The Crime Book

29

The death car became the subject of

so much interest that fakes began to

appear. The local sheriff tried to keep

the car but was sued by the owner. It is

now on display at a casino in Nevada.

BANDITS, ROBBERS, AND ARSONISTS

hospital where he died on 29 July,

from pneumonia after surgery, but

not before doctors injected him

with stimulants so that he could

answer police questions.

Barrow and Parker’s trail ended

on a road that cut through

Louisiana’s Piney Forest on State

Highway 154, south of Sailes.

Led by Hamer, the posse of police

officers had tracked and studied the

pair’s movements and discovered

that the gang camped on the edges

of state borders.

Using a tip that the couple

would be in the area, Hamer

predicted their pattern and set up

an ambush point along the rural

Louisiana highway. At around

9:15am on 23 May 1934, six officers

concealed in the bushes saw

Barrow’s stolen Ford V8

approaching at high speed and

sprayed the car with a total of 130

rounds. Barrow and Parker were

shot dozens of times, each

sustaining multiple fatal wounds.

When the bullet-ridden Ford was

towed to town, with the bodies still

inside, a crowd of curious onlookers

surrounded the car. Spectators

collected souvenirs, including

pieces of Parker’s bloody clothes

and hair. One man even tried to cut

off Barrow’s trigger finger. Items

belonging to the pair, including

stolen guns and a saxophone, were

also kept by members of the posse

and sold as souvenirs.

The ambush remains highly

controversial, given that there were

no attempts to take the pair alive.

Celebrity criminals

Bonnie and Clyde emerged as the

first celebrity criminals of the

Depression era, partly due to the

intense newspaper and radio

coverage of their crimes.

Outlaws like George “Baby

Face” Nelson and “Pretty Boy”

Floyd also became legends, with

their deadly stories appearing

on front pages of newspapers

across the country. During this

time, a disillusioned, angry

public, faced with unemployment

and extreme poverty, held the

gangsters in high esteem, with

magazines, newspapers, and

radio programmes covering their

daily exploits.

Bonnie and Clyde’s legend

intensified with the 1967,

Academy Award-winning film

Bonnie and Clyde, which

exposed the couple’s exploits to

a new generation. It was

considered groundbreaking for

its relaxed presentation of sex

and violence. However, such a

glamorized portrayal elicited

troubling questions, as several

couples have attempted similar

sprees, claiming to have been

inspired by the famous outlaws.

The 1967 adaptation of the pair’s

crime spree starred Warren Beatty

and Faye Dunaway and presented

them as attractive and even chic.

Prentiss Oakley, the Louisiana

officer who fired the first shot, later

expressed regret that the outlaws

had not been offered a chance to

surrender to them.

The bloody end of Bonnie and

Clyde was the end of the “Public

Enemy Era” of the 1930s. By the

summer of 1934, the federal

government enacted statutes

that made kidnapping and bank

robbery federal offences – a legal

breakthrough that finally allowed

FBI agents to apprehend bandits

across state lines. ■

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