Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Valentine's Day Special: The love crimes of Bonnie & Clyde

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Valentine's Day Special: The love crimes of Bonnie & Clyde · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Joined the Justice Nation, Crime Stops here dot com Crime
1:37
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace. On January fifth, nineteen thirty, Clyde
1:49
Speaker 1: Barrow walked into her life. Clyde came along just at
1:52
Speaker 1: the right time for her. This guy with a new
1:57
Speaker 1: car that's stolen of what it's a new car, and
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Speaker 1: he's dressed in these fine clothes, and he's got lots
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Speaker 1: of money, and he's got a good line, and he's
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Speaker 1: got a great smile, and it just worked. Butcher, her brother,
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Speaker 1: Butcher told me, he said, a little dead, he says,
2:17
Speaker 1: but those two saw each other. He said, you could stay.
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Speaker 1: The sparch fly right there. Just weeks into their courtship,
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Speaker 1: Clyde's outlaw ways finally caught up to him. Dallas police
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Speaker 1: showed up at Bonnie's house with a warrant for his arrest.
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Speaker 1: Clyde was sent to the County jail and Waco to
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Speaker 1: await his trial and sentencing. But Clyde Barrow had no
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Speaker 1: intention of being separated from body Parker for law. He
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Speaker 1: knows where there's a gun, and he gets the idea
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Speaker 1: to get her to go get that gun and bring
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Speaker 1: it to him. On one visit, Clyde slipped Bonnie a
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Speaker 1: note detailing his escape plan. He signed it. You are
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Speaker 1: the sweetest baby in the world to me. And this
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Speaker 1: is where Bonnie has to make a choice. This is
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Speaker 1: breaking the law herself. She can go to jail for this.
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Speaker 1: On the other hand, if she does break him out,
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Speaker 1: that's the kind of daring thing some of the pretty
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Speaker 1: starlets do in the picture shows. So she says she'll
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Speaker 1: do it. Bonnie hid the gun under her dress and
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Speaker 1: successfully smuggleth into the jail. She was now Clyde's accomplice.
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Speaker 1: The escape plan worked, Clyde and two other inmates fled
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Speaker 1: the Waco jail that evening. However, their freedom was short lived.
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Speaker 1: They were arrested just seven days later. Bonnie returned to
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Speaker 1: her mother and West Dallas, but Clyde was slapped with
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Speaker 1: a fourteen year sentence and was now on his way
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Speaker 1: to one of the most notorious institutions in Texas, a
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Speaker 1: prison so violent and untamed that earned the nickname the
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Speaker 1: Bloody Hand. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody, I mean, why does
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Speaker 1: love and crime seem to fit together just so well?
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Speaker 1: And who portrays that better than the legend of Body
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Speaker 1: and Clyde. I'm Nancy Grace. This is crime stories. Thank
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Speaker 1: you for being with us, with me, the blood relatives
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Speaker 1: of Bonnie and Clyde. Also with me Cheryl McCollum, director
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Speaker 1: of the Cold Case Research Institute, and boy do we
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Speaker 1: need her today. Jackie Howard of the studio Alan Deep
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Speaker 1: my partner in crime, joining me from LA. Let's get
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Speaker 1: right down to it, you know, to Raylene Linder, the
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Speaker 1: niece of Bonnie Parker, of the famed Bonnie Clyde. What
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Speaker 1: does it feel like knowing that Bonnie's blood runs through
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Speaker 1: your veins? Well, it's shocking in a way. It's not
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Speaker 1: something that that would you would choose, considering everything that
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Speaker 1: happened there. But on the other hand, she was my
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Speaker 1: dad's sister. She was as the daughter of a wonderful grandmother, uh,
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Speaker 1: the sister of my wonderful aunt also, So I don't
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Speaker 1: see that that I have any complaints. Well, you sound
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Speaker 1: like you're doing all right. Let me just ask you,
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Speaker 1: out of curiosity, Raylene Linder, what do you do for
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Speaker 1: a living? You're not work in a bank, do you?
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Speaker 1: I know? No, I don't. Uh. I'm I'm retired, happily retired.
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Speaker 1: What did you do in your working life? I was
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Speaker 1: a secretary for uh, for one company for twenty years,
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Speaker 1: and I'm not giving up on the bank angle. Okay,
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Speaker 1: good to know with me, Buddy Brown, Oh go ahead please?
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Speaker 1: Oh oh, I'm sorry. Then then I retired. I actually
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Speaker 1: retired from coke industry to Buddy Barrow, the nephew of
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Speaker 1: Clyde Barrow, of Bonnie and Clyde. Okay, Buddy, what does
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Speaker 1: it feel like knowing you've got Clyde's blood running through
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Speaker 1: your veins? Well, you know they say bud sticker and
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Speaker 1: water and fails stick together, so you know that's just
6:12
Speaker 1: what it is. You know, I've got a question to
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Speaker 1: Cheryl McCollum, Cold Case Research Institute Director, Cheryl, you know,
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Speaker 1: I'm thinking about Clyde and Bonnie. Was it true love
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Speaker 1: or was he just a big user? I've actually never
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Speaker 1: thought about it in that way before until I was
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Speaker 1: listening to that PBS documentary when they fall in Love
6:33
Speaker 1: at First Sight. I mean, you know, I'm not talking
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Speaker 1: about my husband, who is a saint. He is a saint.
