Bonnie and Clyde

You've probably seen the movie, but what else do you know about this legendary crime couple? Listen in to find out. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:17Josh Clark?

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• 1:52Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 2:02Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. Machine Gun Jerry Roland, and this is Stuff You Should Know about Bonnie and Clyde, a true crime edition, but also a folk hero edition.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  That's right. And it's given me an opportunity to get that Bonnie and Clyde song stuck in my head all day, which is great, because I like it.

• 2:23Josh Clark?

  I've never heard that song.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Bonnie and Clyde, Bonnie and Clyde.

• 2:31Josh Clark?

  I think you're just making that up.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  No, it's for real. I think it was Serge Gainsbourg, but I know the Luna version.

• 2:38Josh Clark?

  I came across that, a mention of that. So yeah, Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but Luna covered it. And speaking of, Luna leader Dean Wareham's brother Anthony is a listener, so hello, Anthony.

• 2:53Josh Clark?

  Wow, we finally got to Anthony.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  I tried to buy Dean's guitar off of Instagram a few weeks ago.

• 3:01Josh Clark?

  How'd it go?

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Well, he put his guitar up, and it's the one that's on the cover of his book, Black Postcards, and he's huge in the studio and on tour. And I was like, huh, let me just see how much he wants. And he said, I missed it by a day, so.

• 3:16Josh Clark?

  That stinks. Well, maybe Anthony can pull some strings for you.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, like steal a guitar from Dean and just send it my way?

• 3:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And if Anthony did that, he'd be a lot like Clyde Barrow or Bonnie Parker.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, man, these guys like to steal stuff.

• 3:30Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, I, did you see the PBS documentary, the American Experience documentary on him?

• 3:35Speaker 02

  No, just the movie.

• 3:36Josh Clark?

  It was good. It's worth watching. I haven't seen the movie, so you put the two of us together, and we have a full comprehension, right?

• 3:41Speaker 02

  That's how it works.

• 3:43Josh Clark?

  But they, they kind of, they basically got across that they stole, or Clyde stole, just literally as a way of life. Like, he stole cars to get around. He stole money to buy food with. Like, that's just how he lived. And they make the point, and I think Livia, Livia helps us with this, I think she kind of makes the point, too, like, these were the options that were open to them, especially Clyde, because he was raised dirt poor during the Depression. And like, a lot of people were poor during the Depression. So if you were dirt poor during the Depression, you were really, really poor. And that's the life that Clyde Barrow was born into.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And, you know, not to excuse crime, but that was just his background. And not to, you know, they've been glorified over the years, but kind of reading through this, it was like, oh, man, they like, just would murder people at will, again, usually to get out of a scrape, but still, just like, killing people left and right, just, you know, to not get caught.

• 4:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, particularly cops. And there's some disputes over, there's a pair of patrolmen that were killed, and it's disputed whether Bonnie was one of the gunmen or not. There's some other crimes that they have had attributed to them that may or may not have, like, been their doing, but there are definitely, there's a, the path behind them was littered with dead cops that they definitely murdered. They were known to, like, if a cop came up to him, even if they had no idea who they were, and were trying to help, they just opened fire and killed the guy. Like, that was definitely their MO, typically with cops, though. And

• 5:26Josh Clark?

  this doesn't justify it, but this was also the era where the cops would just open fire on you, too. There wasn't like a put your hands up kind of stuff. It was like, you're an outlaw, I'm going to start shooting at you first, ask questions later.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, not like these days where cops and ICE never just kill people.

• 5:43Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Bad joke.

• 5:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  All right, well, and you know, maybe I'll make this point later, too, but, and again, it doesn't justify it, but after Clyde's prison stint early on, like, he was, to me, like, clearly killing people so he would never, ever have to go back to prison.

• 6:06Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  You know?

• 6:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and you can kind of get that after you hear about his time in prison and how much he hated it.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, let's get going and talk about Clyde first. I know it's Bonnie and Clyde, but we're going Clyde and Bonnie initially. He was born in Texas in 1909 in Tellico, and, you know, when he was a kid, he, I don't think this necessarily means he was set for a life of crime, because a lot of kids play gangster, play outlaw, and that's, but that's what he did. And in the 20s, they moved to a very, very, very poor neighborhood in West Dallas, and were homeless as a family for a while. And his brother Buck Barrow and Clyde started, you know, early on, like, stealing food, like you mentioned, stealing turkeys, and then that graduated to robbery and car theft and stuff like that, to the point where

• 6:55Speaker 02

  he was eventually arrested for the first time when he was 17 for car theft.

• 7:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, this was not him boosting a car, which was basically how he got every other car. He actually went and rented a car and then visited a girlfriend, and then didn't take it back.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's stealing, though, you know?

• 7:13Josh Clark?

  No, it definitely is. That's by taking, I think. But, but I think also, you could implicate the car rental place for renting a car to a 17-year-old.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was also, quite frankly, surprised to learn that they had car rental services in 1926.

• 7:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Although it was probably just some dude in town who'd let you take his car for 10 bucks or something.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  But you gotta be 13.

• 7:34Josh Clark?

  Right. So, yeah, that was his first brush with the law, and that was certainly far from his last. And that's Clyde. His middle name was Chestnut, by the way, which I thought was pretty cool.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Very cute.

• 7:46Josh Clark?

  Bonnie's middle name was Elizabeth. Her name was Bonnie Elizabeth Parker. She was born into different circumstances than Clyde. Her mom was a seamstress, her dad was a bricklayer. But she was, she was born in Rowena, Texas, and after her father died, the family had very little means of supporting themselves. And her mom was, I think her mom's name was Emma, she was basically left to raise three very little kids on her own. So they ended up in the same area roughly where Clyde and his family were. Basically, I saw it put that they were both from the same side of the tracks, despite Bonnie's mom raising

• 8:26Josh Clark?

  her and her siblings to be respectable and to feel that they were above their circumstances, rather than, you know, part of their circumstances.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  For sure. So, you know, this was the early 1900s, so a lot of times you would find kids dropping out of school or getting married at very young ages, and that's what happened with Bonnie. At 15, she married a guy named Roy Thornton, who was a criminal. So that kind of gave her a taste of that lifestyle. They weren't together too long, I think about four years, even though they never officially, legally got divorced. And finally hooked up with Clyde in 1930, when he was 20 and she was 19. And it wasn't long after they got together that Clyde went to prison for car theft and burglary, again, just sort of doing

• 9:17Speaker 02

  the same fairly low stakes crimes at the time. And she, she got him out of jail. She smuggled in a gun and, like, helped him escape, basically with two other inmates. They were all three recaptured, though, and that's when he got his kind of really tough stint in prison.

