He chopped off his big toe with an axe. Chopped off some of his second toe too. This maimed him for life, and yet the prison may still have forced him to work, which would now be even harder for him. We’ll never know for certain, because just six days after the chopping, Clyde was paroled, thanks to an unrelated appeal from his mother.
Clyde could drive even with his new pointlessly hobbled foot (though, he now never wore shoes while behind the wheel). One night in 1933, with Bonnie in the car with him, he drove right through a wooden barricade at 70 miles an hour. The car crashed, and battery acid spilled on Bonnie’s leg. Clyde spent days inexpertly treating the injury himself while delaying getting Bonnie to the hospital. Once real doctors finally got their hands on her leg, it was too late for a full recovery, and she could never really walk unaided again.
Now, we’re not saying a little immobility was why the couple failed to escape the cops the following year and wound up shot 130 times. But it couldn’t have helped.
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For more on Bonnie and Clyde, see also:
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Top image: Library of Congress