6:41
Speaker 1: Between two guinea pigs, a cat, a dog, twins, and
6:45
Speaker 1: my eighty seven year old mother living with us, He's
6:49
Speaker 1: a saint. But I will admit there have been one
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Speaker 1: or two men that just happened to show up dressed great,
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Speaker 1: looking good, good, smelling good, talking sweet. I mean that
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Speaker 1: can turn that can turn your head, Cheryl Nancy, this
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Speaker 1: is absolutely a love story. Now, I gotta tell you
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Speaker 1: for me, this is an exciting program you're doing this morning.
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Speaker 1: Because Bonnie and Pride, I think set the tone for
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Speaker 1: my entire career. I'm sorry to hear that, because when
7:25
Speaker 1: I first pulled up on you at a crime scene,
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Speaker 1: I had no idea you were inspired by Bonnie and Clyde.
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Speaker 1: I may have run the other way. No, absolutely, because
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Speaker 1: as a little girl, she would tell these fantastic stories
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Speaker 1: about this couple that was desperately in love. But they
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Speaker 1: Chris crossed the country Robin Banks, and you know, whoa
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Speaker 1: whoa whoa. Okay, I hate to steal from Tina Turner,
7:52
Speaker 1: but what's love got to do with it? Why does
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Speaker 1: love have They're so in love they robbed Banks. See
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Speaker 1: to me, that's like two and two equals five. I'm
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Speaker 1: so in love that I left New York City, the
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Speaker 1: TV mecca, and moved away to raise children with my husband.
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Speaker 1: Now I don't think, Oh David, I love you so much.
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Speaker 1: Let's go rob a Bank. I think your equation is
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Speaker 1: all wrong, cheryld what No, as the Crimbinologist, it's really
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Speaker 1: important to understand how Bonnie and Clyde got to Robin
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Speaker 1: Bank because they did love each other. And I think
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Speaker 1: ray Len and Buddy will tell you the Great Depression
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Speaker 1: invented Body and Clyde as much as Body and Clyde did. Okay,
8:37
Speaker 1: let's take a listen to how Clyde Barrow became Clyde Barrow.
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Speaker 1: Clyde Chestnut Barrel was born in the Texas Cotton build
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Speaker 1: on March twenty fourth, nineteen oh nine, one of seven
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Speaker 1: children of itinerant farmers Henry and Kimi Barrow. By nineteen
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Speaker 1: twenty five, the whole Barrel clan had followed a wave
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Speaker 1: of other farmers who were flooding cities in search of work.
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Speaker 1: With all their worldly possessions packed into a horse drawn cart,
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Speaker 1: the Barrows settled on the outskirts of Dallas, in an
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Speaker 1: impoverished backwater known as the Devil's back Porch. Clyde Barrow
9:14
Speaker 1: grew up in an unincorporated slum so poverty stricken we
9:19
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine it today. And there's a campground right on
9:22
Speaker 1: the west bank of the Trinity River, and it's mostly
9:26
Speaker 1: mud and there's one well, there's a few outhouses and
9:31
Speaker 1: this is where the indigent lived. My grandfather and grandmother.
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Speaker 1: There's just poor people are trying to survive and they
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Speaker 1: camped out there and just that wagon, that little mule,
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Speaker 1: and that's where that's how they live. No money, no food,
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Speaker 1: just pores. You could be so from the time this
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Speaker 1: kid can really think, all he knows is there's no hope.
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Speaker 1: This is it. I'm gonna be poor, I'm gonna be hungry.
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Speaker 1: I'm going to be put down the rest of my life. Guys,
9:56
Speaker 1: before we go one step further, I want to thank
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Speaker 1: today possible. Clyde chafed at the prospect of a life
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Speaker 1: of poverty. Though he was slight five feet six inches,
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Speaker 1: never more than one hundred and thirty pounds, Clyde was bright, energetic,
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Speaker 1: and a dreamer. He saw what he wanted just across
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Speaker 1: the river in Dallas, a prosperous city with skyscrapers, endless entertainment,
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Speaker 1: and streets lined with high end shops. Dallas exposed Clyde
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Speaker 1: to a life that was far beyond his grasp. He
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Speaker 1: had dreams, you know. He wanted to do something rather
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Speaker 1: than the poor rest his life. He hated poverty, and
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Speaker 1: he hated looking like poverty. With a taste for expensive
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Speaker 1: suits and a little interest in honest work, Clyde Barrow
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Speaker 1: picked up the bad habits of his older brother, Buck,
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Speaker 1: who had already settled into a life of petty crime.
