John Dillinger

One of the most famous bank robbers in history, he was born John Herbert Dillinger on June 22, 1903, to a grocery store owner named John Wilson Dillinger and his wife Mollie (the family also included an older sister, Audrey). By all accounts the Dillingers were a normal "all-American" family, but the normality was broken when John was three and his mother passed away (her death has been ascribed to a variety of causes, but the best guess is that she died of pneumonia). With his mother gone and his sister getting married and moving out a few years later, John was left alone with his father, who was caring but not very affectionate. In that kind of environment young John, a naturally rambunctious boy, began to rebel and get into all sorts of mischief, including shoplifting, vandalism and even stealing coal from train cars and selling it to neighbors. In order to curb his son's wild behavior, as well as to fulfill his own need for companionship, John Sr. married Elizabeth Fields and moved the family back to her hometown of Mooresville, IN, but the change of scenery did little to deter John's behavior. He was still in and out of trouble, and by the time he was 16 he had dropped out of high school and taken a job at a machine shop. Even as a young adult, though, John was irresponsible and in 1921 he was caught by a policeman in Indianpolis trying to steal a car. He managed to elude the officer in a foot pursuit, fled home and joined the Navy. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Utah (a ship that would later be sunk by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor). Unable to stay out of trouble even in the Navy, he soon deserted and returned home, and not long afterwards in 1924 he married Beryl Hovius and took another job. He was a neglectful and sometimes abusive husband and an absentee worker, and hooked up with an ex-con named Ed Singleton. They hatched a plan to mug an elderly grocer named Frank Morgan, who was known to carry his weekly cash and receipts with him to the bank after his store closed on Saturday night. The plan was for John to rob the old man at gunpoint on the street and hop into a getaway car driven by Singleton, which was parked at a nearby curb. However, when John confronted Morgan, the old man fought back, knocking the gun out of John's hand and causing it to fire. Thinking he had accidentally shot the old man (which he hadn't), John fled to the pre-arranged getaway spot, only to find that Singleton wasn't there. He fled on foot but was caught two days later. The incident aroused public indignation, and after a trial and conviction, the judge gave John 10 years for assault with a deadly weapon (he had tried pistol-whipping the old man) and 20 years for attempted robbery, despite the fact that this was John's first crime and he had pleaded guilty and confessed freely to the crime. Embittered, Dillinger vowed revenge. He was sent to Indiana's Pendleton Reformatory, where he hooked up with experienced thieves Harry Pierpont and Homer Van Meter. There John learned a little bit about crime. In 1929 Beryl divorced him and he was denied parole. He was later transferred to the reformatory at Michigan City, where he was reunited with the recently transferred Pierpont and Van Meter and introduced to Charles Makley, Russell Clark and John "Red" Hamilton, all professional robbers. While John learned the art of bank robbery, the cons groomed him to help plan their escape from prison. In May of 1933 he used the fact that his stepmother Lizzy was dying as a reason to ask for parole, which was granted. He hung around his family farm enough to help his father for a while and to make a positive impression on the townsfolk before embarking on his life of crime. He hooked up with a group of petty thieves who were associated with his jailhouse buddy Pierpoint and pulled off a string of grocery-store heists before robbing his first bank in Daleville, IN, in July of 1933 (his take was $3,500). He then embarked on a series of bank robberies in Indiana and Ohio, using the proceeds to buy guns and bribe key guards at the Michigan City prison in order to help his friends Pierpoine and Van Meter escape. The escape went off without a hitch in September of 1933. Pierpoint and Van Meter got away scot-free, but Dillinger was captured by police in an Ohio boarding house and taken to Lima to be held in the local jail. Learning of Dillinger's capture, Pierpont and the others (minus Van Meter, who struck out on his own after the escape) broke John out, killing an elderly deputy sheriff in the process. Reunited, the full-strength gang was one of the most efficient and professional of the era due to their careful planning and execution of robberies, their tactic of avoiding confrontations with police and their calm and respectful manner towards their victims, which earned the gang the moniker "The Gentleman Bandits" and turned handsome and dashing ringleader Dillinger into a household name. From the fall of 1933 and into the winter, the gang robbed banks in Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin, using Chicago as a base of operations. While living there, John fell for a party girl named Evelyn "Billie" Frechette, who would become his lifelong companion. In December of 1933 the gang decided to take a break from the "heat" caused by law enforcement and went on vacation in Miami. In January of 1934 they decided to temporarily split up, with Pierpont, Clark and Makley heading for Tucson, AZ, and Dillinger and "Red" Hamilton heading back to Chicago. It was there that John committed his one and only murder. During the robbery of the East Chicago (Indiana) bank, an alarm went off, and the arrival of police forced Dillinger and Hamilton to take hostages to escape. As they were leaving the bank, a patrolman named Patrick O'Malley fired at the exposed Dillinger, only to have his bullets bounce of the bandit's bulletproof vest. In a fit of anger, Dillinger--carrying a Thompson submachine gun--shot and killed O'Malley. The resulting