• 9:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they sentenced him to 14 years hard labor on the Eastham Prison Farm, which was a notorious farm in the Texas penal system, where you would just get beaten for no reason by the guards who were just completely beyond the law. And he was also, he had been taken, remember, he's still pretty young at this time, he was basically claimed by another inmate who raped him repeatedly and beat him repeatedly. And he essentially was like, this is my life now for at least the next 14 years. And there was a, he finally was tired enough of it that he smuggled a galvanized pipe into the cells with him, and he walked

• 10:18Josh Clark?

  to the showers, knowing that this guy was going to follow him. And the guy did, and Clyde suddenly turns on him and beat him over the head until he was dead with the lead pipe. And I think one thing that really kind of gets across, like, how Clyde was, he was kind of a likable person throughout his life, but especially at this time, another inmate who already had a life sentence, he was never getting out, he took the blame so that Clyde wouldn't basically ruin his future for killing the man who'd been raping him.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, hey.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  It's a pretty stand up thing to do for the guy in prison.

• 10:56Josh Clark?

  It totally is. It's like I donated a kidney to a stranger once. Oh yeah, well, I took a murder rap. So a kid wouldn't, who was doling out his own justice, wouldn't ruin his life.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, you know, that's what I was referencing when it, you know, it seems that Clyde did everything, including killing cops that he could to stay out of jail again. Again, not excusing the killing of police, just wanna kind of lay down the reality of being assaulted in prison like that.

• 11:21Josh Clark?

  I think you're explaining his mindset. That's legitimate.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay. So, uh, one of the other things, I don't think Clyde was ever accused of being like the smartest guy in the world. Because at one point, he cut off two of his toes to avoid the hard labor part of the hard labor prison. And less than a week later, he was freed when his mother petitioned for parole. So didn't time that one out quite right.

• 11:49Josh Clark?

  No, he was also, I guess, not known as the luckiest guy around too.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:54Josh Clark?

  He spent, so he spent less than two years in prison, but in that time, he changed like fundamentally.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:02Josh Clark?

  Before, like you said, fairly light stuff, boosting cars, stealing truckloads of turkeys, that kind of stuff.

• 12:08Josh Clark?

  But there was another guy that he was in the prison with, who said that before his very eyes, he saw Clyde change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake. And even Bonnie, later on in a poem that she wrote, she used to write poetry. She mentioned that Clyde was basically a victim of unfair institutionalization, basically. That that's what, that's why he was the way he was.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  I gotta say, every time you say boosted a car, it makes you sound super street.

• 12:40Josh Clark?

  I'd sound like a 50s greaser in the 70s.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, instead of stealing a car. Like, I'm not cool enough to say boosting a car.

• 12:48Josh Clark?

  I guess you could say stealing, yeah. I was gonna say, I don't know any other way to put it, but I mean, I guess that's just because I'm from the streets, you know?

• 12:54Speaker 02

  I was about to say, you're like, oh, wait, there's a word for boosting a car?

• 12:59Josh Clark?

  What's the steal?

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, they don't teach that on the street, so I don't blame you. So Clyde was released, like we said, when his mother petitioned for that release, and he went right back to robbing. You know, gas stations, convenience stores, stuff like that. He had his first sort of partner in crime. His name was Ralph Foltz. And Bonnie was kind of joined up with them as the first version of the Barrow gang. Just the three of them, even though like, you know, parents on both sides were like, Bonnie, you can't join up with this criminal gang. Like, please don't do it. And she's like, I love my man.

• 13:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, she said, I like the bad boys for sure.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:40Josh Clark?

  But, you know, one of the reasons why we still know about Bonnie and Clyde, not just because they became celebrities, but also because they were just totally in love with one another.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:52Josh Clark?

  I mean, like, basically, every single outlaw romance or love story that you've ever seen in the movies or on TV is in one way or another, based on Bonnie and Clyde.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 14:06Josh Clark?

  That's my theory, yeah. I should probably say, this is not, you know, something from an academic journal I read, but.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  A white paper, as Emily would say.

• 14:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly right. It's something I'm working on.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Emily's.

• 14:19Josh Clark?

  Boy, Emily's got one for everything, doesn't she?

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. When I like, you know, when she'll just sort of make a claim or something else, and not to challenge her, I'll just be like, are you sure about that or something? And she'll be like, well, I don't have a white paper on it.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Like, all right, I know that's a time to back off.

• 14:34Josh Clark?

  Thank you, Emily.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  So in April of 32, and, you know, we should point out, this is over just a couple of years that all of their shenanigans took place.

• 14:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  So we're gonna be spitting out dates kind of fast and furious, but in April of, speaking of boosting cars. In April of 32, did you get that one?

• 14:54Josh Clark?

  Hmm.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Fast and Furious?

• 14:56Josh Clark?

  Oh, oh. Did they boost cars? I thought they, there were extensive lengthy scenes of them negotiating at car dealerships.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Actually.

• 15:04Josh Clark?

  For their purchases.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  I think I only saw.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  You gotta sell me this car. It's about family. Uh, I only know that line about family as a reference, because I've only seen one of that. I think I saw that very first movie.

• 15:17Josh Clark?

  Did you?

• 15:18Speaker 02

  I'm not familiar with the Fast and the Furious verse, but were they even car thieves? I think they were, right?

• 15:24Josh Clark?

