4. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow
Bonnie Parker was married, wearing her husband’s wedding ring when she died alongside Clyde Barrow in a fusillade of gunfire. Known to the world as Bonnie and Clyde, the couple became instant legends (they were already mythologized by the press), though a more odd couple would be hard to find. Bonnie was married (to a Roy Thornton, in prison at the time of her death), had never been in legal trouble herself before meeting Barrow (though her judgment of men’s character was obviously shaky), and was in her own mind at least a poet of talent.
Barrow was already a career criminal who had at one time chopped off his own toes to avoid a work detail while in prison. The pair’s murder and robbery spree made them famous during the height of the depression, with some describing them as modern-day Robin Hoods, robbing only the wealthy. In truth, they were murderous thugs. Parker herself, and several biographers and apologists since, wrote of her love for Clyde Barrow, though as noted she was wearing her wedding ring at the time of her death, and though she died alongside Clyde and is forever linked to him, the couple were never married. In fact, many biographers of the latter believed him to have been impotent, making their relationship even more difficult to comprehend.
