23 Things You May Have Never Learned About Bonnie And Clyde

wikimedia

Instead, you have to find out some information on your own. Once you do find out this information, it is incredible as to what was never told to people about the bank-robbing duo.

Bonnie Had A Wedding Ring On

Now, a lot of people always knew that Bonnie was married. However, a lot of people also assumed that she was married to Clyde. While it may seem like this would be a great idea and could make for a fairytale type of story of two notorious gangsters being married to each other, it was not the case. What is true is that Bonnie did have a wedding ring on when she died.

Thevintagenews

The wedding ring did not belong to Clyde. Instead, it belonged to Roy Thornton, a classmate that Bonnie had in school. Back before you had to be 18 to get married, Bonnie married Roy when she was five days short of her 16^th birthday. The marriage would only last a few months before it started to have its rocky path and lead the couple to split up.

Bonnie Never Got Divorced

Bonnie would not see her husband ever again after he was put in prison in 1929 for robbing a bank. It was at that time that the impressionable Bonnie would run into Clyde. Well, Clyde quickly swept Bonnie off of her feet, and the couple started to date and would become a power couple in the crime world that people have come to recognize today.

ouTube/Yesterday Today

What is interesting is Bonnie did one of those things that tends to curse a couple. She went out and got a tattoo on her right thigh that had the name of her husband Roy and Bonnie together. The tattoo would form a heart on her leg. Still, one fact remains that with Roy in prison, Bonnie never ended up getting the divorce that she would need to have from Roy if she wanted to remarry to Clyde.

Bonnie Was A Poet

While a lot of criminals have been reported to find a part of themselves that they never knew before, it would hold for Bonnie. When she was put in prison in 1932 for failing to rob a Hardware Store successfully, she would start to write poetry again. Some of her poems would be a type that would be eerily, similar to the life that she would be leading.

The poem she wrote would be ones that a lot of people would consider to be odes to what is going on at the time. Some of the poems that Bonnie would write almost seemed like pleas according to some people for help or other aspects that a lot of people never really thought about at the time.

Bonnies Poems Seemed Predictive

As mentioned, Bonnie was a noted poet and would write mainly when she was in school. However, she also returned to the life of writing poetry while in jail. What is interesting is one of the poems she wrote seemed to be a tail of her own life. In which an innocent country girl’s life would be brought to a life of crime by her boyfriend, who she fell madly in love with.

biography com

What is interesting is that only a couple of weeks before she would be shot down in a hail of gunfire from law enforcement Bonnie would write a poem about a couple of criminals who ended up facing the hardships of their life head-on as they were killed in a shootout with the police departments. Now, that is relatively eerie, considering it was only a couple of weeks before her death.

Clyde Tried To Join The Navy

With a lot of people at the time, the military seemed to be the only way that they could find their way into a stable job with the economic climate at the time. However, Clyde already had a boyhood illness that kept him from being able to join the navy at the time, and it was a significant blow to his system.

Clyde had been so sure that he would be able to join the United States Navy that he already had the USN tattoo on his arm, as you can imagine, with that type of confidence being shattered about the career that Clyde had wanted to have. However, that would be the start of his life of crime and lead to Clyde doing what he could to make a living.

His First Arrest Came From A Rental Car

Clyde did not have a life of crime in mind when he was younger. However, he would have his first arrest in 1926 when he rented a car in Dallas to visit an estranged girlfriend from high school. Well, it would happen that Clyde would forget to return the vehicle and was charged with auto theft for the first crime of his young criminal career.

Dallas Public Library via American Experience

The rental company would drop the charges as the car was returned. However, the crime is one that would continue to show up on his record for the rest of his life. What is interesting is that even with the formal charges dropped, the arrest remained on his record.

Clyde’s Second Arrest Was For Turkeys

Clyde would be arrested a short time later than what he was arrested for at first. This time the arrest was with his brother as well, and it was something that would show up on his record yet again. At the time, the brothers were arrested on a crime of having possession of a truckload of stolen turkeys.

Dallas (Tex.). Police Dept.

Now, it is not well known what happened after that arrest as the crime was often described as being farcical, but it was the second run-in with the law after only several weeks. Often this is seen as a precursor as to what would eventually lead to the life of crime that Bonnie and Clyde would have together as the arrest at the time, just like in the time today would make it very difficult to find employment at a respectable business.

