Everything changed for Parker the following year. ThoughtCo states that Parker met Clyde Barrow in January of 1930 at a friend’s place and they hit it off immediately. Then, the tone for their relationship was set almost as fast. Later that year Barrow was arrested, and just two months into his two-year sentence he escaped with the help of a gun that Parker had secretly sent to him. Barrow was caught but paroled two years later, in 1932, and it was then the story of Bonnie and Clyde began in earnest.

At first, Parker did not take a direct part in the robberies of the Barrow Gang, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave her new love behind and became swept up in it all. According to Biography, she deemed Clyde her soulmate, though her marriage to Thornton endured. The life of an outlaw is dangerous, tragic, and short, and so it was for Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, as well as Roy Thornton.