- 7/5/2025
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00:00Hollywood portrayed them as the most glamorous outlaws in American history.
00:10She just had this strong love for Clyde and he for her.
00:16Their chaotic crime spree lasted two years and claimed 14 lives.
00:22One man died and bled out at the scene. The other man died later in hospital that night.
00:27But who were Bonnie and Clyde? What drove them to a life of violent crime?
00:34And how did they evade capture for so long?
00:40Clyde's been shot through the left cheekbones. Bonnie has been shot in the belly.
00:48Drawing on eyewitness accounts, newly released police files,
00:53and the discovery of a remarkable family memoir,
00:59Time Watch reveals the true motives and secret tactics
01:03behind the legend of America's most iconic outlaws.
01:09Perseconds andúcar
01:29I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures with a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world
01:37to the stricken world may require.
01:42When Roosevelt was elected president in 1932,
01:46the United States of America was in economic meltdown.
01:52Once I built a railroad, I made it run.
01:58The 1929 Wall Street crash had decimated the financial markets
02:02and a devastating drought had turned the farmland of the Midwest into a dust bowl.
02:09Brother, can you spare a dime?
02:14The Great Depression brought America's poor to its knees.
02:19It also triggered a crime wave of unprecedented proportions.
02:25All over America, there were criminal elements, some of them highly organized,
02:30carrying out all sorts of major crimes.
02:34The depredations of vicious outlaws roving from state to state like packs of wolves
02:39amounted to an actual armed invasion of America.
02:48You can't really understand what motivated them
02:52if you don't understand the economic hopelessness of the time.
02:55The most infamous outlaws of all were a pair of young lovers
03:01whose two-year crime spree included armed robbery, car theft, abduction, murder
03:09and a series of dramatic gun battles across at least 11 states.
03:16Some saw them as modern-day Robin Hoods,
03:19others as bloodthirsty hell raisers.
03:21But all of America was captivated by the story
03:26of Bonnie and Clyde.
03:30A story that began here,
03:33amid the poverty and economic ruin of Texas.
03:42In February 1932,
03:43a 21-year-old car thief and burglar called Clyde Barrow
03:49was released after two years in prison.
03:55He returned to the family home,
03:56a filling station in the deprived district of West Dallas.
04:00This building behind me was the Barrow family residence
04:12from 1931 to approximately 1940.
04:16It was named the Barrow Star Filling Station.
04:23There is some evidence that Clyde tried to go straight,
04:26but his return to crime seemed depressingly inevitable.
04:33In 1932,
04:35when we first see the first embryonic barrel gang,
04:40Clyde's already been in prison.
04:42He can't keep a job in Dallas
04:43because the police keep rousting him.
04:45For these young people,
04:51there's a chance for fun and excitement.
04:54You're not going to get that if you obey the law.
04:58Early in April 1932,
05:01with a gang recruited from the West Dallas underworld,
05:05Clyde Barrow became a bank robber.
05:10Later that month,
05:11after an aborted car theft,
05:14two of his gang were captured and jailed.
05:19One of them
05:20was a 21-year-old woman called Bonnie Parker.
05:26She was married,
05:28very, very young,
05:30like 16, I think,
05:31and her husband was in prison.
05:36Then she met Clyde,
05:37and it must have just been
05:38a strong attraction.
05:41She just had this strong
05:43love for Clyde,
05:44and he for her.
05:48Bonnie grew up
05:49in Cement City,
05:51part of the West Dallas slum.
05:53That's just one of the worst slums,
05:55not only in Texas,
05:56but I would say in the entire country,
05:58during the Depression.
06:04She always wanted to be a singer,
06:07an actress on Broadway.
06:09She wanted to be a famous poet.
06:11She told people that constantly.
06:14But when you grew up in Cement City,
06:16you didn't have many choices in life.
06:22By the time she went to prison,
06:25even her mother was troubled
06:26by Bonnie's fascination
06:28with Clyde's life of crime.
06:32Bonnie was learning the jargon of gangdom
06:34and striving desperately to fit into it
06:37and become part of it.
06:39There seemed to be a strange
06:41and terrifying change
06:42taking place in the mind of my child.
06:46I cannot imagine someone choosing that life,
06:49but I think Clyde just got so far in it
06:51that there was no out.
06:54There was no out,
06:56and she chose to go with him.
06:58While Bonnie was in jail,
07:04Clyde's criminal career
07:05reached a critical turning point.
07:09Petty theft turned to murder
07:11when the bungled robbery of a grocery store
07:14led to the death of its owner,
07:16John Butcher.
07:17Clyde and these two friends of his,
07:25these two cohorts,
07:27Ted Rogers and Johnny Russell,
07:29went down there.
07:30They cased the place.
07:33Clyde knew this guy,
07:35and so Clyde didn't want to go inside,
07:37but he sent the other two in.
07:41There's varying stories
07:44about what happened next,
07:45but whatever happened,
07:47when Ted Rogers shot Butcher.
07:50Clyde was outside in the car.
07:54But because Rogers and Russell
07:56were associated with Clyde,
07:58it was immediately linked to Clyde.
08:02When Bonnie was released from prison
08:04two months later,
08:06Clyde was wanted for murder.
08:11He faced the electric chair if caught,
08:14but she vowed never to leave him.
08:17Bonnie and Clyde were already
08:19beyond the point of no return.