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Speaker 1: What started with the two brothers stealing chickens quickly grew
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Speaker 1: into armed robbery, and by the time he was seventeen,
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Speaker 1: Clyde was perfecting his signature crime. This is the first
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Speaker 1: era of car theft. The electric starter system is put
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Speaker 1: in cars. You could potwire one, and Buck was a
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Speaker 1: master of it, and he passed the skill along to
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Speaker 1: little brother. Clyde Barrow didn't see stealing so much as
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Speaker 1: a crime, as almost an obligation. I want to get
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Speaker 1: out of here. This is the only way I can
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Speaker 1: do it. By nineteen twenty nine, Clyde's crimes were regularly
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Speaker 1: drawing the attention of local police. In November of that year, Clyde, Buck,
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Speaker 1: and an accomplice broke into an auto shop in the
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Speaker 1: town of Denton, just outside Dallas. Local law enforcements spotted
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Speaker 1: the robbers trying to flee and opened fire, and I
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Speaker 1: shoot Buck in the capture book, but Clyde runs all
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Speaker 1: the way back home. It's a close call, but it's
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Speaker 1: worth it because as long as he's stealing cars and
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Speaker 1: getting a few dollars for him, he's somebody and to
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Speaker 1: him that's worth any risk. Okay, So Clyde was born
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Speaker 1: out of a horrible, horrible depression. Just dirt poor, that
13:41
Speaker 1: means scratching the dirt to make a living, you know.
13:45
Speaker 1: Cheryl McCullum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, joining
13:48
Speaker 1: me along with Raylene Lender, the niece of Bonnie Parker,
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Speaker 1: and Buddy Barrow, the nephew of Clyde Barrow of Bonnie Clyde. Cheryl,
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Speaker 1: you know, my grandparents had a peacock farm, a farm
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Speaker 1: of animals, crops. They both worked my grandfather, Doug Wells
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Speaker 1: for a living and drove an ice truck in a
14:12
Speaker 1: school bus. My grandmother pick Pecans, took care of the
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Speaker 1: farm and then went to a job at a tile
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Speaker 1: factory where she stood up all day making mosaics. I
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Speaker 1: don't think robbing an auto shop or steal in cars
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Speaker 1: crossed their minds. You still think this is glamorous, Cheryl McCollum. Absolutely,
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Speaker 1: And I'll tell you something. I bet there was a
14:39
Speaker 1: day or two it did cross their mind too. Then
14:41
Speaker 1: they might not have done it, but I bet they
14:43
Speaker 1: thought about it. And if this again is what is
14:46
Speaker 1: reported as a criminologist, somebody is always going through their
14:51
Speaker 1: own great suppression. And when you are hungry, let me
14:55
Speaker 1: tell you something. If dinner is an hour late, it'll
14:58
Speaker 1: change somebody's personality. If you're starving every day, you're desperate,
15:04
Speaker 1: and desperate times come home. We've seen it. People will
15:11
Speaker 1: commit claus when otherwise they would not have. You know what,
15:14
Speaker 1: you're right, different, you're right. But after they started living
15:18
Speaker 1: the high life, they kept doing it. And I love
15:20
Speaker 1: the way you connect, Cheryl McCullum. They were so in love.
15:23
Speaker 1: They robbed a bank to Buddy Barrow, the blood nephew
15:28
Speaker 1: of Clyde Barrow. When you hear about Clyde Barrow's exploits,
15:35
Speaker 1: how does that make you feel? Well? I can say
15:38
Speaker 1: one thing about this whole deal. When the depression hit,
15:41
Speaker 1: you know, people losing their farms, they lost their homes,
15:45
Speaker 1: they lost her bank accounts, when the banks failed, they
15:49
Speaker 1: lost everything they had. And when Clyde struck out, well,
15:55
Speaker 1: if those the loss. He hid big petroleum companies, He's
15:59
Speaker 1: hid railroad depost He hit places where people could afford
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Speaker 1: to lose the money because they were making the money.
16:09
Speaker 1: As far as mom and pop feeling stations they robbed.
16:12
Speaker 1: They said, most of these were big patroleum companies and
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Speaker 1: all they did was have poor people working for them.
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Speaker 1: They weren't steating from the people themselves. They were steating
16:22
Speaker 1: from the corporations, the big money makers. That's where he
16:28
Speaker 1: hit mostly. Thanks were not his favorite, but yet he
16:33
Speaker 1: had accomplices that, you know, thought that was the bigger money,
16:36
Speaker 1: the faster money. Clyde wood interested. That Clyde was mostly
16:40
Speaker 1: interested just getting down the road and surviving another day.
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Speaker 1: You know what, Buddy Barrow, I'm glad you told me
16:46
Speaker 1: that because I didn't know that. I did not know
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Speaker 1: that Clyde Barrow he was at Jesse James. He was
16:54
Speaker 1: at Jesse James of his time. If the railroad, what
16:57
Speaker 1: the railroad was doing to the people back then, you
17:00
Speaker 1: know they were if if you wouldn't sell your propping
17:03
Speaker 1: to the railroad, they would hire men to dress up
17:06
Speaker 1: as Indians, slaughter the whole family. There's no one that
17:10
Speaker 1: could stop them from taking that land. And they did
17:13
Speaker 1: this in order to blame it on the Indians. Now
17:17
Speaker 1: we're kind of going way back in history to justify
17:20
Speaker 1: some paint robbers. You know what, I'll give that to you,
17:24
Speaker 1: hold on to ray Lene, to ray Lee Lender. You know,
17:29
Speaker 1: I had never never thought about the targets the way
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Speaker 1: that Buddy Barrow, nephew of Clyde Barrow, just described them.
17:38
Speaker 1: And I got to tell you, coming from a family
17:43
Speaker 1: when you're bringing up the railroads, it's probably not the
17:45
Speaker 1: right tree to bark up with me. Because my dad
17:47
Speaker 1: was a railroad man, all of his brothers, his father.
