Bonnie & Clyde

Though their exploits were romanticized, the Barrow gang was believed responsible for at least 23 murders, including two policemen, as well as numerous robberies and kidnappings. Discover the true story of the most famous outlaw couple in U.S. history -- Bonnie and Clyde.

After a botched robbery attempt, Bonnie was arrested and sent to prison. While there, she wrote poetry using gangster lingo she picked up from pulp magazines and Hollywood. When she read the poems, her mother "began to see a strange and terrifying change in the mind of my child." Bonnie & Clyde premieres January 19 at 9/8c on PBS American Experience.

During the Great Depression, gangsters became unlikely heroes. As film historian Jeanine Basinger notes in this clip, "The gangster figure represented somebody at the bottom of the social scale condemned to a life of nothing, who did not accept that as their fate and who found a way to change it, which was through violence." Bonnie & Clyde premieres January 19 at 9/8c on PBS.

Even though Clyde Barrow claimed to prefer to run than fight, he amassed a large arsenal, including a Browning Automatic Rifle. Between April 1932 and January 1933, Barrow and his gang were responsible for the murders of four men, including a Fort Worth deputy. "Bonnie & Clyde" premieres Jan. 19 at 9/8c on PBS American Experience.