08:24The shooting of John Butcher
08:26had been a tragic blunder,
08:28but by the end of the year,
08:30Clyde and Bonnie were involved
08:31in three more seemingly callous murders.
08:34Clyde was shot.
08:37And in January 1933,
08:39Clyde's reputation as a ruthless killer
08:43who would shoot without hesitation
08:45was sealed when a deputy sheriff
08:47was murdered at this notorious
08:49West Dallas safe house.
08:51Clyde wasn't what you call a cold-blooded murderer
09:00as walking up to someone and shooting for the thrill of it.
09:06But if he felt threatened and pushed into a corner,
09:09he's going to come out firing.
09:13Acting on a tip-off relating to another local bank robber,
09:17five police officers had the house surrounded.
09:21When Clyde Barrow arrived, trying to contact one of his gang,
09:26his visit proved a deadly coincidence.
09:35Confronted by an armed officer, Clyde opened fire.
09:40He was now a cop killer in a high-profile case.
09:43Already wanted for four other murders,
09:50Clyde and his lover Bonnie took to the road.
09:56Their life on the run was romanticised and made glamorous.
10:00But the true story of their fugitive lifestyle remained untold
10:04until the recent discovery of one of their accomplice's personal effects.
10:14Blanche Barrow was married to Clyde's older brother, Buck.
10:18She became a reluctant member of the Barrow gang in March 1933.
10:27Over 60 years later, a close friend made a remarkable discovery.
10:32It was 12 years after Blanche died.
10:37I was getting ready to move to a new apartment,
10:41and I started to just toss it out because it was in an old raggedy envelope.
10:48And my son, Lee, said,
10:53it says Bonnie and Clyde on the outside of this.
10:56I said, oh my, I forgot all about it.
11:00Blanche gave this to me and wanted me to make sense out of it.
11:05And inside was this Christmas card,
11:10and inside that were two tablets that had Blanche's writing,
11:18and it said, written in 1933, 34, 35.
11:28And those were the years that she was in prison.
11:31Blanche Barrow was captured and jailed after a bloody shootout in July 1933.
11:43While in prison, she wrote a detailed account of her time with the Barrow gang.
11:51We roamed over many states, leaving a trail of horror behind us,
11:56terrorizing those Clyde came into contact with and needed something from.
12:01It's important because it's an eyewitness account
12:20that places you in the car with Bonnie and Clyde.
12:26Blanche's intimate account would lead John Neill Phillips
12:44to re-evaluate the motives behind the Barrow gang's legendary exploits.
12:48But there was also a second, often overlooked side to the outlaw's story.
12:59As Bonnie and Clyde's notoriety grew,
13:02the question on everybody's lips was,
13:05why couldn't the police catch them?
13:12Dallas County Deputy Sheriff Ken Holmes
13:14believes that the answer lies in the police's own archives.
13:20Well, I'm looking at a document here from the county of Horton, Texas.
13:24And this is dated August 30th, 1932,
13:27and it's to all peace officers in the United States.
13:30So they're taking this very seriously,
13:33and they're calling them extremely dangerous.
13:38Ken has pieced together a paper trail of documents
13:41from local police officers,
13:43all frustrated by their failure to apprehend Bonnie and Clyde.
13:46Please make every effort to arrest these parties
13:54and stop their running over the country,
13:56shooting officers wherever they go.
14:02They will not hesitate to shoot in making their escape
14:06and have said that they would not be taken alive.
14:12But America, as yet, had no national police force.
14:16And the archives reveal that Bonnie and Clyde
14:20were directly profiting from the shortcomings
14:22of American law enforcement during the Great Depression.
14:26Many of these folks had no law experience in a small town.
14:30Your local deputy would be hired for $15 a week,
14:35and he'd have to drive his own farm pickup truck,
14:38which probably was held together with bailing wire,
14:40chewing gum, and a lot of hope.
14:42There weren't two-way radios.
14:44There is no coordinated effort to catch them yet.
14:49But police incompetence was just one factor
14:53in Clyde and Bonnie's early success.
14:57The gangsters would play a deadly game of cat and mouse
15:00with the law for the rest of their lives.
15:03And the evidence points not to a mindless crime spree,
15:07but reveals Clyde Barrow as a calculated criminal
15:11who made a series of tactical choices
15:14deliberately designed to exploit his opponent's weaknesses.
15:19His most important weapon
15:21was a piece of state-of-the-art technology,
15:24the Ford V8.
15:27In one of those happy accidents of history,
15:35in 1932, Mr. Ford introduced his new V8 engine to the public,
15:42and it was love at first sight.
15:46The fact is that if you gave Clyde Barrow a Ford V8
15:51and five minutes head start, he was gone.
15:54The Barrow gang travelled exclusively in stolen cars.
16:02Clyde realised that using the V8 gave them a clear advantage.
16:07Most of Clyde's opposition
16:09was in the form of small-town law officers,
16:13and most of those men drove whatever was available,
16:17either their own personal car
16:19or possibly a county car,
16:23and most of those would be a few years old.
16:31Clyde maintained, even to his family,
16:34that he would much rather run than fight,
16:37and if he had to run,
16:40he considered himself a better driver
16:42than anybody he would come up against.
16:44He was never run down by police pursuit
16:48in the 25 months that he was on the run, never.
16:54Clyde's choice of car epitomised his acute tactical awareness,
16:58an attention to detail driven by his fierce determination
17:02to stay one step ahead of the law.