17:51
Speaker 1: That's how I got put through school, and even through
17:55
Speaker 1: law school. I was still taking that golden pass to
17:58
Speaker 1: go visit my sister in Philadelphia on on the choo
18:00
Speaker 1: Choo train. But long story short, Raylene Lender, when I'm
18:04
Speaker 1: hearing Buddy Barrow put it in those terms, coming from
18:09
Speaker 1: very very poor grandparents, and you know, let me just
18:15
Speaker 1: say economically challenged parents. I hear what he's saying, Raylene,
18:22
Speaker 1: I hear it. Those were hard times. My grandmother raised
18:29
Speaker 1: all three kids by herself. My grandfather died when my
18:33
Speaker 1: aunt Jane was two years old. So it was hard
18:39
Speaker 1: hard times back then, and families moved in together, you
18:44
Speaker 1: know they sure did. Joining me right now in addition
18:47
Speaker 1: to Buddy Barret, Raylene Lender, Cheryl McCollum, director of the
18:51
Speaker 1: Cold Case Research Institute, joining me now out of Manhattan
18:54
Speaker 1: psychologist Karen Start. You can find her at Karen Stark
18:57
Speaker 1: dot com. Karen, those times were harder than any of
19:02
Speaker 1: us can imagine. Even though I thought I had a
19:05
Speaker 1: hard growing up. My mom has told me a story.
19:10
Speaker 1: I don't remind her of it very often, but it
19:12
Speaker 1: was when there were the rations and she was sent
19:16
Speaker 1: to go get the sugar that's all that half for
19:19
Speaker 1: the month, and my mom's little girl walked all the
19:22
Speaker 1: way home from the grocery store and she didn't know
19:27
Speaker 1: there was a tear in the bag. When she got home,
19:30
Speaker 1: almost all the sugar was gone. And my mother just
19:35
Speaker 1: went into you know, she's very, very emotional. She just
19:41
Speaker 1: went into a depression of her what she had done.
19:44
Speaker 1: And do you know my grandmother who you know, I
19:47
Speaker 1: named Lucy after her. My grandmother Lucy never said a word,
19:52
Speaker 1: never complained, didn't scold her nothing. But I think about
19:56
Speaker 1: those hard times of my grandmother get up at three
20:01
Speaker 1: and four in the morning to take care of a
20:03
Speaker 1: farm and then go work in a tile factory and
20:06
Speaker 1: be glad they had it, be overjoyed, thank god they
20:10
Speaker 1: had a job like that, and it was. It was brutal.
20:14
Speaker 1: Karen Stark and too. I think a lot of us,
20:17
Speaker 1: Nancy were raised with that same kind of story. My
20:20
Speaker 1: grandmother came from Russia and wound up raising six children
20:25
Speaker 1: during the depression, and they had no money. She became
20:30
Speaker 1: a chef, a cook in those days, and eventually she
20:35
Speaker 1: was a caterer. But she worked for every day I
20:38
Speaker 1: can remember. And what I wanted to say, Although I
20:41
Speaker 1: grew up with the story about in Clyde and love it,
20:44
Speaker 1: who didn't love that? Shone in the movies that romanticized it.
20:49
Speaker 1: But the truth of the matter is there were so
20:51
Speaker 1: many people during the depression who who a dirt poor
20:56
Speaker 1: and had to find a way to make a living
20:59
Speaker 1: and provide for their children. And they did not broad banks,
21:03
Speaker 1: they didn't kill people. They didn't get in that kind
21:06
Speaker 1: of trouble. Are we talking about robin Hood, because that's
21:10
Speaker 1: kind of what it sounds like. Truth Crime Stories with
21:22
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Smack dab in the middle of Texas, in
21:28
Speaker 1: the small town of Rowena, Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born
21:31
Speaker 1: on October first, nineteen ten. Four years later, after her
21:35
Speaker 1: father's unexpected death, Bonnie's mother, Emma, moved the family not
21:38
Speaker 1: far from the slums of West Dallas. Despite the impoverished conditions,
21:43
Speaker 1: Emma made sure to raise her three children with a
21:45
Speaker 1: knowledge that they were somehow better than their surroundings. My
21:48
Speaker 1: dad was Bonnie's brother, and Daddy was the oldest, and
21:52
Speaker 1: then Bonnie and then my aunt Billie Jean. She raised
21:55
Speaker 1: those three kids by herself. She literally was there everything
22:00
Speaker 1: my Daddy and Billy Jane. I know we're spoiled, so
22:03
Speaker 1: I'm quite sure Bonnie was spoiled too. Bonnie was just
22:07
Speaker 1: a cute little Texas girl, not quite five feet tall,
22:10
Speaker 1: with blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Bonnie Parker excelled
22:13
Speaker 1: at school, was a good singer and dancer, and enjoyed
22:16
Speaker 1: writing poetry. Like Clyde, she longed to escape the ceaseless
22:19
Speaker 1: poverty she saw everywhere. As a teenager, Bonnie would lose
22:22
Speaker 1: herself in the picture houses on the other side of
22:25
Speaker 1: the river in Dallas. Bonnie was tremendously influenced by motion pictures.
22:30
Speaker 1: What movies brought to the ordinary person was the roadmap
22:35
Speaker 1: to reinvention for yourself. You can be someone else. You
22:40
Speaker 1: can create a story for yourself and live it. You
22:43
Speaker 1: don't have to be locked into the way you were born.
