Bonnie and Clyde

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Texan Bonnie Parker (1910-1934) barely married her high school friend when he was sentenced to five years in prison for murder. Bonnie was 19 and thought she deserved more: like Clyde Barrow. It was love at first sight again. But Clyde was behind bars too. It was during the Great Depression caused by the 1929 stock market crash. People lost their jobs, became impoverished, inflation and crime increased. Bonnie helped her lover escape with smuggling to jail. Since then, they have been running through the American Midwest in stolen cars, raiding grocery stores, gas stations and robbing hated banks that many blamed for the economic crisis. Since the couple committed crimes in different states of the United States, they became a case not only for the FBI, but also for the media. As is often the case, when criminals deceive the police and tell the media about it with ironic comments, a kind of “media partnership” ensues that satisfies one’s narcissism and the other’s craving for more circulation.

When Bonnie and Clyde forgot their camera during one of their hasty escapes, the photos went viral and turned the gun-posing criminals into celebrities overnight. They reveled in their sudden “Robin Hood” fame. Bonnie sent poems to the press (“We must steal to eat”), Clyde thanked Henry Ford for stealing an eight-cylinder Fordor, because he outdid any police car with him. On May 23, 1934, the couple were ambushed and riddled with 167 bullets. More than 20,000 people attended the funeral. Newspaper sellers donated the largest wreath.

Although Bonnie and Clyde killed 14 people, their popularity only waned when a newspaper showed a police officer’s widow grieving at her dead husband’s grave. It’s only now dawning on many that the Robin Hood of the 1930s wouldn’t shoot a gas station worker in the head for a four-dollar tank of gas.

“Bonnie and Clyde” has survived as a synonym for the conspiring couple.

Claude Cueny (67) is a writer based in Basel. He writes to Blick every second Friday. Most recently, his thriller Dirty Talk was released.

Source: Blick