17:04Barry Barrow was the leader.
17:09He was, in many ways, a control freak.
17:14He decided where they went.
17:16He decided when they went there.
17:18He decided who was driving the car,
17:21which was usually him.
17:23He decided everything.
17:27The threat of a death sentence
17:29seemed reason enough to explain Clyde's desperate nature.
17:32But now, for the first time,
17:38Blanche Barrow's memoir offers an insider account
17:41of what life on the run was really like for the outlaws.
17:46All of us had a lot of fun together,
17:49but to me there always seemed to be a shadow hanging over us,
17:53like a dark cloud.
17:54On the 1st of April, 1933,
18:02Bonnie and Clyde rented a hideout in Joplin,
18:06a notorious gang town in Missouri.
18:08They were accompanied by a teenage gang member
18:15called W.D. Jones,
18:18Clyde's brother Buck,
18:21recently released after 17 months inside for burglary,
18:24and Buck's wife,
18:27Blanche.
18:27They seemed an unlikely band of outlaws,
18:32but Blanche's memoir also reveals
18:34a unique understanding of the forces
18:36that drove the Barrow gang.
18:41Clyde told me most everything he had done
18:44since his own parole,
18:45and I realized that Buck was in danger
18:47at any and all times with Clyde.
18:51There's Buck, who's the older brother.
18:55Clyde Barrow was way beyond
18:57anything Buck had ever done.
19:00Buck told me of his plan
19:02to try to persuade Clyde
19:03to give up the kind of life he was now living.
19:07There's Bonnie Parker.
19:10Bonnie Parker is just head over heels
19:12in love with Clyde Barrow.
19:15She told me everything that had happened
19:17to them in the past six months
19:19and how she wished she and Clyde
19:21were as free as Buck and I were.
19:26There's W.D. Jones.
19:28Before he joined up with Bonnie and Clyde,
19:31he didn't even own a pair of shoes.
19:33Now he's wearing suits and smoking cigars.
19:36And at that point in Joplin,
19:39W.D. Jones pretty much idolized Bonnie and Clyde.
19:43I suppose he was like most kids his age,
19:4616 or 17 years old,
19:47he thought it could get a thrill
19:49from most anything,
19:51even shooting at cops.
19:54And then we've got Blanche,
19:57who's just absolutely in love with Buck,
20:00just every bit as much as Bonnie is in love with Clyde.
20:07It was Clyde Barrow who had drawn the other four together.
20:10And Blanche's description of his state of mind
20:15sheds dramatic new light on the story of Bonnie and Clyde.
20:20I caught a few words now and then of Clyde's conversation with Buck,
20:24and I did not like what I heard.
20:28Blanche reveals that by the time the gang gathered in Joplin,
20:33Clyde had become obsessed by a dark episode from his past.
20:36The motivation behind Clyde's deadly violence lies in what happened to him three years earlier,
20:47inside this prison.
20:50Buck and I visited Clyde at a Texas prison farm called Eastum.
20:56Clyde told me many things that happened in prison.
21:00In September 1930,
21:10aged just 20,
21:13Clyde Barrow was sent to Eastum Prison Farm,
21:16near Huntsville, Texas.
21:23John Neil Phillips has researched Clyde's time here.
21:26He has interviewed fellow inmates
21:29and been granted special access to the now derelict building.
21:36John believes that what happened here
21:39had a profound effect on Clyde's character.
21:44When Clyde first arrived here at Eastum,
21:47he was convicted for burglary and auto theft,
21:50which were not violent crimes.
21:52A fellow convict described, though,
21:58a transformation that Clyde Barrow underwent when he was here.
22:03He said,
22:03I saw Clyde Barrow change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake
22:07right before my eyes.
22:14In October 1931,
22:17a convict called Ed Crowder
22:19was brutally murdered in the prison shower block.
22:24Another prisoner called Aubrey Scully was blamed.
22:28But he wasn't the killer.
22:32Crowder was known to sexually assault convicts
22:35and sexually assaulted Clyde.
22:38So Clyde conspired with another convict
22:42who was a life-termer here
22:44to actually perpetrate this murder,
22:48but the life-termer would take the rap for the murder.
22:56The real murderer's identity remained secret for decades.
23:01But John Neal Phillips believes that Clyde Barrow was a killer
23:04months before he became wanted for murder outside of prison.
23:09That was his first murder.
23:11It was purely an act of desperation.
23:13This place would make you that desperate.
23:19Clyde's remaining three months inside proved unbearable
23:23in a prison which was the scene
23:25of some of the worst brutality in American penal history.
23:29There were enough guards that were extremely sadistic
23:33all over the prison system,
23:34but it seemed to be really concentrated here at Easton.
23:37Some prisoners chose suicide.
23:42They would deliberately just run out in front of the guards
23:45and let them be killed.
23:50Another way to avoid this, however,
23:53was to inflict an injury on yourself.
23:56And if it was serious enough,
23:57you would have to be taken to Huntsville,
24:00to the hospital in the main prison there,
24:02and get away from whatever guard was out to get you.
24:08Blanche's memoir reveals that in January 1932,
24:12Clyde was moved to the prison hospital.
24:18Clyde was walking on crutches
24:19because he had cut off two of his toes with an axe.
24:23Clyde's experience at Easton was psychologically devastating.
24:31When he emerged from prison on parole after two years inside,
24:35he was a damaged and dangerous man.