22:46
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty six, fifteen year old Bonnie, against her
22:50
Speaker 1: mother's wishes, dropped out of school to marry her boyfriend,
22:52
Speaker 1: a small time thief named Roy Thornton. She had a
22:55
Speaker 1: little bit of the wild side to her. She had
22:57
Speaker 1: a tattoo on the inside of her thigh with Roy's
23:00
Speaker 1: name on it. Just imagine a woman doing that back
23:03
Speaker 1: in the twenties, You know, that was a daring thing
23:06
Speaker 1: to do. Bonnie thinks she's going to have a storybook romance,
23:09
Speaker 1: true love, just like you can see at the picture shows. Instead,
23:12
Speaker 1: Roy starts disappearing won't tell her where he's going. When
23:14
Speaker 1: she bothers him about it, he beats her up. The
23:17
Speaker 1: third time he leaves her, he doesn't come back. After
23:19
Speaker 1: her break from Roy, Bonnie's dissatisfaction with the unending boredom
23:23
Speaker 1: of poverty gushed forth in the pages of her journal
23:26
Speaker 1: Blue as Usual. Not a daring thing to do? She wrote,
23:30
Speaker 1: why don't something happen? Wow, you're hearing from a PBS documentary,
23:34
Speaker 1: The True Story of the Legend of Bodying Clyde. You know,
23:37
Speaker 1: Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, you
23:41
Speaker 1: know how people get addicted to drama or danger or chaos,
23:47
Speaker 1: and then you know, it's like when you're in a
23:48
Speaker 1: relationship and you're always arguing. Then when you get in
23:51
Speaker 1: a normal, happy relationship, at first, it just seems boring. Okay,
23:55
Speaker 1: it's dull because it's even killed and people that are
23:59
Speaker 1: used to chaos aren't used to a normal, loving, calm relationship.
24:05
Speaker 1: And I'm just wondering. After Bonnie had been with Ray,
24:09
Speaker 1: the first husband who mistreated her, beat her, abused her.
24:14
Speaker 1: When life was normal, it felt like the duldrums. Listen,
24:18
Speaker 1: Clyde loved her Clyde didn't beat her. Clyde didn't mistreat her. Nancy,
24:23
Speaker 1: you don't have to go any further than the photographs
24:26
Speaker 1: that we've all seen a hundred times. They had this fun,
24:31
Speaker 1: almost jovial kind of joking relationships. The photographs of Bonnie
24:36
Speaker 1: with the guns and the cigar, that's their private photos.
24:40
Speaker 1: They didn't develop those and send them to a newspaper.
24:43
Speaker 1: That was their private relationship when they were off just
24:46
Speaker 1: having fun. I think that's a window into how their
24:50
Speaker 1: love actually was. The fancy clothes, the nice cars, you know,
24:55
Speaker 1: the fast kind of life day. I'm telling you loved
24:59
Speaker 1: each other other. I don't think it was a Robin hood.
25:02
Speaker 1: I think it was desperate time and they got into
25:05
Speaker 1: a situation they couldn't get out of. Clyde tried to
25:08
Speaker 1: go legit more than once. He had a job in
25:11
Speaker 1: a factory and the police wouldn't leave him alone. I
25:15
Speaker 1: wonder why, Wow, I wonder why police wouldn't leave him alone.
25:18
Speaker 1: Was committing crimes at that point, he already had the reputation.
25:22
Speaker 1: And it's no different than when we're all in elementary
25:24
Speaker 1: school and all of us know the bad kid in
25:26
Speaker 1: first grade. Well, he's a bad kid in third grade two,
25:29
Speaker 1: and miraculously he's the bad kid in eighth grade because
25:32
Speaker 1: he's already got that reputation because the teachers decided it.
25:35
Speaker 1: I guess the whole outlived. I guess the robbing the
25:38
Speaker 1: banks had nothing to do with his bad reputation. To
25:42
Speaker 1: Raylene Linder, Raylene, what are the stories that have been
25:45
Speaker 1: passed down to you about your aunt Bonnie of Bunny
25:48
Speaker 1: and Clyde. Well, actually, in our family, it was not
25:53
Speaker 1: talked about it. It wasn't discussed. They had lived it,
25:58
Speaker 1: and when I came along old enough to hear anything,
26:03
Speaker 1: it was over and done and they were getting on
26:07
Speaker 1: with their life. So it actually wasn't the last two
26:11
Speaker 1: or three years of Aunt Belle Jean's life did she
26:15
Speaker 1: really come to talk about um some you know, some
26:19
Speaker 1: of the situations and and and uh read reasons and
26:25
Speaker 1: such that that that Bonnie chose that was her choice
26:30
Speaker 1: to go with Clyde, and uh she made her choice. Uh.