Bank Robberies Were A Rarity

While a lot of people would think that the banks were the specialty of the robbers since that is how Hollywood depicted them. That is not the case. The fairytale story that is often put in place with Bonnie and Clyde robbing the rich banks to give to the poor is not the truth. The majority of the robberies that the couple would have come against the smaller grocery stores and gas stations.

Wikipedia

With the banks not being the target, it often meant the amount of money the couple was getting was quite a bit lower than what people imagined. The average robbery that the couple was getting was at most ten dollars. Still, for the most part, the couple would get a few dollars to five dollars, and that is not enough to survive off of, even at the time that the famed duo was committing their crimes.

Clyde Served Time In A Texas Prison

When Clyde was in Texas, the life of crime would catch up with him eventually. Clyde would be captured for automobile theft and a simple robbery compared to what he would later do in life in 1932. That would be one of the times that he would be sent to prison and would have to do some time.

The prison that Clyde would be sent to and the one that would definitely give him a strong fear of the prison system was Eastham Prison Farm. This is one of the prisons that would have the prisoners out working each day that they were in prison and keep them working. It was also considered one of the most brutal and unforgiving prisons for people to be sent to at the time in the United States.

Clyde Would Cut Off His Toes

During his time at Eastham, Prison Farm Clyde would start to experience some of the harshest conditions that you could find. Some of those conditions would lead to Clyde wanting to get out of the hard conditions the prison was known for. That would lead to Clyde actually taking an axe or having another prisoner take the axe and cut off a couple of his toes.

Thevintagenews

The toes that Clyde cut off was his left big toe and the toe next to it. This would actually alter the way that Clyde walked and would make it harder for him to walk in a natural gait for the rest of his life. In fact, Clyde, with the way that his body was harmed by cutting the toes off, would not be able to wear his shoes when he was driving a car anymore.

The Toe Cutting Was For Naught

While at the time cutting his toes off made perfect sense to Clyde, it would be for nothing. The reason is that Clyde had been seen as a good worker and following the rules while in prison. That would actually lead to him getting a release on parole six days later.

It is not mentioned if Clyde had any regrets about cutting his toes off and ending up getting his parole granted a short time later. However, with the problems that it could cause for him with driving and the way that it changed his walking gait it is widely assumed that if he had known that his parole would be granted just a few days later that he would not have removed his own toes or had a fellow prisoner do it for him.

The Couple Had A Car Wreck

Just like the real-life Dukes of Hazard, the couple did end up ramping over a bridge that was under construction one night. That comes from the fact that Clyde was driving along the road in rural Texas at over 70 miles an hour and missed the detour sign for the bridge being out that was under construction.

The car would ramp over the bridge and come to rest in a dry river bed. The crash, though, was not like the Dukes of Hazard, who always seemed to land on their wheels and were able to continue to drive down the road. Instead, this is one crash that ruined the vehicle that Bonnie and Clyde were driving at the time.

Bonnie Was Hurt In The Accident

The accident when the car leaped over the bridge would leave the couple with something else in common, as well. The accident led to Bonnie getting battery acid splashed all over her right leg. Just like the modern batteries that run on acid, it will burn, and that is exactly what it did to Bonnie and her leg.

medium com

The battery acid quickly ate through the clothes that Bonnie had on, and before she could do anything to stop, it reached her leg. In some spots, the battery acid burns were so bad that it actually burned her to the bone and would leave her with a permanent limp. In some cases, people would report seeing Bonnie having to hop along on the road or being carried by Clyde because of the pain in her burns and her leg being so severe that she was unable to walk.

The Ambush

In May of 1934, it is well documented and knows that the couple would be ambushed while they were trying to get away from a crime that they had just committed in Texas. The group that would hunt the couple down and ambush them was a group of six Texas Rangers. In the ambush, the group of Texas Rangers would end up shooting the car up with over a hundred and thirty rounds of ammo.

The pair would not have a chance to survive the ambush as they had no warning of what was coming. What else is interesting is the fact that the couple did go out in a hail of gunfire together just like Bonnie had predicted they would do a couple of weeks before their death in the poem she had written up.

The Ambush Car Was Stolen

The couple was caught and ambushed in a car that was stolen from Sailes, Louisiana. The car was also one that had a very powerful V8 motor, which at the time was one of the most massive motors available in a motor vehicle.

FBI

The ammo that was sent into the vehicle and helped to pierce through the metal sides of the car was a steel jacketed round. After the gun battle, the car was not going to be returned to the owners of the vehicle as it was not really worth anything anymore, and it would not be a vehicle that could be driven around town anymore.