24:39There's a lot of evidence to indicate
24:41that Clyde was quite a control freak.
24:43So you can imagine what that must have been like
24:45to somebody like that
24:47to be put in a place like this
24:49where you lose complete control.
24:51It didn't affect all prisoners that way,
24:54but Barrow decided to seek revenge.
24:56He just grew to hate this place.
24:59And once he's released from Easton,
25:03he swears to several people, including his mother,
25:06that he will never be taken alive.
25:10I'll never go back to that hellhole, he said.
25:14They're going to have to kill me.
25:21For the rest of his short life,
25:25Clyde was consumed by a bitter hatred for the regime at Easton.
25:30It was the fear of being captured and returned there
25:33that fuelled his determination never to be taken alive
25:37and drove the Barrow Gang's increasingly extreme tactics.
25:43Shortly after their arrival at Joplin,
25:50the Barrow Gang stole a supply of weapons
25:52from a nearby military facility.
25:56Clyde began showing Bonnie all the guns
25:59and told her what he could do with one of the army rifles.
26:03It could shoot 20 times without stopping.
26:05This was just one of a series of audacious raids
26:10on National Guard armories.
26:12The prize target was a military-grade machine gun
26:15that would dominate the next chapter
26:18in Bonnie and Clyde's continuing battle against the police.
26:25Vintage gun collector Don Raspanti
26:28has made a study of the firearms of the time.
26:30The handguns of the period were mainly .38 Special
26:36made by Colt or Smith & Wesson,
26:39and this particular size and configuration
26:41would be very typical of a uniformed police officer.
26:45They came in different sizes.
26:47Your detectives and plainclothesmen
26:50liked the smaller barrels.
26:52Shotguns were very popular with police departments
26:54because you didn't have to be that great a marksman,
26:57and it had a lot of knockdown and a lot of force.
27:00All right, now this.
27:03This was Clyde Barrow's favorite.
27:06It had a lot of firepower.
27:07This is the 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle,
27:11more commonly known as the BAR.
27:13It can fire semi-automatic,
27:15which was one round every time you pull the trigger,
27:17or full automatic, which you pull the trigger back,
27:20and it just goes until you stop.
27:23The BAR was a devastating weapon
27:26in Clyde's tactical armory.
27:28He knew it would give him a huge advantage
27:31against the local police.
27:34In those days, law enforcement officers
27:36almost always had to buy their own weapons,
27:40which was no small thing in the Great Depression.
27:46If they could afford anything, it was a pistol.
27:49Well, here comes Barrow with a military weapon.
28:04There's just no contest there.
28:06Clyde's formidable firepower
28:25would become the hallmark of a series
28:30of increasingly bloody gunfights
28:32that began when a group of local lawmen
28:37responded to reports of suspicious activities
28:39at the Barrow Gang's hideout in Joplin.
28:43They stayed here almost two weeks,
28:55but on the afternoon of the 13th,
28:58they were interrupted by five policemen
29:02who came with a search warrant,
29:04thinking that they were going to find
29:06a bootlegging operation going on here.
29:08Two men are hit.
29:16One man died and bled out at the scene.
29:19The other man died later in hospital that night.
29:23The gang blasted their way out,
29:26leaving two police officers dead.
29:28Their escape was the clearest demonstration yet
29:31that local lawmen were ill-equipped
29:33to take on such dangerous outlaws.
29:36The reason they're able to stay at large
29:39is they're only being pursued
29:41by underarmed, undermanned, undercard local authorities.
29:49If they couldn't outrun law officers
29:52trying to capture them,
29:54the Barrow Gang could just blast the heck out of them.
29:58In Joplin, essentially, that is what happened.
30:02But in their haste to escape,
30:04the gang left behind most of their belongings.
30:08And when the police examined the scene of the crime,
30:12the legend of Bonnie and Clyde was born.
30:15They left behind their suitcases of possessions
30:18and, of course, several rolls of undeveloped film.
30:22And there suddenly are these pictures.
30:25These gangsters posing like they would for a photo booth shot,
30:33only they're pointing real guns instead of fake guns.
30:39And Bonnie Parker,
30:41here she is leaning in a very unladylike posture
30:44on the bumper of a car,
30:46and she's got a cigar dangling from her mouth.
30:49And that photo broke the Barrow Gang
30:53into huge national celebrities.
30:57America was enthralled.
31:00But Blanche's memoir reveals that the price of fame
31:03was an outlaw existence,
31:05far from the glamorous lifestyle of legend.
31:08We lived in the car day and night with very little sleep,
31:15just driving like mad, going no place.
31:19We had to keep ahead of the cops.
31:21If we stayed in one place very long,
31:23they would catch up with us.
31:28Blanche's account is a unique, first-hand description
31:32of the grim reality of life on the run
31:34with Bonnie and Clyde.
31:36One of the greatest aspects of Blanche's memoir
31:40is her description of their lifestyle
31:44between these gunfights.
31:46We drove so much and so fast most of the day and night,
31:51sleeping only a few hours at a time.
31:55Living conditions were, well,
31:57how many can we fit in a car?
32:02We drove through South Carolina,
32:04North Carolina,
32:06Tennessee,
32:07Oklahoma,
32:08and west through Mississippi.
32:12Using local plates to avoid attracting suspicion,
32:16Clyde steered the gang relentlessly from state to state,
32:20leaving local lawmen,
32:22whose jurisdiction ended at the county or state line,
32:26powerless.