  I probably, I mean, they were definitely, I get the impression that they were on the wrong side of the law, the right side of justice. That's my take.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Man, that's the log line. Did you, you didn't see any of those?

• 15:35Josh Clark?

  No.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Not even the first one?

• 15:36Josh Clark?

  No.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  You say that like you haven't seen garbage movies before.

• 15:41Josh Clark?

  I'm sorry. But it's also the highest grossing movie franchise in the world ever.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Well, it's because there's 37 of them.

• 15:48Josh Clark?

  I mean, that's definitely part of it, but also people apparently like car movies.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  They do, and they're supposed to be good. All right, so back to after pointing out my dumb pun. April of 32, Bonnie and Ralph Foltz, who was the guy who he initially hooked up with in the gang, they were arrested trying to rob a hardware store, and she got out, was never indicted at least, and Ralph was convicted. And while she was sort of being investigated for indictment, Clyde and his other boys are still out there. Again, robbing banks, robbing stores, gas stations, all pretty, and this is one reason they got away with it for so long, is they never did like these huge things. They were kind of in small towns, robbing, you know, kind of backwater grocery stores and stuff.

• 16:33Josh Clark?

  It's key.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  But it was at one of these robberies where the first murder happens, when a store owner, and one of the only non cops, a guy named John Butcher, was killed.

• 16:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it's also not clear whether it was Clyde that did it. I don't think anyone thinks it was Bonnie. I'm, or yeah, she was in jail, I think, like you said, at the time.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:53Josh Clark?

  Definitely wasn't her. There was, he was with an associate named Raymond Hamilton, and Raymond Hamilton and Floyd Hamilton would kind of come in and out of the Barrow gang. And I got the impression that like Clyde was definitely one of the more stand up gangsters of the people in his gang. That he ran with some shady, shady dudes that were way more murderous than him. And that it was just basically him being pragmatic, like he just had a small pool of people who he knew could help him rob a store at any given time. So he had to kind of hang out with these shady people. I get the impression he otherwise wouldn't have necessarily.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I sort of do too. Uh, yeah, so that was in April of the first murder. The second murder was in August of that year, when Clyde and Raymond and another, you know, guy that they was sort of in and out of the gang, killed an undersheriff, I guess, which is sort of like a deputy named Eugene Moore in Stringtown, Oklahoma. And then went back to Dallas around Christmas and Clyde talked to a kid, basically, a 16 year old named W D Jones, into joining up with the gang. And on Christmas Day, which was the next day, they killed another guy named Doyle Johnson while stealing his car.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  And Clyde was like, all right, kid, like, you gotta stay with us now, otherwise like they're gonna get you for this murder.

• 18:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And W D being 16 at the time was like, oh, God, I have no choice. I have to turn to a life of crime now. I'm in too deep. As Phil Collins would later say.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Very nice.

• 18:34Josh Clark?

  So he did, he stuck around, and he and Bonnie and Clyde were essentially the first cohesive Bonnie and Clyde gang.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:44Josh Clark?

  Because they stuck together for quite a while, actually, and did a lot of stuff. Everything we're talking about here, every significant thing, which is usually the murder of a cop. They're in between those, there's handfuls and handfuls of robberies and, you know, shootouts and stuff like that that they engaged in. They were on the run and on the move and under the gun.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:07Josh Clark?

  Every moment, from the start to their death, over the course of this two something years. They were just constantly in action. Even when they took a vacation, as we'll see in Joplin, Missouri, they ended up in a shootout.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was a lot, lot of gunplay. I mean, that was at Christmas when the second murder happened. In January, there was another murder, and this was a, just a sort of an unlucky circumstance when they walked into an ambush, but it wasn't for them. It was for a different target. And, but it was an ambush nonetheless, so they killed a deputy sheriff named Malkin Davis. And for the next couple of months, basically, early 33 through the spring, it was Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, stealing, boosting cars. How to say it right?

• 19:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Boosting cars. And, you know, if you've ever seen the very famous photos, that looks like, hey, this looks sort of like a photo shoot of these criminals. That's kind of exactly what it was. It was during this time that W D took these photos of them, these very famous photos, one of which, I'm sure you saw this one online. Somebody did a really good job colorizing the one where he's kind of lifted Bonnie up and like, colorized and retouched to where it looks like a modern photo. There's like a lot of clarity. Because otherwise, they're sort of grainy, black and white. But yeah, you get your, with this color photo, you get a really good look at like who they were.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  And they, you know, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty played them for a reason. Like, they were both like pretty attractive people.

• 20:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I didn't know this, but Bonnie was a really dinkums. Like, she was under.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  What does that mean?

• 20:54Josh Clark?

  She was under five feet tall and weighed 85 pounds.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  That's a dinkums?

• 20:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's a dinkums.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Never heard of that.

• 21:02Josh Clark?

  I guess it's mine.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, I like it.

• 21:04Josh Clark?

  It's being white papered. It's on archive right now.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Well, you means it's a small person. Do you say, come here, little dinkums? Is that where it comes from?

• 21:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it drives her crazy. She's like, put me down.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  All right. Yeah, she was a dinkum. So that's why he was just sort of holding her up with one arm, I guess.

• 21:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And also it would come in handy later when she injures her leg.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:25Josh Clark?

  She had to be carried quite a bit. But so around this time, those photos, like you said, they'll come back in again. But around this time, I guess in March, this is January, when they started shooting at the cops again.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:41Josh Clark?

  December and January.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  They started shooting at the cops again.

• 21:45Josh Clark?

  Right. So this is, this is March and when Clyde's brother Buck shows up. And Buck had been imprisoned, remember, he basically taught his little brother Clyde how to be a criminal. But not a murderous criminal. Clyde learned that on his own, remember?

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:59Josh Clark?

  And Buck's wife, Blanche, came along. So now they had a two couple gang with the fifth wheel and WD. Blanche and Buck and Bonnie and Clyde and poor little WD, who again is like 16, maybe 17 by now. And after like this, at least a year of just constant crime, they're like, let's take a vacation in Joplin, Missouri. Missouri, right? That's how they say it.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:28Josh Clark?

