By August 5, 1932, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were reunited, after her release from jail. While Bonnie returned to her mother’s house, Clyde and his gang headed to Stringtown, Oklahoma, stopping at an outdoor dance to score some booze and steal a car. Such suspicious activity attracted the attention of the local sheriff, C. G. Maxwell, and his deputy, Eugene Moore. When the lawmen approached the strange visitors, they were quickly met with gunfire. Maxwell was seriously wounded, and Moore was killed.

The day after and on the run, Clyde and his associate, Raymond Hamilton, grabbed Bonnie and headed to Carlsbad, New Mexico, hoping to lay low at her aunt’s farm. However, Carlsbad was a hotbed of car theft activity, and the car Clyde was driving was stolen — which didn’t go unnoticed by Chief Deputy Sheriff Joe Johns. When the lawman confronted the trio, chaos erupted. Bonnie, Clyde, and Hamilton quickly took Johns as their prisoner and left the farm. While the deputy was eventually let go 15 miles outside of San Antonio, the shooting in Stringtown completely altered Clyde’s reputation from a run-of-the-mill roaming bandit to a hardened and despicable cop killer.

Despite the brutal murder of Deputy Moore, Bonnie remained steadfastly loyal to Clyde, frequently defending his heinous actions to friends and family. “They made him what he is today. He used to be a nice boy. … Folks like us haven’t got a chance” (per “Go Down Together”).