They robbed fewer than 15 banks during their 21-month crime spree, and since it was the Great Depression, things didn't always go as planned. They were so desperate for cash, sometimes they would break into vending machines for food money. The Encyclopedia Britannica says they never took more than $1,500, and once got as little as $80. The gang lived "hand-to-mouth" and one of the reasons they kept holding places up was they never got much money out of it. In reality, their infamous robberies were unimpressive. After those murders, public opinion turned against the couple. Clyde wanted to kidnap them like usual, but his cry of "Let's take them" was misunderstood by a gang member who started shooting. For one of the cops, it was his first day on the job and he was about to get married. Two policemen came up to their car one morning. The fact that they didn't kill everyone might have been one of the reasons the public loved Bonnie and Clyde. ![]() On some occasions, the couple would give their kidnapping victims money to get back home. She said to tell them she didn't really smoke cigars. Another kidnapped officer asked Bonnie if there was anything she wanted him to tell the press when he got released. The podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class recalls one time a cop tried to pull the outlaws over for speeding, so they just took him. ![]() It didn't matter if they were civilians or police officers. Instead, Bonnie and Clyde seemed to enjoy kidnapping people and traveling around with them for a bit. Thanks to those photos, they went from local Texas outlaws to "criminal superstars." Bonnie had the fame she always wanted. This would be how the public imagined Bonnie, although she didn't normally handle guns and she smoked cigarettes, not cigars. There Bonnie pretended to shoot Clyde, there she was on his shoulders, and, most famous of all, there she was with a cigar between her teeth ("Freudian implications and all") and a pistol in her hand, looking like the perfect gun moll. They showed the couple larking about with each other. It was this technology, the ability for the ends of the earth to get images of Bonnie and Clyde adorably playing around, that made them major celebrities. But the cops processed the pictures, a local newspaper ran them, and then they sent them over the wires. It was actually just some rolls of undeveloped film that the police discovered at a safe house they raided. He was going to start a gang, steal money and guns, then return to Eastham and kill all the guards.Īccording to Smithsonian Magazine, the biggest reason Bonnie and Clyde became so famous was the discovery of some cute photos they took. His good friend said prison changed Clyde "from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake." Even before he got out, Clyde started formulating a plan. An inmate already serving life took the rap, and Clyde was eventually paroled. Clyde finally couldn't take the abuse anymore, and one night he got Big Ed alone in the bathroom and beat him to death with a pipe. An inmate known as Big Ed Crowder beat him and sexually assaulted him repeatedly. But we do know some of the things that happened to him there. Even at a time when all prisons were horrific for the people inside, Texas Monthly says Eastham was "the worst of the worst." Prisoners were regularly beaten by guards or had their hands cuffed to a pipe over their heads for a whole day, and there was even a guard who would execute prisoners point-blank and then say they died trying to escape.Ĭlyde's experience at Eastham was so bad that he never talked to anyone about it, not even the love of his life.
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