  And they were there for 13 days before the cops got called on them because they were basically being noisy drunks.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:37Josh Clark?

  In a neighborhood and the neighbors were like, these are probably bootleggers. Cause this is, this is, you know, I guess it's after prohibition, shortly after prohibition, but still. These bootleg operations were so successful. I'm sure they just didn't go away immediately.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they're like, whoever's at this Airbnb is really dragging the neighborhood down.

• 22:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I think that's exactly right.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  So they did call the cops and another gunfight, you know, the cops come up and like you said, this is just a time where people are just opening fire all over the place. And they killed two cops, Harry McGinnis and Wes Harriman, and the gang got out of there. And WD, his nickname was Little Forty, he was shot in the side and recovered. And they somehow with those old cars in the 1930s, drove about 600 miles overnight to Shamrock, Texas.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  It's a long drive.

• 23:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because Clyde was a professional getaway driver. He was, he was really good at stealing cars and he was really good at driving cars fast.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Should we take a break?

• 23:43Josh Clark?

  Yes, I think that's a great idea, Chuck.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be right back with more on B and C.

• 24:03Josh Clark?

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  It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 26:41Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager, Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 26:47Speaker 04

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 26:57Speaker 04

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data is flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 27:04Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 27:08Speaker 05

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  All right. So we're back with Bonnie and Clyde. They are starting to get a little bit of press at this point and the newspapers show up at the hideout in Joplin, Missouri at the Airbnb. Once they found out what was going on, they found, you know, guns, they found this poem that Bonnie had written,

• 27:45Speaker 02

  which we'll get to in a second, a little more detail. They found that undeveloped film. So you can imagine they developed that film of these like soon to be infamous photos of Bonnie with a cigar and all this stuff. And it was front page stuff and like, everybody was all of a sudden like really kind of captured by the allure of these gangsters.

• 28:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because not only are they like doing, you know, newspaper article worthy crimes, getting away, getting away from the cops, killing cops, now there's photos that they can run alongside of them. So everybody starts getting in on the act, not just the press, but also true crime magazines, newsreels, like they became famous overnight. Like they were already local legends in Texas. After those photos started getting published on the wire, that was, that was when they just really became icons.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, attractive young lovers, they're having a good time because in these photos, they're like goofing off and having fun.

• 28:43Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  So obviously just something that's going to capture the public's attention. They published that poem that you referenced earlier. This was called the story of Suicide Sal. And I read the poem, I'm sure you did too. She wrote this in jail, when she was briefly in jail in 1932. And, you know, it's an okay poem. It's not the greatest thing in the world, but when I was reading it, I was like, I wonder if anyone's ever put this to song. It's like, surely someone has. And I went online. I was like, oh yeah, there it is. And I went and played it and I was listening to it and it was this woman. And it's like a country sort of version. I was like, wait a minute. I was like, this, I bet this is not real. And I looked, of course, it was freaking AI from like February of this year.

• 29:27Josh Clark?

  Oh my God.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Like all completely fake. And I was just, it left a really nasty taste in my mouth.

• 29:33Josh Clark?

  I'm sure. And well, it should, man.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:37Josh Clark?

  You got duped by AI. Somebody said, AI, make a song out of this Bonnie Parker poem.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:44Josh Clark?

  In the, in the, in the, the style of Juice Newton.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  It was more like, I don't know, I can't think of a country singer right now.

• 29:53Josh Clark?

  Like new country stuff, like country pop?

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it wasn't poppy. It sounded country, but the way, the woman's, the fake woman's voice, I don't even want to call her a woman. The computer voice was just super sort of modern Nashville polished.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I hope AI, when they take over, don't come back and punish us for saying things, derogatory things like we've said about them over the years.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  Remember, yeah, remember the guy on the train in Canada that I overheard talking about AI? It was on the ride from, uh,

• 30:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Ottawa to Toronto.

• 30:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but I don't remember what he said.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  He said, he was talking about AI. He was like, some people don't like it. Some people do like it. He was like, I mean, I can't wait for AI to get here. Like it was coming to dinner. I was like, no, it is here, my friend. Yeah, it's sweet.

• 30:42Josh Clark?

  You need to get off the train more often.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. He, I tell you what, he knew a lot about NHL hockey, though.

• 30:47Josh Clark?

  I'll bet. This, like, basically every Canadian does.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:52Josh Clark?

  One thing about that poem, too. So in it, she uses a bunch of like slang, like underworld slang, basically.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:01Josh Clark?

  But it's, it's still a serviceable poem, especially for a 22 year old.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 31:06Josh Clark?

  Who dropped out of school at 15. And I think that that's like a really good back of the envelope sketch of Bonnie's personality. She was very bright. She excelled in school, but she dropped out at 15 and she was fascinated with the underworld and like outlaw stuff. So much so that she started living that life because she found a guy who was living in that, that life and she decided to be with him, you know? So that was, that's her basically encapsulated.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I totally agree. So there, the public again is enthralled at this point. They're in like the True Detective mysteries, magazines and stuff like that. The 19, you, you mentioned that Clyde loved cars and like loved to boost them and also drive them. And he loved Fords and he wrote a letter in 1934, supposedly, I don't think they verified it from him, but it certainly sounds like it was to me, wrote a letter to Henry Ford. And he said, part of the letter says, while I still have got breath in my lungs, I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one for sustained speed and freedom from trouble. The Ford has got every other

• 32:17Speaker 02

  car skinned. There's your ad. And even if my business hasn't been strictly legal, it don't hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8. And judging from, you know, we later got poems from Clyde as well. And there are a lot of misspellings and stuff. And I said he wasn't, you know, the brightest bulb because of his upbringing, of course. But it sounds, sounds to me pretty legit.

• 32:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah. I think at least Henry Ford was like, it's legit enough to have his secretary craft a thank you letter to send back.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Pretty funny.