32:26He ranged as far as the east coast.
32:31We think that he was in Florida
32:32and even North Carolina at times,
32:35as far northeast as Indiana and Michigan,
32:39as far north as Minnesota,
32:41all through the Midwest and Iowa and Kansas.
32:44He thought nothing of travelling 500 miles a day.
32:50If he was pursued,
32:51he could travel as much as 1,000 miles
32:54in a 24-hour period.
32:58Fast cars,
32:59big guns,
33:01and relentless travel
33:02were the secrets of the Barrow gang's epic crime spree.
33:05But their tactics were increasingly attracting attention
33:12beyond the local police level.
33:16Ken Holmes has obtained the FBI file on Bonnie and Clyde.
33:21It has only recently been released,
33:24and it sheds new light on the campaign to catch the Barrow gang.
33:28Now we're finding,
33:31with the release of this file from the FBI,
33:35which is, I don't know,
33:37600 to 900 pages of information,
33:40that the Bureau of Investigation was on the Barrow case,
33:44but was very limited in what they were allowed to do.
33:47The file reveals that Federal Chief J. Edgar Hoover
33:51was personally outraged
33:53by Clyde Barrow's audacious raids on military armories.
33:58But while Federal jurisdiction
34:02didn't include robbery or even murder,
34:05it did cover the movement of stolen cars
34:08across state lines.
34:13In May 1933,
34:16a Federal warrant was issued
34:17against Clyde and Bonnie for car theft,
34:20the only grounds on which Hoover
34:22could involve the Barrow gang
34:23in his personal mission
34:25to change the face
34:26of American law enforcement.
34:30In the last year alone,
34:31it was necessary for local law enforcement officers
34:34in the cities and communities of America
34:36to kill nearly 400 members of the underworld
34:40who, fully armed,
34:42sought to cause the death
34:43of the officers who came to arrest them.
34:46In Washington, D.C.,
34:50J. Edgar Hoover
34:51is heading the Justice Department's
34:54Division of Investigation.
34:56This will become the FBI,
34:57but it isn't yet.
34:58And it's his ambition,
35:00which he ultimately succeeds in,
35:02of establishing the FBI
35:04as the group that can come into any situation,
35:07cross any boundaries and lines,
35:08but that wasn't the case yet.
35:10He chose to make that case
35:12based on the criminals of the day.
35:17Bonnie and Clyde were perfect
35:19and he really wanted to get involved.
35:22Federal involvement in the Barrow gang case
35:25has always been thought to be minimal,
35:28but despite the limitations
35:30of their jurisdiction,
35:32Hoover's agents would play a significant part
35:34in the eventual downfall of Bonnie and Clyde.
35:37By the summer of 1933,
35:43the Barrow gang's formidable firepower
35:45had seen them escape from a series
35:47of intense gunfights across several states.
35:52But Bonnie and Clyde's notoriety
35:54was making life on the run increasingly grim.
35:59And at an abandoned tourist camp
36:01at Dexfield Park, Iowa,
36:03after their second brutal shootout
36:05in less than a week,
36:07their luck changed.
36:13Someone spots this group of campers
36:16and becomes suspicious of them.
36:19And word is spread
36:21and a small posse is formed.
36:25I heard Clyde suddenly say,
36:32Look out!
36:33Then he and W.D.
36:35rushed for the car
36:36and started shooting.
36:40Clyde is wounded in the arm,
36:43grazed in the head.
36:45Buck was hit at least once.
36:48Bonnie was then shot
36:50at least once in the abdomen,
36:51and they dragged themselves up this hill.
36:59Shortly after daybreak,
37:00on the 24th of July,
37:0319-year-old Marvell Feller
37:05was helping with the morning milking
37:06on his family farm.
37:09This here was about a five or six acre cornfield.
37:12Right here is where it was at.
37:14Right here.
37:16Marvell and his nine-year-old sister Louise
37:18were about to come face to face
37:21with Bonnie and Clyde.
37:24They are the only people alive
37:26to have come so dangerously close
37:28to the most feared outlaws in America.
37:36Clyde's been shot through the left cheekbones
37:39in his head.
37:42He'd been grazed right there,
37:44and the blood was running down his cheek.
37:49And Bonnie had been shot in the belly,
37:53I guess belly is what you say,
37:55and the blood was running all down her.
38:00We discovered the fellows
38:02coming up through the lots,
38:06and they were carrying Bonnie.
38:08Bonnie, my brother, and my dad.
38:13She'd been shot and really bloody,
38:17and Clyde was behind them
38:20with a gun on them.
38:23They had my brother pull the car out
38:26and get it straightened up in the lane,
38:29and Marvell said that the gun
38:30was laying right between them,
38:32and he really wanted to reach down
38:34and grab it,
38:36but he knew better to do that.
38:42Remarkably, despite their injuries,
38:45Bonnie, Clyde, and W.D. Jones escaped.
38:50But Clyde's brother, Buck,
38:51was too badly wounded to run.
38:54It was the end of the road for him
38:56and for his wife, Blanche.
39:00They saw Buck faint and pull me down.
39:03I called to Clyde, but they didn't stop.
39:09Finally, she stands up,
39:11and the posse then apprehended Blanche and Buck.
39:16It's at that point that that really famous photo
39:19of Blanche is taken.
39:22Buck Barrow died from his wounds five days later.
