The Grisly Story Behind Bonnie And Clyde's Fatal Bloodbath (2024)

The Bloody Death Of Bonnie And Clyde

On the evening of May 21, 1934, a posse of six police officers from Texas and Louisiana set up an ambush on a rural road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. They were ready to take out Bonnie and Clyde for good.

In the months leading up to the ambush, the authorities had heavily intensified their focus on the duo. Back in November 1933, a Dallas grand jury had issued a warrant for their arrest. One of their gang members, W.D. Jones, had been arrested in Dallas in September and had identified Bonnie and Clyde as the perpetrators of several crimes.

And after the murder of a man in Texas a few months later, another warrant was issued. A farmer who claimed to have witnessed the murder said that Bonnie had held the gun and laughed as the man died. Although the witness may have exaggerated Bonnie’s involvement, this changed the public’s perception of her. Previously, she was seen primarily as a bystander.

Unsurprisingly, the farmer’s account made several headlines, and police in Texas offered a $1,000 reward for the pair’s bodies — not their capture.

Now, the police were ready to act.

To kill the infamous couple, authorities trained their sights on a known accomplice of theirs named Henry Methvin. He had family in Bienville Parish. And authorities suspected that Methvin, Bonnie, and Clyde would head to the Methvin house if they got separated.

They enlisted Methvin’s father, whom Bonnie and Clyde knew, to wait on the side of the road as bait. Then, they waited. And waited. Finally, around 9 a.m. on May 23, the police saw Clyde’s stolen Ford V8 speeding down the road.

Upon seeing Methvin’s father parked on the side of the road, Bonnie and Clyde took the bait. They pulled over, presumably to ask him for help.

Then, before they had time to get out of the car, the police officers opened fire. Clyde was killed instantly by a shot to the head. One of the officers recounted hearing Bonnie scream as she realized he’d been hit.

The police kept firing. They emptied their entire supply of ammunition into the car, firing about 130 rounds in all. By the time the smoke cleared, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were dead. Bonnie was 23 years old. Clyde was 24.

The Grisly Aftermath: Photos Of Bonnie And Clyde’s Death Scene

The scene of Bonnie and Clyde’s death quickly descended into chaos.

Police struggled to beat back looters who were determined to snatch a souvenir. One man took pieces of Bonnie’s bloodstained dress and another tried to cut off Clyde’s ear. By the time the authorities came to remove the bodies, there was a massive crowd of people around the corpses.

Shortly after Bonnie and Clyde’s death, the coroner stated that Bonnie had been shot 26 times and Clyde had been shot 17 times. However, some researchers have since claimed that they were actually shot more than 50 times each. The undertaker even reported that he had difficulty embalming the bodies due to the large number of bullet holes.

Indeed, they had died so brutally that two jurors later became nauseated after looking at the photos of Bonnie and Clyde’s death scene.

In the aftermath, the police faced some criticism for not calling out a warning before they opened fire on the couple. But according to the officers, they were determined to not give the pair a chance to escape — or fire back at the lawmen. As two of the officers later stated:

“Each of us six officers had a shotgun and an automatic rifle and pistols. We opened fire with the automatic rifles. They were emptied before the car got even with us. Then we used shotguns. There was smoke coming from the car, and it looked like it was on fire. After shooting the shotguns, we emptied the pistols at the car, which had passed us and ran into a ditch about 50 yards on down the road. It almost turned over. We kept shooting at the car even after it stopped. We weren’t taking any chances.”

To that point, it certainly appeared that the two outlaws were prepared to defend themselves.

After their death, police found multiple weapons inside their stolen car, including rifles, shotguns, revolvers, pistols, and 3,000 rounds of ammunition. And Bonnie died with a gun held on her lap.

The Enduring Legacy Of The Criminal Duo

In life, Bonnie and Clyde were inseparable. But in death, that was not the case. Though they had both expressed a desire to be buried together after they died, Bonnie’s family wouldn’t allow it. Bonnie and Clyde were both laid to rest in Dallas, Texas — but they were buried in separate cemeteries.

However, the enduring legacy of Bonnie and Clyde’s story binds them together for eternity. People remain enthralled by this criminal couple’s story — their relationship, their violent crimes, and their bloody demise. And eerily, Bonnie and Clyde’s death photos continue to fascinate the public.

In the aftermath of their death in 1934, Clyde’s stolen Ford V8 — often dubbed the “death car” — made its rounds across the country. Riddled with bullet holes and bloodstains, it was a popular tourist attraction displayed at fairs, amusem*nt parks, and flea markets for almost 40 years, before it ultimately settled at Whiskey Pete’s Hotel and Casino in Primm, Nevada.

In 1967, the notorious duo got a fresh boost of celebrity thanks to the release of the Oscar-winning movie Bonnie and Clyde. In the film, the couple is glamorously depicted by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

More recently in 2019, they were portrayed yet again in the Netflix movie The Highwaymen — proving that the public’s fascination with Bonnie and Clyde hasn’t faded, even though nearly a century has passed since they died.

Today, the Bonnie and Clyde death scene is eerily quiet. A stone marker lays out the facts of their demise in bare-bone details: “At this site May 23, 1934 Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were killed by law enforcement officials.”

After reading about Bonnie and Clyde’s death, check out the female gangsters who ruled the underworld during the 1930s. Then, learn about some of the most infamous gangsters of the 1920s.

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