• 32:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And you said that, that like they were, you know, they, they become popularizing true crime magazines in part as like folk heroes. Like I said at the outset, and one of the reasons why is they're committing these crimes at the height of the depression or the depth of the depression.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:07Josh Clark?

  And people were rooting for people who did things like rob banks because the banks were the villains at the time. They were foreclosing on like hardworking, honest people.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:17Josh Clark?

  And so if you robbed a bank, you kind of automatically became a folk hero. And people like Bonnie and Clyde so much that those true crime magazines basically attributed scores of bank robberies to them that they never did.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 33:30Josh Clark?

  Apparently they were popular enough that banks would, if they got robbed, they'd be like, yeah, Bonnie and Clyde just robbed us. Just to have that brush for celebrity, even if it wasn't them.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, get it in the paper. For sure. They also, you know, they did kill a lot of cops, but they also let a lot go by way of kind of taking them with them, which is technically kidnapping. Sometimes cops, sometimes civilians that they would kidnap and then just drop them off in the middle of nowhere, basically. So they didn't have to kill them, which, you know, that was a better choice, I guess. And they were also like, you know, this is a time where you get away with crime a lot easier and come and go as a lot easier just because of communications and the way things worked. And they would, you know, they'd go home and like visit their families and stuff and not get caught. Like they didn't have their families homes staked out at this point.

• 34:24Josh Clark?

  No, but they were also really safe about it. They were very smart. Like they'd write a message in a Coke bottle and just throw it out of the car as they were driving past at their mom's house or whatever. Like they were, they were smart. They assumed the phones were tapped and all that stuff. But if you're an outlaw that are well known around those parts and just show up at home is still pretty, pretty risky.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure.

• 34:46Josh Clark?

  So after Joplin, after the little vacay in Joplin that ended on a shootout with the cops and the death of two cops, they kept moving. They got back on the road and they were in a car wreck, actually, at one point, like a couple of months later. And they, it was a bad crash. Clyde was going really fast. They rolled the car and Bonnie got third degree burns on her leg. I saw from one account that she was burned because the car caught on fire. Another account said that it was acid from the battery. Either way, she had third degree burns down to her bones and no options about going and getting actual

• 35:26Josh Clark?

  medical treatment. So she had, she was in a lot of pain and limped and hopped and was carried in some cases for the rest of her life.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Why? Does it surprise me that cars had batteries then?

• 35:41Josh Clark?

  I think that was actually very new. And that was one of the reasons Clyde was able to steal so many cars is because you could hotwire them now.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 35:50Josh Clark?

  I think that was super new.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  All right. Which is probably why it leaked all over Bonnie?

• 35:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I guess.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  They didn't have the caps?

• 35:58Josh Clark?

  No, they're like, just don't tip it over. Don't roll your car over and everything should be fine.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  All right. So good driver, except when he's crashing cars. Later, they rap, I think it was, that was in June of 33. They robbed a store in Alma, Texas, another gunfight with two cops and they killed another cop. Marshall Henry D. Humphrey escaped again. In July, they were not at that Airbnb, but they went to a different one in Missouri, another guest house. And the owner, and I never had heard of this, but it makes sense. If you, apparently back then, if you would back a car in, they called that like gangster style because you want to get out of there quick. And that was sort of a, just a red flag. So he noticed that they backed their car in. The other thing he noticed, to me, a bigger tell is they taped newspapers over the windows.

• 36:48Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  And they paid for their meals with coins. And it turns out some vending machines nearby had been robbed. So this was all just like, the guy was like, well, maybe I should call the cops. So they did. The cops came out. Guess what happened? Another gunfight. Guess what happened? They escaped again. But this time Buck Barrow, his brother was wounded pretty badly. And Blanche was too. Blanche got shards of glass in her eyes. I'm guessing temporarily blinding her, considering the jobs she had later in life?

• 37:20Josh Clark?

  She was blinded in at least one eye. So I don't know if it was permanent or not either. I didn't see that anywhere.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:26Josh Clark?

  So they actually made it, they escaped from this gunfight with the cops in Missouri and they made it all the way to Iowa and they found like a park. They were hanging, laying low in this park, trying to keep Buck alive and I guess tending to Blanche as well. And again, they backed their car in gangster style. That caught people's attention. They also left the car running when they went to town to buy supplies.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Extra gangster.

• 37:55Josh Clark?

  For sure. Either that or you just got places to be, you know? But I guess people were jumpy back then.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:02Josh Clark?

  The cops showed up at the park. Somebody followed them or said that these people are staying at the park right now. 50 cops show up, another gunfight happens. This is like a day or so, I think, after the first one. And Blanche and Buck, Buck gets hit again. And he's like, I can't make it any further. You guys go on. Blanche stays with Buck and they both get arrested. Bonnie, Clyde and WD make their, make their escape and they actually get away. WD finally says like, that's enough for me. I'm done. He did the whole blackjack dealers, like I'm out thing.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:34Josh Clark?

  And he went home to Texas.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. So he goes home to Texas while Buck is arrested. I think five days later he dies. So Big Brother is now gone, Blanche's husband. And when WD goes home, he's arrested in pretty short order, I think in November. And he told the cops like, yeah, I was in the Barrow gang. But he said he was forced into it. And because of that fact, and because he was a kid, they were fairly lenient on him. They sentenced him to six years in prison.

• 39:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So, yeah, I think WD kind of got the least of it out of anybody. Because also at this time, like there are other people that they're kind of coming up against, doing some crimes with here, there. They're going in and out of prison.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:19Josh Clark?

  Pretty, pretty frequently. And as a matter of fact, to, because he was shorthanded, he actually, Clyde staged a prison break. Remember the, the old Eastham Prison Farm?

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:34Josh Clark?

  That Clyde had learned to hate and had changed Clyde essentially, right? Well, he had people on the inside and he and a guy named Jimmy Mullins busted these guys out. They busted out Henry Methfin, Joe Palmer, guy named Hilton Bybee and Raymond Hamilton. Remember him from the earlier section? He had been captured and sent to prison. And so they busted him out because Clyde needed more help because now WD was gone and so was Buck.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  Yes. And killed two guards in the process here. So that's two more down. I mean, the bodies are stacking up at this point.