Souvenir Hunters Would Descend

As people local to the area where the ambush heard about the trap happening, they decided it would be the perfect time to descend on the car and the area to look for souvenirs. Unlike law enforcement today, that would have the scene secured, and people would not be able to get near the scene until hours later, people were able to get right up on the car.

Wikimedia Commons

It was not part of the car or the items that people would be looking for. Instead, the crowds of souvenir hunters started to look for the pieces that would be rather disgusting to most people today, and that was the body parts of the famed crime duo. The souvenir hunters did not even allow the couple to be removed from the vehicle before they started to look for the souvenirs that they could find and take-off of the bodies of the dead criminals.

Law Enforcement Stepped In

While the souvenir hunters were still trying to get the body parts off, the law enforcement officers would notice what was going on. It was at this time that they would intervene and run the gawkers off who were trying to get the items from the famous criminal couple.

FBI

Now, this does not mean that nothing was taken. The body parts like the ear and trigger finger of Clydes that people were trying to make remained a lady did manage to get parts of the dress from Bonnie and even had snippets of her hair that she was able to take. The role of the dress the woman did make off with was soaked in the blood of Bonnie from where she had been shot multiple times.

The Duo Did More Than Robberies

Yes, the couple is one that had been well known for committing quite a few robberies in their time. However, what people need to realize is the robberies are only one of the reasons why the couple was wanted by the police and the other law enforcement agencies.

wikipedia/ The perpetrators had more than a dozen guns and several thousand rounds of ammunition in the Ford,

The couple would be one that, if they had ever been brought to trial, would have issues as they are also a couple that ended up killing 13 people. Some of those murders would happen in the act of the robberies they were committing, but other times it was just out of spite. Still, with too many robberies to count and the murders on their heads, it would be challenging to overcome the charges and avoid the gallows.

The Car Had A Battle

The ambush would be one that would lead to the car that was stolen quickly, becoming one of the most famous cars in America, and some would argue as being the most famous car in the world. Well, it would not take long before the car would be claimed by a sheriff from Louisiana who had been part of the posse that had tracked down Bonnie and Clyde and ambushed them.

The bullet riddled car in which bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde died at the hands of Texas Rangers and Louisana police at Gibsland

The car would end up in Federal Court before the judge would rule, rightly so, that the vehicle should be returned to the former owner of the vehicle who had it stolen from them in the first place. The car would be sent back to Topeka, Kansas, where Ruth Warren, the owner of the vehicle, lived at the time, and she would be left trying to figure out what to do with the car.

Warren Leased The Car Out

While the Louisiana sheriff wanted to get his hands on the famous car, that would not be the case. Warren, the owner of the vehicle, would take and lease the care to Charles Stanley. He was a touring lecturer who would give speeches about crime and how it did not pay off for people to participate in.

shutterstock

While Stanley was giving his tours with the death car, he would bring along the mothers of both Bonnie and Clyde with him. This was not as part of the main act, but rather as a sideshow act for the people that would be going to the fairs and have a chance to see a part of the history of the time, but also get a chance to see the mothers of the criminals.

The Car Is Sold

Eventually, Ruth Warren would sell the car to Stanley. He would then take the vehicle to fairgrounds around the country regularly to continue the sideshow attraction that a lot of people had come out to see.

wikimedia

As the sideshow act would start to wane, Stanley would begin to look for something to do with the car. That is when he would put the car in the location that it is still today, and that is the Whiskey Pete’s Casino, which is located in Primm, Nevada. Oddly, the vehicle is not located in Las Vegas, as Primm is a town that is 40 miles south of Las Vegas.

The Posse

Frank Hamer led the posse. However, it has been widely reported that before she turned to her life of crime, Hamer and Bonnie knew each other. At the time, Hamer was working his way up in the law enforcement field and would stop by a diner each morning for breakfast.

PBS

The waitress who is reported to have waiting on Hamer each morning was none other than Bonnie. The pair would get to know each other to a point. It was not until years later that Hamer would recognize that the famed duo would be one of the waitresses that had left his favorite diner to lead a life of crime.

The Final Resting Spot

With a lot of the lure, people think that the couple would be buried together. However, this is not the case. The couple were buried in completely separate locations. Even with their life together in crime, the couple would be separated, which was against the wishes of the couple.

The reason for the separate burial spots was the fact that Bonnie’s mother disapproved of the relationship the couple had with Clyde. That would lead to the famed couple being buried in separate cemeteries in Dallas. Bonnie is buried next to her mother, but her favored Clyde is buried next to his brother Marvin.