26:35
Speaker 1: There were uh many times when they went out to
26:39
Speaker 1: meet them on the roads, uh, to meet the family
26:42
Speaker 1: on the roads that uh even Clyde, but the family
26:46
Speaker 1: would try to talk Bonnie and to staying home while
26:50
Speaker 1: she still could, and she said that life without Clyde
26:56
Speaker 1: wouldn't be worth living, and so she made her choice
26:59
Speaker 1: to go with Clyde no matter what, knowing what the
27:02
Speaker 1: ultimate end was going to be. The whole family knew it,
27:06
Speaker 1: and so they lived and tried to meet them as
27:10
Speaker 1: often as they could because they knew that it wouldn't
27:14
Speaker 1: be a long, long term situation. That their time would
27:19
Speaker 1: would end and end like it did. That was actually
27:24
Speaker 1: the only way that it could end for them, and
27:26
Speaker 1: they had had come to accept it. I know that
27:31
Speaker 1: it was going to happen, and um, so they just um,
27:36
Speaker 1: you know, they loved Bonny and body was so close
27:40
Speaker 1: to my grandmother. Uh there, it was just unreal. I
27:44
Speaker 1: cannot phantom the choice that Bonny made to go along
27:50
Speaker 1: with the actions of Cride. But that's I guess that
27:55
Speaker 1: there was a true love, no matter what the circumstances
27:59
Speaker 1: of believed that that was one that was an absolute
28:04
Speaker 1: true love. You know, even during their lifetime they were
28:07
Speaker 1: depicted in the media one way, but I don't know
28:12
Speaker 1: that that's true because the reality of life on the road.
28:17
Speaker 1: While Bonnie Parker was present at over one hundred felonies
28:24
Speaker 1: during the two years she was with Clyde. I don't
28:28
Speaker 1: believe she was a cigar smoking, machine gun wielding person
28:33
Speaker 1: that you would see in the media. Now. There are
28:37
Speaker 1: police accounts that say she murdered cops, but those claims
28:42
Speaker 1: have been contradicted over and over with claims she was
28:47
Speaker 1: never seen shooting at a law officer. And the whole
28:50
Speaker 1: thing regarding the cigar was from that photo, a photo
28:55
Speaker 1: police found at an abandoned hideout that was taken in
29:00
Speaker 1: a joking moment, and that was released to the press.
29:05
Speaker 1: I don't know what her real life was like. I
29:09
Speaker 1: did know. I do know she smoked camels, but not cigars,
29:13
Speaker 1: for whatever that means. Bonnie Inclyde the myth or the reality,
29:18
Speaker 1: And what a great day to talk about it Valentine's Day.
29:22
Speaker 1: Take a listen. Bonnie and Clyde had been on a
29:24
Speaker 1: two year crime spree that left a trail of dead
29:27
Speaker 1: bodies in their way. They were a little more than
29:28
Speaker 1: on local curiosity until photos of the couple were discovered
29:32
Speaker 1: at a crime scene in nineteen thirty three. Overnight, the
29:35
Speaker 1: country became transfixed by the scandalous images, press accounts of
29:39
Speaker 1: improbable escapes, and they're illicit romance Bonnie Inclde, who people
29:43
Speaker 1: are sort of making up stories about or getting sightings of.
29:47
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, there are pictures, there are guns,
29:49
Speaker 1: and there's evidence. It was a nostop tope operation. Everybody
29:53
Speaker 1: was tuning into the radios, everybody was reading the papers,
29:55
Speaker 1: and actually it's almost like they were rooting them to
29:58
Speaker 1: get away. Bonnie and Clyde would join the ranks of
30:00
Speaker 1: other celebrity gangsters like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and
30:04
Speaker 1: Baby Faced Nelson, so called public enemies who emerged out
30:08
Speaker 1: of nowhere during the Great Depression to capture the country's
30:11
Speaker 1: imagination in a world where there was very little to
30:14
Speaker 1: get excited about. In summer nineteen thirty three, Bonnie Clyde
30:17
Speaker 1: were pretty big names. Everybody was talking about the criminals,
30:21
Speaker 1: the bad guys. But Clyde and Bonnie had the one
30:25
Speaker 1: thing the others didn't, the whole true romance and the
30:29
Speaker 1: sexy scandal. She says, I began to see a strange
30:32
Speaker 1: and terrifying change in the mind of my child. Bonnie
30:36
Speaker 1: has made a switch to investing in this persona in
30:40
Speaker 1: which what honor means is to stick to your man
30:44
Speaker 1: no matter what in June, a Kaufman grand jury set
30:47
Speaker 1: Bonnie free. Unwilling to believe that any woman would choose
30:51
Speaker 1: to accompany criminals of her own volition. Just days after
30:54
Speaker 1: her release, Bonnie did just that, taking their fate into
30:57
Speaker 1: their own hands. Bonnie Clyde, a revolving cast of ex
31:01
Speaker 1: cons that would make up the barrel Game, set out
31:04
Speaker 1: on the open road, burning a path through two dozen states,
31:08
Speaker 1: robbing gas stations and banks and grocery stores, often scoring
31:13
Speaker 1: just enough money to make it to the county line.
31:16
Speaker 1: They had to go to places where they weren't known,
31:19
Speaker 1: where they could more easily to commit cruns. Once they
31:21
Speaker 1: committed those crimes, they would move as quickly as possible
31:24
Speaker 1: to get far away from Dallas. They would go up
31:28
Speaker 1: through Oklahoma and Missouri. If I'd loved hitting banks in Iowa,
31:35
Speaker 1: they would go as far as Indiana, one case, all
31:37
Speaker 1: the way to Ohio. They once even did a western
31:40
Speaker 1: trip out to New Mexico. He told his mom, he said, Mom,
31:44
Speaker 1: he says, all the money in the world, I'm not
31:46
Speaker 1: gonna make me free. If all he was in a
31:49
Speaker 1: rogisted with getting down the road and live another day,
31:54
Speaker 1: there was no incentive for him to go straight whatsoever.