• 40:10Josh Clark?

  Well, one of those guards, I think, may have been purposely killed because he was known as such a brutal guard. He would leave his post just to go beat inmates.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:20Josh Clark?

  So it's probably not coincidence that he was one of the two that were killed during this.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Like get one on the way out?

• 40:26Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  All right, so the gang is still on the run and it feels like, it feels like the noose is tightening a little bit, like the original gang is now had, is partly died and been in prison, so it's been splintered.

• 40:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  But they're soldiering on with new people and in April of 34, Bonnie Clyde and Henry Methvin were in, and he was one of the guys they, you know, boosted from prison.

• 40:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Can you say that too?

• 40:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you can boost somebody from prison, sure.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Okay. What about when you just give somebody a boost, like an emotional support? Where does that fit in?

• 41:01Josh Clark?

  That is, let's see, I guess that would be Clarking somebody some support.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, Clark, Clark me some good feelings.

• 41:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  So where was I? Henry Methvin, they all went to Grapevine, Texas at this point. A couple of highway cops, highway patrolmen saw, thought they were stranded motorists and stopped to help them out and they killed them. So two more cops dead and then five days after that, they killed another cop in Oklahoma and kidnapped a police chief. So things are getting really pretty intense at this point.

• 41:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, three cops in two days, I think?

• 41:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:40Josh Clark?

  That's, or three cops in, yeah, three days, something like that. That's crazy. So this was, yeah, you kind of get the impression that things are starting to move really, really fast at this point, right? Raymond Hamilton, he was recaptured, I think by like a month or so after, but he'd already been involved in the murders of these cops and like a bunch of other robberies and stuff. So remember he had been busted out. So when he was recaptured, not only was he being resentenced for escaping prison, but also for all the crimes, including murder, that he committed in the short, like month or two that he was out. He was sentenced to the Texas State Pen in Huntsville and placed on death row there.

• 42:24Josh Clark?

  He also escaped there too, but he was recaptured again. Do you know how hard it's gotta be to escape from death row?

• 42:32Speaker 02

  How hard?

• 42:34Josh Clark?

  Really hard.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 42:37Josh Clark?

  But he had already actually split ways with Bonnie and Clyde when they finally recaptured him and sent him to Huntsville and they had had a falling out.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, they ended up sending a letter to Hamilton in prison, saying like, you know, you stole from us and you're a coward. So yeah, it was a pretty bad breakup.

• 42:58Josh Clark?

  It was. There was no love lost.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Should we break up this episode?

• 43:03Josh Clark?

  Oh, good call.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be back to finish up on Bonnie and Clyde right after this.

• 43:23Josh Clark?

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• 43:46Josh Clark?

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• 44:02Speaker 02

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• 44:26Josh Clark?

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• 45:13Josh Clark?

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• 45:34Speaker 02

  You know, you're never done decorating your home. You know what I mean?

• 45:37Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do or buy or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly, it's usually a new rug.

• 45:48Josh Clark?

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• 46:06Josh Clark?

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• 46:41Josh Clark?

  Okay Chuck, so you had said a little while ago that one of the reasons they were able to be so successful is because they were, there was, there were a handful of reasons. One, they typically kept their targets pretty small. They were small towns, often mom and pop groceries, maybe like a gas station, something like that. Every once in a while, a bank. But remember, like all of their crimes were exaggerated, so they were supposedly two of the greatest bank robbers that ever lived, even though they'd only done a couple of banks. So by making their takes pretty small, I think the biggest take was like 1,800, which is less than 50 grand today, and that was far and away the biggest take. Sometimes they'd make enough money just to buy some groceries or something like that.

• 47:26Josh Clark?

  They, they kept themselves small. They made themselves small targets. What made them huge targets was killing cops. You know, like that definitely catches the attention of other cops. And there was another Texas outlaw named Willis Newton, who said, killing that first cop, Eugene Moore, was their, was their true undoing. And then all the cops after that just made them even bigger targets. But one of the other reasons they were able to still get away, even after killing all those cops, is because those cops in the different jurisdictions were not coordinating in any way.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  No, I mean, that didn't happen back then. It's not like they were being stubborn. That was just not a thing that had really come along yet. Like working interstate with one another or even inter-county probably.

• 48:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  The FBI wasn't quite a thing yet. The Bureau Investigation was. And all they could, they did start investigating them, the, I guess the BI, in December of 32 and did get a warrant in May of 33, but it was only over interstate moving of the stolen cars. But they did get involved with the local cops and start sort of providing information, providing support to like the, the local cops and the state agencies as, you know, part of the eventual dragnet. And it seems like the cops in Texas and Louisiana are the ones who really sort of got together finally to zero in on them and focus on these guys. And when the Texas Rangers come on the scene, that means things are really serious.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  And that's what happened after that, that second prison break. The Texas Rangers got together, this guy came out of retirement, Captain Frank, not Hammer, but Hamer, I guess. He probably, he probably called himself the Hammer. And he was like, I'm coming out of retirement to get these guys and had a posse of six Rangers. And he's like, I've killed 53 dudes in my law enforcement career. So it was really on at this point.

• 49:20Josh Clark?

  It was. He coordinated with a guy named Henderson Jordan, who was sheriff in a parish in Louisiana, Beenville Parish. And the reason he's significant is because Henry Methvin, remember, he was one of the guys that got busted out with Raymond Hamilton and some of the other guys and joined the gang. Methvin was now a part of the gang. He lived, his family lived in Beenville Parish and supposedly Henderson Jordan, the sheriff, had been approached by Methvin's family, who were alarmed that he was wanted by the cops and with Bonnie and Clyde, these notorious outlaws. And they said, look, we can get our son to cooperate. He was basically Daryl in Red Dawn, essentially.

• 50:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:01Josh Clark?