39:29Blanche was sentenced to 10 years in jail,
39:33where she was visited by a high-profile interrogator.
39:38J. Edgar Hoover himself went to the jail
39:41where Blanche was after she gave up.
39:44The net was closing in on Bonnie and Clyde.
39:46Federal as well as local lawmen
39:49were now on their trail.
39:51Soon after, in Texas,
39:54W.D. Jones was arrested,
39:56and the Dallas police made a vital breakthrough.
40:04Since Clyde's murder of a deputy sheriff
40:07earlier in the year,
40:09the Dallas County police
40:12had made Bonnie and Clyde their top priority.
40:16The sheriff, Smoot Schmidt,
40:20had assigned two men to the case.
40:24Ladies and gentlemen,
40:25I want to introduce two of my deputies,
40:27R.F. Bob Alcorn
40:29and Ted Hinton.
40:33Ted Hinton, I think,
40:34had a huge crush on Bonnie.
40:35He used to be one of her customers
40:36when she was a waitress.
40:38Bob Alcorn was the first man ever
40:40to arrest Clyde Barrow.
40:41He arrested Clyde when Clyde was 15 or 16
40:44for chicken theft.
40:46And their value to Schmidt,
40:47or at least the way Schmidt perceived it,
40:49was they might have insights
40:50that would allow him
40:51to in some way
40:53get informers,
40:54find informers,
40:55and capture Bonnie and Clyde.
40:58In November 1933,
41:01Hinton and Alcorn
41:02received a tip-off
41:03about a secret Barrow family meeting.
41:06This was the breakthrough
41:10they had hoped for,
41:11the opportunity
41:12for a police ambush.
41:15Ted and Bob wanted to bring in
41:17the Highway Patrol,
41:18they wanted to bring in
41:19the Texas Rangers
41:20and the Marshal's office.
41:23And Smoot, he roosted up,
41:25and he says,
41:25no, he says,
41:26Dallas Sheriff's Department
41:27is going to handle this ourselves.
41:32And that proved to be
41:33one of the biggest mistakes
41:34he ever made in his life.
41:36Sheriff Schmidt
41:38directed an unsuccessful attempt
41:41to take Bonnie and Clyde alive.
41:48Although the outlaw's
41:49bullet-ridden car
41:50was later recovered,
41:52they had once again
41:53shot their way out of trouble.
41:56But Ted Hinton was determined
41:58that the next time
41:59he faced Bonnie and Clyde,
42:01he would not be outgunned.
42:04He immediately contacted
42:05a U.S. congressman
42:07named Hatton Sumners.
42:09And he got
42:11Congressman Sumners
42:12to grease the skids
42:14for him to draw a BAR
42:16out of the National Guard armory,
42:19along with a box of ammunition.
42:21Hinton had procured a B.A.R.,
42:25the military machine gun
42:27beloved of Clyde Barrow.
42:30Finally, the police
42:31were beginning to match
42:32the tactics
42:33of their outlaw opponents.
42:35In January 1934,
42:38Clyde decided to realize
42:41an ambitious plan.
42:45For some time,
42:46he had been plotting a raid
42:47on Easton Prison,
42:49the scene of his first murder.
42:51Blanche Barrow's memoir
42:57reveals that the brutal abuse
42:59he had suffered
42:59as an inmate here
43:01was the real driving force
43:03behind Clyde's
43:04violent criminal career.
43:06Four years after
43:08he first arrived at Easton,
43:10a daring prison break
43:11was to be
43:12his final act of revenge.
43:14Clyde had always planned
43:22to raid Easton.
43:23He was once a prisoner
43:24here at Easton.
43:26He was brutalized
43:27here at Easton.
43:29This was a raid
43:31that was planned
43:31four years before
43:33it actually occurred.
43:41To quote him directly,
43:44I would like to raid
43:45this place,
43:47free as many prisoners
43:48as I can,
43:50and kill every damn
43:52guard in the place.
43:58Five prisoners escaped.
44:01Clyde had settled
44:02his score with Easton.
44:05But this act of vengeance
44:07marked the beginning
44:08of the end
44:09for Bonnie and Clyde.
44:14A prison guard
44:15was fatally wounded
44:16by one of the convicts
44:17during the escape.
44:20For the prison manager,
44:21Lee Simmons,
44:22it was clear
44:23who was to blame.
44:27He now vowed revenge
44:28and called on the services
44:30of a formidable investigator.
44:34A former Texas ranger
44:36called Frank Hamer.
44:37He asked Hamer
44:40to put Bonnie and Clyde
44:41on the spot
44:42and shoot everyone
44:43in sight,
44:44and that was the beginning
44:45of the tracking
44:47of Bonnie and Clyde
44:48with the express intent
44:49of killing them.
44:52Harrison Hamer
44:53has made a detailed study
44:54of his great-uncle's
44:56involvement in the Barrow case,
44:58revealing a methodical
45:00and ruthless tracker,
45:02unconcerned by the limits
45:03of jurisdiction
45:04or geography.
45:09Okay,
45:09this was Frank's
45:11expense account
45:12during the period
45:13of February 15, 1934
45:15to February 28, 1934.
45:18This is money
45:19expended while traveling
45:20on official business
45:21in the capacity
45:22of investigator.
45:24This was a period
45:26of about 13 days,
45:28and he traveled
45:291,397 miles,
45:31so he was traveling
45:32about 100 miles a day.
