Florida

This ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ committed crimes in 4 states. It didn’t end like the movie

By Howard Cohen
This composite file document released by Perry, Ga., Police Department shows photos of Blake Fitzgerald and Brittany Nicole Harper of Joplin, Mo., who were wanted in connection with a series of robberies and kidnappings in Georgia and Alabama. The search for a Missouri couple suspected in a series of robberies and abductions across the South ended in a shootout in the Florida Panhandle early Friday, Feb. 5, 2016, that left the man dead and the woman wounded, authorities said.
This composite file document released by Perry, Ga., Police Department shows photos of Blake Fitzgerald and Brittany Nicole Harper of Joplin, Mo., who were wanted in connection with a series of robberies and kidnappings in Georgia and Alabama. The search for a Missouri couple suspected in a series of robberies and abductions across the South ended in a shootout in the Florida Panhandle early Friday, Feb. 5, 2016, that left the man dead and the woman wounded, authorities said. Perry Police Department AP

“Bonnie and Clyde” sagas seldom end well for the crime-committing couple.

Brittany Nicole Harper, the surviving half of a duo dubbed “the modern day Bonnie and Clyde” for their multi-state spree of robberies and kidnappings, was sentenced Tuesday in Pensacola to 20 years in Florida state prison.

The Missouri woman, 32, pleaded no contest to numerous charges including robbery with a firearm, home invasion robbery, three counts of false imprisonment and grand theft auto, according to the state attorney’s office, reported the Pensacola News Journal.

Harper’s crimes in Florida’s Escambia County were at the tail end of a four-state spree she went on with her boyfriend Blake Fitzgerald in Missouri, Alabama and Georgia between Jan. 26 and Feb. 5, 2016.

Fitzgerald was killed during a shootout with police in Milton, Florida, and Harper was taken into custody.

The spree encompassed the theft of a Cadillac in Missouri, the kidnapping of a hotel clerk in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, using his car, which they abandoned when they released the man. Fitzgerald reportedly then entered a home, forced a woman inside at gunpoint into her car, and they drove off to Birmingham. The woman was released unharmed.

The couple also is said to have robbed a convenience store in Georgia, kidnapped its clerk, attempted to rob a McDonald’s, committed an armed robbery at a Famous Footwear store, and pulled a home invasion on a Pensacola family before stealing their car. The spree ended when Escambia County sheriff deputies took chase and captured Harper in Santa Rosa County where Fitzgerald died.

Harper’s not going to a Florida prison just yet. She still faces charges in the other states. Her next appearance is Nov. 9 at U.S. District Court in Birmingham.

The “Bonnie and Clyde” handle entered pop culture infamy in 1967 thanks to the success of the film of the same name that starred Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the real-life Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker who robbed and killed their way through the central United States during the early 1930s. Both were killed in a shootout with Louisiana police in May 1934. Barrow was 25, Parker was 23.

Beatty and Dunaway were reunited at the 2017 Oscars, a presentation that did not go well when Dunaway misread the winner of Best Picture, an award that would go to the Miami-made “Moonlight.”

Howard Cohen: 305-376-3619, @HowardCohen

This story was originally published October 18, 2017 at 10:45 AM with the headline "This ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ committed crimes in 4 states. It didn’t end like the movie."

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