31:56
Speaker 1: Whereas he actually knew he was good at crime. He
32:00
Speaker 1: was good at stealing things. He was really good at driving.
32:02
Speaker 1: He was good at stealing cars. You were hearing an
32:05
Speaker 1: awesome PBS documentary about the legend of Bonnie and Clyde.
32:09
Speaker 1: And for Valentine's Day, we have managed to snag Buddy Barrow,
32:13
Speaker 1: the nephew of Clyde Barrow, and Raylene Linder, the niece
32:16
Speaker 1: of Bonnie Parker with me Kieran Stark, psychologist and director
32:20
Speaker 1: of the Cold Case Research Institute, Cheryl McCollum, to you,
32:24
Speaker 1: Buddy Barrow, the nephew of Clyde Barrow. And by the way, everybody,
32:30
Speaker 1: they are going to be this weekend, Cheryl, what's the
32:33
Speaker 1: name of your event this weekend? Bonnie and Clyde, She'll
32:36
Speaker 1: death do us part? Oh my goodness? And that is
32:39
Speaker 1: where and what time? At Manuel Tavern from eleven in
32:43
Speaker 1: the morning till two in the afternoon, a little Valentine's
32:45
Speaker 1: brunch this Sunday. And you know I'm going to be
32:49
Speaker 1: there in Atlanta with the twins who are obsessed with
32:53
Speaker 1: Bonnie and Clyde. To you, Buddy Barrow, what is your
32:57
Speaker 1: take on your uncle Clyde. Let me let me here something.
33:00
Speaker 1: I'm back up to something here. You know, we're talking
33:04
Speaker 1: about them when Bonnie had a you know, Clyde. He
33:08
Speaker 1: told Bonnie one time, he said he could have run
33:10
Speaker 1: off and left her at her mother's house and never
33:12
Speaker 1: came back. She told him then, she said, if you
33:15
Speaker 1: ever do that, you don't have to worry about some
33:18
Speaker 1: cop killing. He says, yea, because I'm gonna hunt you down.
33:20
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill you myself. And then there's another thing
33:23
Speaker 1: I asked. I asked a young couple one time, because
33:25
Speaker 1: I didn't understand good love at Clyde and Bonnie half
33:28
Speaker 1: for one another. And I said, well, you're you're you're
33:31
Speaker 1: a young couple. You're married. And I said, let me
33:33
Speaker 1: ask you something. I said, would you die for him?
33:36
Speaker 1: She looked at him, she said sorry, buster, And I said,
33:38
Speaker 1: I rest my case. Wow, Wow, okay, okay, Charon McCall.
33:44
Speaker 1: Let me remind you that you're still in law enforcement.
33:46
Speaker 1: You're on the other side. Here. I hear you rooting there.
33:49
Speaker 1: You know that's really interesting. Karen Start Psychologists. You can
33:52
Speaker 1: find her at Karen Start dot com. People were rooting
33:55
Speaker 1: for Bonnie and Clyde they Hey, you know what, I
33:58
Speaker 1: want you to hear something, Karen. You're not gonna believe
34:00
Speaker 1: they didn't just rob Banks. Listen. After the shootout in Iowa,
34:05
Speaker 1: Clyde was taking even greater risks to stay on the road,
34:08
Speaker 1: and now with Buck's death, he needed a new game.
34:14
Speaker 1: In January of nineteen thirty four, Bonnie and Clyde took
34:17
Speaker 1: part in an early morning raid of Eastam Prison that
34:20
Speaker 1: freed five inmates. It was a satisfying bit of revenge,
34:26
Speaker 1: but set off a chain of events that not even
34:28
Speaker 1: the great escape artist Clyde Barrow could he lose. So
34:32
Speaker 1: not only did they rob and automotive shops that was Clyde,
34:37
Speaker 1: but Banks and so forth really hitting at what they
34:40
Speaker 1: perceived to be corporate fat cats. They actually rated a
34:44
Speaker 1: prison and set fee some prisoners. So Kieran Stark, I
34:47
Speaker 1: understand why a lot of people were rooting for them.
34:50
Speaker 1: You can understand it. They were certainly romantic figures, and
34:54
Speaker 1: that's what's come down along the line. Nancy and I
34:57
Speaker 1: don't want a dishute shell, but I must because we're
35:01
Speaker 1: talking about the law. I mean, that's what you do,
35:04
Speaker 1: That's what Cheryl does, and even though they cut such
35:08
Speaker 1: beautiful figures, we'd love to see them in a movie.
35:12
Speaker 1: The truth of the matter is they were robbers, They
35:16
Speaker 1: killed people. The law was after them. So it's a
35:20
Speaker 1: great story. It's perfect for Valentine's Day, but we don't
35:24
Speaker 1: want to let them myth overtake the reality of who
35:27
Speaker 1: these two people really were. I'm kind of funny feeling.