45:37Adopting the outlaw
45:38lifestyle of his opponents,
45:41Frank Hamer
45:41took to the road.
45:44He got a car
45:45exactly like the Ford
45:46that Clyde was driving,
45:49and he lived
45:50out of that car
45:50for the whole time
45:51he was tracking them down.
45:54He knew what kind
45:55of whiskey they drank,
45:56what brand of cigarettes
45:57they had,
45:58what kind of food
45:59they ate,
46:00where they ate at.
46:02He was like a pit bull.
46:05He was not going
46:06to give up.
46:07He was going
46:07to bring them to justice.
46:10At last,
46:12Clyde Barrow
46:12had met his match.
46:15Lee Simmons
46:16put Frank Hamer
46:18on the job.
46:19The job was
46:20going to get done.
46:21But while Frank Hamer
46:25has long been regarded
46:27as the archetypal
46:28Lone Ranger,
46:29the FBI file reveals
46:31that he was actually
46:33working in close harmony
46:34with J. Edgar Hoover's
46:36federal agents.
46:38Well, this letter here
46:39was March 17, 1934,
46:42telling the agents
46:43to work with Frank Hamer,
46:44and you start finding
46:46that Frank Hamer
46:47is working with
46:48their special agents
46:50in different locations
46:51and they're out
46:53investigating.
46:54And they did
46:54a quite detailed report.
46:56I mean,
46:56this is just a lot
46:57of information
46:58that is put in here.
47:01Behind the scenes,
47:03Hoover's men
47:03continued to make
47:04their resources
47:05and intelligence
47:06available to Frank Hamer.
47:07And in Dallas,
47:10the records now reveal
47:11that Bonnie and Clyde's
47:12family's telephones
47:14had been tapped.
47:17The police pursuit
47:19now focused on
47:20sophisticated surveillance
47:21and intelligence gathering.
47:25The tables were
47:26beginning to turn
47:27in the battle
47:28between Bonnie and Clyde
47:29and the law.
47:32And public opinion
47:34also turned against them
47:35after a shocking
47:37double murder
47:38here in Grapevine, Texas
47:40on Easter Sunday, 1934.
47:47After a series
47:48of murders
47:49and bank jobs,
47:50Bonnie and Clyde
47:51were boldly
47:51keeping a rendezvous
47:52with some of their
47:53henchmen near Grapevine, Texas.
47:55While they waited,
47:55they drank whiskey,
47:56made love to each other
47:57and practiced
47:58their marksmanship
47:59by shooting at birds.
48:04Presently,
48:05two state highway
48:06patrol officers
48:07sighted the pair.
48:08They decide to investigate.
48:10They approach Bonnie and Clyde
48:11totally unaware
48:12of their identity.
48:21The murder
48:23of officers Edward
48:24Brian Wheeler
48:25and Holloway Daniel Murphy
48:27seemed particularly callous.
48:29and for the first time
48:32it was reported
48:33that Bonnie,
48:34as well as Clyde,
48:35had fired the fatal shots.
48:40This atrocious murder
48:42sealed the doom
48:42of Bonnie and Clyde.
48:46For every peace officer
48:48in the entire southwest
48:49became so enraged
48:50over this killing,
48:51they pledged themselves
48:52to sleepless days
48:53and nights
48:54in their search
48:55for this murdering pair.
48:56But despite the media reports,
48:59there is no evidence
49:00that Bonnie pulled
49:01the trigger here
49:02or at any of the other murders
49:04attributed to the Barrow Gang.
49:06In fact,
49:07it was a third outlaw,
49:09Henry Methvin,
49:10one of the escapees
49:12from Easton
49:13who opened fire first
49:15at Grapevine.
49:15Everyone within
49:18the Barrow Gang
49:19and the stories
49:20they told their families later,
49:22there's not much agreement
49:22on many things,
49:23but there's some agreement
49:24on this,
49:25that Clyde said
49:26to Henry Methvin,
49:27let's take them,
49:28meaning let's take them hostage.
49:31Henry hasn't been
49:32in this situation before.
49:33He's mean,
49:34he's young,
49:35and he's had too much
49:35to drink,
49:37and he starts shooting.
49:40But Methvin
49:41is mysteriously absent
49:42from the official version
49:44of events at Grapevine.
49:47Behind the scenes,
49:49a complex drama
49:50was beginning to play out.
49:52You can look
49:53at the newspaper headlines
49:55and you hardly ever
49:56find a mention
49:57of Methvin's name.
49:59And that,
50:01I think,
50:02can only have
50:03one thing behind it,
50:05and that was the fact
50:06there's this deal working.
50:10The official records
50:11reveal that Henry Methvin's
50:13family was plotting
50:14to betray Bonnie and Clyde
50:15in a deal
50:17brokered by Frank Hamer.
50:22Henry Methvin's
50:23sentence
50:24in the state of Texas
50:25would be wiped out,
50:26provided that Methvin's
50:27would place Barrow
50:28and Bonnie Parker
50:29on the spot.
50:38With the help
50:39of Henry Methvin's father,
50:41the plan was to lure
50:42the plan was to lure
50:42Bonnie and Clyde
50:43into an ambush
50:44near the Methvin family home
50:46near Gibsland, Louisiana.
50:51The outlaws
50:52had been regularly
50:53sighted in the area
50:54since the raid
50:55on Easton Prison.
