May 23, 1934
Bienville Parish, Louisiana
Infamous outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are killed in an ambush
The two were notorious for their robberies and murders and grew to a celebrity status among the general population, which concerned Bonnie and Clyde as hiding became much more difficult. In June 1933 things became even more difficult when Bonnie suffered third degree burn on her leg following a car accident which caused her muscles to contract and the leg to “draw up.”
The outlaws were ambushed as they were driving at high speeds. Texas officers unloaded 130 rounds into the vehicle. The noise was so loud, the officers experienced temporary deafness for hours afterwards.
Word of the ambush quickly spread and townspeople flocked to the site to obtain macabre souvenirs: one man tried to remove Clyde’s trigger finger, another man attempted to cut Clyde’s ear off, a woman cut and took a lock of Bonnie’s hair and a piece of her bloodied dress, others collected shards of glass or spent shell casings. The coroner broke up the crowd which he called a “circus-like atmosphere.”