  It's, that's Daryl's dad's car. It's the mayor's car. So that, his family is like, we'll get him to cooperate, but you gotta give him clemency. But we'll get you Bonnie and Clyde if you make sure our boy doesn't, doesn't get the chair for all this stuff. And so Frank Hamer and Henderson Jordan are like, let's make this happen. This was ultimately the downfall. Trusting Henry Methvin was, was what brought them to their end.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  You know, I'm still mad at Daryl after all these years.

• 50:32Josh Clark?

  I know.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  The second you said Daryl from Red Dawn, I was just like, oh, that guy.

• 50:36Josh Clark?

  They picked like a perfect actor for it. That guy really suited that part.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was one of the bad socia's in The Outsiders too.

• 50:44Josh Clark?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  So that fits.

• 50:46Josh Clark?

  Did you know that S.E. Hinton was a teenage girl when she wrote The Outsiders?

• 50:51Speaker 02

  I had no idea.

• 50:52Josh Clark?

  It's crazy.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  Uh, so they, uh, they kind of figured out their, um, their route, basically, and that Bonnie and Clyde were driving a lot to that Methvin home in Louisiana on Highway 154. So in May of 1934, they were like, all right, we really need to get this done. And this is where the famous ambush happens. Um, there, you know, are different, like, kind of disputing accounts of exactly how it went down.

• 51:17Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Uh, but it seems like they got, um, Methvin's dad's car out on the road and parked it there with the wheel removed. Um, so they would be like, oh, that's your dad's car. Like, it looks like he needs help. So they would pull over. They had those six Texas Rangers. They had automatic rifles. And as soon as that Bonnie and Clyde car showed up, they just started firing. They were like, we've seen enough of these guys' work to not let them open the doors, not try and arrest them or whatever, because they're going to be shooting at us. So they just basically shot the crud out of this car. And, uh, to great effect, I mean, they, they murdered the crud out of them.

• 51:57Josh Clark?

  They did. They, they got them.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, Bonnie was shot 26 times. Clyde was shot 17 times. Uh, further research, um, says that it may have been as many as 50 times.

• 52:06Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Um, they were kids, you know, they were 23 and 24 years old. And it was, it was pretty gruesome and, uh, the people in the press went wild over this ambush.

• 52:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they towed the car with the bodies inside, um, to-

• 52:21Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 52:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, to, well, they also laid in wait and executed them without giving them any chance to, to give themselves up. So at this point, basically anything's on the table, right?

• 52:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:32Josh Clark?

  So they towed the death car. Um, and I, I guess it essentially immediately became like a tourist attraction. Um, they sent them both back to Dallas for, for burial. And both of the funeral homes where they were, they were each in a different funeral home because, um, Bonnie's mom, Emma, was like, you, in death, they can't have anything to do with one another. I couldn't talk her out of being with him while she was alive, but I'm calling the shots now that she's dead and I don't want her anywhere near him.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:00Josh Clark?

  Both of their funerals were thronged with onlookers. But even before that, um, while their bodies were just basically hanging out in the public, um, all these, basically souvenir seekers were trying to like, cut off their body parts and stuff, right?

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, just like looting what they could, uh, to get a piece of the car, or maybe to get a, like, a blood-soaked handkerchief or something like that. And, yeah, supposedly some guy tried to cut off Clyde's ear. Uh, their, their death photos are, you know, you can look those up if you have a strong stomach. They're pretty nasty. Uh, and their funerals attracted like thousands of people to come and, and see the burials of Bonnie and Clyde. Um, after they died, there was sort of a lot that went on. Uh, there was a book initially from Bonnie's mother and Clyde's sister. They got together and wrote a book called Fugitives, colon- Colon. Uh, the story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. Uh, they started publishing more poems from Bonnie and Clyde.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  One from Bonnie called The Trails End, or The Story of Bonnie and Clyde. And then, uh, another one that, that I mentioned earlier, that Clyde had written sort of as response. And in both of them, they're kind of still talking about like, hey, we didn't do all these crimes. We're not as bad as everyone makes us out to be, that kind of thing.

• 54:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  Uh, and in key, though, in one of these, Bonnie had requested, at least in the poem, uh, someday they'll go down together, they meaning them, uh, and they'll bury them side by side. So that, that seemed like that would have been her wish that she did not get.

• 54:31Josh Clark?

  No, because her mom said, heck no. I, I read his nephew and her niece, maybe, great niece, have been like, trying to, trying to draw up support to, to bury them, re-bury them together, but it hasn't gotten anywhere.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, so as, you know, I said, a lot happened. Basically what happened from this point forward is the cops were like, it, it's not good enough just to get like Bonnie and Clyde. Like, we got them, but we need to just dragnet the whole operation.

• 55:01Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  And so all of their friends and family that were ever, uh, aiding and abetting or anything like that were rounded up. I think Dallas police got 20 friends and family. Uh, everybody was found guilty, you know, not very long prison sentences. I think the max was like a couple of years. But, um, they, they wanted to get everyone who ever touched part of this gang and put them away.

• 55:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And I mean, yeah, two years for just basically being friends with Bonnie and Clyde, that's a lot, you know?

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:31Josh Clark?

  Raymond Hamilton-

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Aiding and abetting is like, yeah, we were just friends.

• 55:35Josh Clark?

  Right, right.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  Like, they might have stayed at my house and I might have given them food and-

• 55:38Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  Hit them from the cops.

• 55:39Josh Clark?

  Like ammunition and stuff.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  That's what friends do.

• 55:42Josh Clark?

  Um, uh, Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, they were both executed in Huntsville, uh, at the prison in Huntsville on, uh, May 10th, 1935. And Henry Methvin, he was, so there was this, I said, there was a disputed murder of one of the patrolmen that, uh, Farmer, who supposedly witnessed this, said that he saw Bonnie, like, go over and execute the cop at point-blank range, blowing his head off with a shotgun, and making some grisly, tasteless remark about it. She supposedly wasn't even-

• 56:12Speaker 02

  Like, I'm about to head out or something?

• 56:13Josh Clark?

