car. So everybody's out on foot, including Buck and Blanche.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

But the two of them can barely walk.

[John Neal Phillips]

Buck gets shot two or three times in the back. And Blanche keeps picking him up and carrying him on, trying to keep up with Bonnie and Clyde. Bonnie is shot twice in the stomach. Clyde is shot in the shoulder.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Bonnie's night gown is soaked in blood. Clyde throws her in the backseat of a farmer's car and peels out, leaving Buck and Blanche, who have fallen way behind.

[John Neal Phillips]

And finally Buck can't go any further, and Blanche drags him behind a great big log. And they hide there for several hours. They're hiding there before they're finally discovered.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Blanche, who's been half blinded by glass shards in her eye, begs the officers not to shoot her husband. The couple is too injured to pose a threat, so the officers take them alive.

[John Neal Phillips]

One of the officers asked Buck, where are you wanted by the law? And his answer was, wherever I've been.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Five days later, Buck dies of his wounds. A month later, Blanche is convicted and sentenced to to 10 years in prison. But what about Bonnie and Clyde? Newspapers report sightings in Dallas and other places, but nobody really knows.

[John Neal Phillips]

After the escape from Iowa, Bonnie and Clyde just kind of disappear. And there's even rumors that they crawled off somewhere and died, which was just fine with Clyde and Bonnie.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Actually, they are plotting Their next move, which is the big one.

[John Neal Phillips]

January 16, 1934.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

The Eastham Prison farm. Crews of prisoners are working in the fields, planting cotton, chopping wood. Those fields are dotted with brush piles. Before the raid an accomplice of clothes Clydes walked up to one of those

[John Neal Phillips]

brush piles, one that had been specifically chosen. And he hid two.45 caliber colt automatics in that brush pile. And the next morning the work crew came out there. Bonnie and Clyde were waiting in a car not far away.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Clyde gets out of the car and heads for the fields.

[John Neal Phillips]

He walked off down this ravine and got very close to that brush pile before dawn. And Bonnie stayed in the car.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

He waits. A large work crew of inmates arrives. One of them has been told in advance where to find the guns. He grabs them from the brush pile. Clyde watches, then fires his Browning automatic into the air. A signal that the raid has a gun. An inmate shoots and kills two guards. All the inmates run. Some of the guards have surrendered, but one is still shooting, pinning down the prisoners in the field. Just four inmates managed to make it to the woods to Clyde.

[John Neal Phillips]

There were probably nearly 100 convicts out there. They probably would have all run off if that one guard hadn't held his ground.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Not. It's not the mass breakout Clyde had imagined, but it does make the authorities look pretty bad. Especially the manager of Texas State Prisons, Lee Simmons.

[John Neal Phillips]

Lee Simmons was extremely embarrassed by that raid. The way the newspapers were portraying it was basically clad. Barrow and Bonnie Parker just walked onto the property there and took as many people as they wanted and the guards ran away.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Simmons assigns former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer to track down Bonnie and Clyde. And he gives Hamer clear instructions about what to do when he finds them

[John Neal Phillips]

in his own book. These are his words. I told Frank Hamer to put Clyde and Bonnie on the spot and shoot everyone in sight.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Hamer hunts them until May 23, 1934. The day the story of Bonnie and Clyde comes to an end when officers ambush their car firing 167 bullets in less than 20 seconds. The day after their deaths, many newspapers printed a poem that Bonnie herself had written. The last stanza reads, someday they will come, go down together and they will bury them side by side. To a few it means grief. To the law it's relief. But it is death to Bonnie and Clyde. The poem is eerily prescient and people also find it kind of romantic. That's a big part of the story, then and now.

[John Neal Phillips]

Much of it is extremely romanticized. Here's a young guy and a young girl who through thick and thin are going to die together for whatever it is they stand for.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Yeah, that people love it as a

[John Neal Phillips]

love story, of course.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

But for Phillips, the story is rooted in something very different, in the violence of the Texas prison system.

[John Neal Phillips]

There over the years has been some reform, but there are still practices in the Texas prison system that are still going on that were in place when Barrow was a convict there. We're still producing. Clyde Barrows, do you think he preferred

[Host (Sally Helm)]

to be killed than to go back to prison?

[John Neal Phillips]

Oh, no doubt about it. He told more than one person, I am never going back to that hellhole. They will have to kill me. A lot of outlaws say, oh, they're never going to take me me alive. But Clyde actually meant it. And since Bonnie was sticking with him, she knew it, too.

[Host (Sally Helm)]

Thanks for listening to History this week. For moments throughout history that are also worth watching, check your local TV listings to find out what's on the History Channel today. If you want to get in touch, please shoot us an email at our email address that is history this [e-mail] or you can leave us a voicemail 212-351-0410. Special thanks to our guest today, John Neal Phillips, author of Running With Bonnie and the 10 fast years of Ralph Foltz. This episode was produced by Corinne Wallace. It was sound designed by Brian Flood and story edited by Jim o'. Grady. Our senior producer is Ben Dickstein. History this Week is also produced by Julia Press, Chloe Weiner and me, Sally Helm. Our associate producer is Emma Fredericks. Our supervising producer is McCamey Lynn and our executive producer is Jesse Katz. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review History this week, wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you next.