35:30
Speaker 1: Cheryl McClellan wants to respond. I do, and you know
35:33
Speaker 1: I love both of y'all. You're You're absolutely right. I'm
35:36
Speaker 1: not discounting what they became. I'm simply saying, if you
35:41
Speaker 1: start your life on the devil's back porch, it shouldn't
35:44
Speaker 1: shock anybody you become a gun bringing out law. Of
35:48
Speaker 1: course they did, and I'm telling you during the Great Depression.
35:53
Speaker 1: That's what formed them, that's what made them. My concentration
35:57
Speaker 1: was this was a love story. Albeit I love the
36:01
Speaker 1: idea of the love story, Cheryl McCollum, but how do
36:05
Speaker 1: you reconcile their love story with their twelve murder victims.
36:10
Speaker 1: You don't reconcile it. You acknowledge it like Buddy and
36:13
Speaker 1: Raylene do. Every day it happens. But how did it happen,
36:18
Speaker 1: Why did it happen? And can't you be two people
36:21
Speaker 1: at the same time? Karen starts, So, you've got a
36:23
Speaker 1: woman that danced at center stage, you know, every night,
36:27
Speaker 1: taking a clothes off for money. But when she goes home,
36:29
Speaker 1: she's a good and loving mother. She's both of those things.
36:34
Speaker 1: And it's just true. And so to me, you recognize, Yes,
36:38
Speaker 1: they were outlaws, no question about it. Let me go
36:41
Speaker 1: to Buddy Barrow and Raylene Lender, the blood relatives of
36:45
Speaker 1: Clyde and Bonnie. Raylene weigh in on what you're hearing
36:51
Speaker 1: and how Bonny and Clyde have affected you. Well, let
36:56
Speaker 1: me say that they were they were outlaws yesterday. One
37:00
Speaker 1: thing about it. We do not at any time condone
37:03
Speaker 1: anything that Body and Clive did, and I want that known.
37:07
Speaker 1: They came from good, hard working families. The situations whatever
37:13
Speaker 1: caused them to get to the point that they did
37:17
Speaker 1: was their choices was there. They got into situations that
37:22
Speaker 1: they could not get out of. Body chose to stay
37:26
Speaker 1: with him. We do not. The family never has condoned
37:31
Speaker 1: what they did. They've accepted they had to accept what happened,
37:36
Speaker 1: what they did. They still loved them under all any circumstances,
37:42
Speaker 1: they still loved them. They were still their children there.
37:46
Speaker 1: So don't think for a minute that the family condones
37:51
Speaker 1: what they did or or feel proud of what they did,
37:56
Speaker 1: because the family did not. They came from good heart
38:00
Speaker 1: working family. What about it, Buddy Barrow, She's telling me
38:03
Speaker 1: the truth. You know, like I said, you're of a
38:06
Speaker 1: mother of a child. You know, she said she didn't
38:08
Speaker 1: really don't see no wrong in a child because she
38:11
Speaker 1: you know, she knew when she grew up, when he
38:13
Speaker 1: grew up. You know, he was a loving child. And
38:16
Speaker 1: circumstances changed that, and then they put themselves in a
38:19
Speaker 1: position to where they couldn't get out. One time, it
38:22
Speaker 1: was told me it was like a snowball going downhill.
38:24
Speaker 1: The factor it goes, the bigger gits and it was
38:27
Speaker 1: just no turning back. And my family never wanted to
38:32
Speaker 1: talk about this because it was it was hard on
38:35
Speaker 1: them for what they did, the lives that were lost.
38:38
Speaker 1: You know, they felt bad because people lost their lives.
38:42
Speaker 1: Cloud was blamed for many murders that his accomplidences committed.
38:47
Speaker 1: He tried to stop him from doing that. He wanted
38:50
Speaker 1: no gun play. But whenever they if they stayed in
38:54
Speaker 1: a motel or a hotel at one time or other
38:57
Speaker 1: than sleeping in the car. I know one time the
38:59
Speaker 1: story that Clyde and body were sleeping on the side
39:02
Speaker 1: of the road and I Offer pulled up beside him.
39:05
Speaker 1: He said, sir, you can't do this. You got to
39:07
Speaker 1: move on. Clyde said, yes, sir, he moved on. There
39:10
Speaker 1: was no problem. There was no you know, gunfire. But
39:13
Speaker 1: if that man pulled a weapon on him, then you
39:15
Speaker 1: got a different scenario. And he hated that some ad
39:20
Speaker 1: authority had been shoved down his throat after what he
39:23
Speaker 1: went through in prison. So we understand the things that
39:27
Speaker 1: caused him to do what he did, although we didn't
39:30
Speaker 1: agree with it. You know, there was better there's other
39:33
Speaker 1: ways to have handled it, but you know it was
39:37
Speaker 1: It was probably one of these decisions he made, and
39:40
Speaker 1: he made it. Well. What Buddy Barrow was referring to
39:44
Speaker 1: is Clyde was allegedly raped in prison, broke out and
39:48
Speaker 1: swore had never go back. This is what I knew.
39:53
Speaker 1: Their love was deep, their love was strong. They would
39:56
Speaker 1: do anything for each other. There was a plot to
39:59
Speaker 1: a us Bonnie and Clyde that played out in Louisiana.
40:03
Speaker 1: They drove into a trap, he and Bonnie killed by
40:06
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty bullets. Happy Valentine's Day, Nancy Grace
40:13
Speaker 1: Crime Stories, signing off goodbye friend,