  That would have been good. No, something like, looka there, his head bounced like a rubber ball or something like that. Right? So the kind of thing where you're like, wow, she's really despicable. And of course, every, everybody printed it because this farmer said he, he saw it.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:27Josh Clark?

  What, what historians now believe is that it was actually Henry Methvin who actually did the killing. And the reason why he wasn't implicated was because his family's plan to bring in Bonnie and Clyde was already in motion. So now the authorities had to cover up his murder of a cop, what, before he could turn in Bonnie and Clyde. So that, it was attributed to her and almost certainly wasn't her.

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, Methvin was eventually paroled in 42 and died six years after that. Uh, and the story is, he was hit by a train. He was either drunk and got hit by a train.

• 57:03Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  Or maybe was shoved into a train and murdered. Uh, but no one was ever tapped for that. Uh, as far as Blanche, uh, she was Buck's, you know, those, um, Clyde's sister-in-law. And Buck's wife, who was, uh, blinded in one eye, she served six years, was paroled in 39, and wrote her book, uh, My Life with Bonnie and Clyde, no colons.

• 57:23Josh Clark?

  Uh-uh.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  And went back to Dallas and, you know, lived a life there, worked as a taxi dispatcher and a beautician, cared for her dad, got married again. Um, the death car, uh, eventually, you know, it would end up at Buffalo Bill's Resort and Casino in Prim, Nevada. I think that's where it is now.

• 57:40Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  But for a while, it was, you know, a lot of this stuff, like the, the guns and the cars, like, everyone wanted a piece of this. I think everyone knew it was going to be worth a lot of money.

• 57:50Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  So various family members had to sue various institutions to get this stuff back. And in the case of the guns, Clyde's mom was like, I want those guns back because, uh, Clyde had never, uh, been convicted of the murders. Like, he, he was just shot in cold blood.

• 58:07Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:08Speaker 02

  So I want those guns back. And I think the car, uh, like, the original car owner, Ruth Warren, was like, hey, that was my car to begin with.

• 58:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  Uh, you, the cops can't keep that thing. So she sued to get it back and got it back.

• 58:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and before it ended up at the Prim Valley Casino Resort, uh, it was a traveling amusement at like, um, circuses and carnivals and state fairs and stuff.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 58:32Josh Clark?

  I don't know entirely that we would just know, and everybody would be walking around knowing that there was such a, a couple as Bonnie and Clyde, were it not for that 1967 movie, um, starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

• 58:49Josh Clark?

  I never saw the movie, so it's not like I, my understanding of them comes directly from it, but all the people it informed, I think it, it brought them re, back up into the popular culture again, and they never really left since then.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  It's a good movie. Uh, the great Arthur Penn was the director who had another Stuff You Should Know connection in that he directed, uh, The Miracle Worker as well.

• 59:11Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. Yeah, that's, he's basically a friend of the podcast, then.

• 59:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, two Stuff You Should Know movies. Good movie, though, but it was, uh, the year after the Hays Code ended, you know, the movie codes that tried to rein in sex and violence.

• 59:22Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  And so there was a lot of sex and violence in this movie and glamorization of crime and stuff like that. And that, that ambush scene is like a, sort of a legendary film scene because it's, it's, it shows it all and it's pretty gory. Um, but it was a, it was a big, big movie. And I think a lot of gangster movies kind of started coming around in its wake because it was so popular.

• 59:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was huge in the UK, apparently. Um, and it set the stage for other bloody movies to come. Everything from The Wild Bunch two years later to Pulp Fiction, um, which was originally written by Eleanor Roosevelt. To basically every violent movie you've ever seen. Um, Bonnie and Clyde essentially set the stage for that.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  That's right. I tell you what, if I'm ever near Prim, Nevada, I'm going to go over to Buffalo Bill's Resort and Casino to, to check that car out.

• 1:00:11Josh Clark?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  I'd like to see that.

• 1:00:13Josh Clark?

  And his death shirt, too.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, they got a shirt.

• 1:00:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it's full of holes.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and not in a bad plot sort of way.

• 1:00:26Josh Clark?

  Boy, you're full of all the zingers today, aren't you? That Lil Shorty for WD, or Lil Forty?

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Did you catch that one?

• 1:00:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was a good one. Uh, you got any other little zingers?

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  I got no other zingers.

• 1:00:40Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, then that means this is the end of the road for Bonnie and Clyde, as far as Stuff You Should Know goes. And I think that means it's time for listener mail.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  That's right. And we did not plan this, everyone, but here's the listener mail. Hey, guys, I wanted to share a moment from the Eleanor Roosevelt episode that gets a gold star for Josh. I have a long history of Josh-like moments where I will add in an absurd, impossible fact when talking to my wife, such as a local construction site being a Dining With Your Pets restaurant, or Coming, or a lava fields in the California desert being a huge disposal site for used asphalt. And my wife, over 25 years of marriage, has become very canny about my quote-unquote "facts." And it's very difficult to fool her anymore. However, when Josh said in her writings, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote an initial treatment that became the script of Pulp Fiction, I saw my wife process that fact for about 10 seconds with narrow eyes and

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  complete confusion, followed by a loud "no." So, thank you, Josh, for that magic moment, and thank you both for all you do. Very longtime listener. I started listening when there were only about 100 back episodes, so 100 episodes in. And that is from Sam and Lisa.

• 1:01:46Josh Clark?

  Nice. Thanks, Sam. And yeah, that wasn't planned. What a coincidence, huh?

• 1:01:50Speaker 02

  As soon as you said it, I was like, oh, boy. Josh is gonna be so excited.

• 1:01:54Josh Clark?

  And I am. And I was. And I still will be, probably for hours after this. Sam and Lisa, right?

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:02:02Josh Clark?

  Sam and Lisa, thanks for the email. Thanks for listening to us for so long, too. And if you want to be like Sam and Lisa and send us an email, you can do that, too. There's nothing stopping you, except no access to the internet. If you have access to the internet, you can send us that email to [email protected].

• 1:02:23Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 1:02:39Josh Clark?

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