50:57And on Monday,
50:58the 21st of May,
50:591934,
51:01Frank Hamer
51:01assembled six officers
51:03on this remote
51:04country road.
51:05The composition
51:09of the posse
51:10was a six-man.
51:13Frank Hamer
51:14and Manny Gault,
51:15who were both
51:16retired Texas Rangers.
51:18Two Dallas County
51:19deputy sheriffs,
51:21Ted Hinton
51:21and Bob Alcorn.
51:22And then you had
51:23Henderson Jordan,
51:24who was the sheriff,
51:26here of
51:26Benville Parish,
51:27and his chief deputy,
51:31Apprentice Oakley.
51:32The two of them
51:33took in the legal
51:35jurisdiction
51:36for the shooting.
51:41And they waited
51:42down here
51:43for two days
51:43and two nights.
51:49Just before daybreak,
51:51on Wednesday,
51:51the 23rd of May,
51:53the posse stopped
51:54a pickup truck.
51:55It was Henry
51:56Methvin's father.
52:00Bob Alcorn
52:01turned his truck around,
52:02put it in the
52:03southbound lane here,
52:05he jacked the wheel up,
52:07took it off,
52:09and by Methvin's truck
52:11being there,
52:13Clyde's going to
52:13naturally slow down
52:14because he recognizes
52:16the truck.
52:20The trap
52:21was set.
52:25Later that morning,
52:32Bonnie and Clyde
52:33set off
52:34in their stolen
52:34Ford V8,
52:36hoping to meet
52:36Henry Methvin.
52:39Clyde Barrow
52:39was typically
52:40well-armed.
52:46If you could have
52:47seen in this car
52:48that morning,
52:50you would have seen
52:51a sawed-off shotgun,
52:53three Browning
52:54automatic rifles,
52:56a loaded pistol,
52:57and a bag
52:58containing another
53:0010 or 11
53:01handguns.
53:04The car was
53:05essentially a rolling
53:07armory.
53:07But this time,
53:15Bonnie and Clyde
53:16faced equal firepower,
53:19including Ted Hinton's
53:20BAR.
53:23It has been said
53:24that they were facing
53:26the most amount
53:29of firepower
53:30that they could have
53:32possibly faced
53:34short of an army platoon.
53:37This time,
53:39there would be no hope
53:40of taking Bonnie
53:41and Clyde alive.
53:44The posse
53:45would shoot on sight.
53:49And just after 9.15,
53:51on Wednesday,
53:51the 23rd of May,
53:531934,
53:55on a lonely road
53:56in Louisiana,
53:58Bonnie and Clyde's
53:58deadly game
53:59of cat and mouse
54:00reached its
54:01inevitable conclusion.
54:02I was glad
54:18they died together.
54:20That way,
54:21neither one
54:21had to deal
54:22with the grief
54:22of losing the other.
54:24car wound up
54:28with 167 holes
54:30in it,
54:31counting entrance
54:31and exit holes.
54:33Bonnie wound up
54:34with 53 in her
54:36and Clyde wound up
54:37with 51 in him.
54:38There is not much
54:53to say now.
54:55It is all over.
54:56The ends of law
54:57and justice
54:58have been served.
54:59The Barrow Gang's
55:11chaotic crime spree
55:13had claimed 17 lives,
55:16including those
55:16of Buck Barrow
55:17and Bonnie and Clyde
55:19themselves.
55:24For her involvement
55:26with the Barrow Gang,
55:27Blanche Barrow spent
55:29nearly six years
55:30in prison,
55:31where she wrote
55:32her unique memoir.
55:34It's an account
55:35that finally explains
55:36Bonnie and Clyde's
55:37journey from
55:38petty crime
55:39to vicious murder,
55:41driven by Clyde's
55:42experience
55:43in a notoriously
55:44brutal Texas prison.
55:47The very next year,
55:481935,
55:50Texas was named
55:50the worst prison
55:52in the United States,
55:53and they cited
55:54in particular
55:55brutality
55:56at various prison
55:58installations,
55:59and they really
55:59focused at Easttown.
56:02Bonnie and Clyde's
56:03downfall
56:04also signaled
56:05the beginning
56:05of a new chapter
56:06in American law
56:07enforcement.
56:10Bonnie and Clyde
56:12were a turning point
56:13in American legal
56:15history.
56:17Federal law
56:18changed,
56:20so that murder
56:21and bank robbery
56:22became federal crimes.
56:24The division
56:26of investigation
56:26agents
56:27then went out
56:29and pretty much
56:29over the next six months
56:31blew away
56:32all the other
56:33major criminals
56:34of the time.
56:35This was the birth
56:37of the FBI
56:38as we know it today.
56:40The crime wave
56:41of the Great Depression
56:42would soon run its course,
56:44but the legend
56:45of Bonnie and Clyde
56:46would continue
56:47to captivate the world
56:49for generations
56:50to come.
56:51Bonnie was a waitress
57:00in a small cafe.
57:04Clyde Barrel
57:04was the rounder
57:06that took her away.
57:08They both robbed
57:10and killed
57:10until both of them
57:12died.
57:13So goes the legend
57:17of Bonnie and Clyde
57:19Bonnie and Clyde
57:21Bonnie and Clyde
57:23Bonnie and Clyde
57:25Bonnie and Clyde
57:25Bonnie and Clyde
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57:39Bonnie and Clyde
57:40Bonnie and Clyde
57:41Bonnie and Clyde
57:42Bonnie and Clyde
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