gun battle with other officers resulted in Hamilton being wounded before the pair managed to escape. Once Red was tucked away in a safe house where he could get medical aid, Dillinger reunited with the others in Tucson. Unbeknownst to Dillinger, however, Tucson police had taken notice of Pierpont, Makley and Clark, whose fancy clothes, flashy girlfriends and heavy suitcases (which carried their guns and robbery proceeds) aroused their suspicion. When police discovered their true identities they quickly arrested the gang, and when Dillinger arrived in Tucson he was arrested, too. Extradited back to Indiana to stand trial for the murder of Officer O'Malley, Dillinger was found guilty at a lengthy trial (in which his defense was that he wasn't in Chicago at the time), sentenced to death and returned to Michigan City Prison, where he was placed on Death Row. However, in transit to Michigan City he was held overnight at a jail in Crown Point, IN, where he pulled off one of the great jailbreaks of all time by carving a "pistol" out of a bar of soap and coloring it black with shoe polish, fooling his jailers into thinking it was a real gun (adding insult to injury, he escaped in the town sheriff's personal car). Although the fake gun story may be apocryphal, it was a fact that the most notorious criminal in America was on the loose again. Reuniting with Van Meter and Hamilton, and joining forces with the infamous Baby Face Nelson (born Lester Gillis) and his gang, the new "Super Gang"--as the press had dubbed them--robbed banks in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. This time, though, they were dealing with more than local police. Since their robbery spree had crossed state lines--a federal offense--they were now subject to pursuit by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Despite the fact that every lawman in the country was looking for him and that his picture was on every magazine and newspaper, John defied the logic of "laying low" by making a surprise visit to his father and relatives during a Sunday gathering at the family farm while FBI agents had the place under surveillance (he even posed for a now-famous photo in which he laughed and held a tommy gun in one hand and a wooden gun in the other). Eventually settling in St. Paul, MN, the gang laid low between heists until the FBI found them in early April of 1934. Dillinger, his girlfriend Billie and Van Meter had to shoot their way out of an apartment building to escape FBI agents, who had shown up acting on a tip. Two days later gang member Eddie Green was shot and killed by the FBI. Not long after that the agents struck again, this time nabbing Billie at a bar where John was supposed to meet an underworld contact, not knowing the contact was setting him up for capture by the FBI. Dillinger knew that they finally had to "lay law" and arranged with an underworld contact of Baby Face Nelson to stay at a resort lodge in Wisconsin called Little Bohemia, which was owned by a former Chicago saloonkeeper. The man, despite initial reservations about having the gang stay at his facility, raised no objections. However, his wife wasn't as accommodating. She managed to slip a letter out of town to the FBI agent in charge of the Chicago office, Melvin Purvis. On April 22, 1934, Purvis and a squad of agents and local cops descended on the lodge. When the lodge owner's dogs began barking, the startled officers, believing they'd been discovered, rushed the house at the same moment three locals were driving away after having eaten at the restaurant. Believing them to be fleeing gang members, Purvis ordered agents to fire at their oncoming car. One man was killed and his two friends were wounded. Meanwhile, Dillinger, Nelson and the others escaped. Before getting out of the area Nelson, cornered by agents at a nearby lodge, shot his way out of the trap, killing one FBI agent and a local police officer. A statewide alert was issued for the gang, and not long afterwards Dillinger, Van Meter and gang member Red Hamilton ran a roadblock in Minneapolis. Dillinger and Van Meter escaped without injury, but Hamilton was shot and killed. A few weeks later gang member Tommy Carroll died in a shootout with police in Iowa. For the next several weeks the gang laid low and avoided each other, with only Dillinger and Van Meter running together. Eventually the two outlaws were so afraid of being spotted that they went to an underworld doctor in Chicago to have plastic surgery performed to change their face. The doctor botched the operation--an associate commented that they looked like they had been mauled by rabid dogs--the two were convinced that they would no longer be easily recognized. Out of desperation what was left of the original gang--Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Van Meter, along with Nelson's associates Johnny Chase and "Fatso" Negri, robbed a bank in South Bend, IN, on June 30, 1934. It would be the last heist for any of them. They had hoped the haul would be enough to finance an escape to Canada or Mexico, but it was only enough to keep them in hiding or on the run from ever-closing lawmen--the FBI had just declared Dillinger "America's First Public Enemy #1". While the others hit the road, John settled in Chicago, living under the alias of "Jimmy Lawrence, a clerk for the Chicago Board of Trade" in a boarding house owned by bordello madam Anna Sage, an illegal immigrant from Romania. Dilliner even began dating one of Anna's girls, Polly Hamilton. However, if he thought he was safe and secure, he was wrong. Sage, whose real name was Ana Cumpanas, was facing deportation by the INS for her numerous prostitution arrests. Desperate to stay in America, she called the FBI and made a deal: She'd set up Dillinger to be arrested and the FBI would intercede on her behalf with Immigrfation and Naturalization Service (INS) officials. Purvis agreed to the terms. On the evening of July 22, 1934, Anna called Purvis and told him that she, Polly Hamilton and Dillinger would be going to see a movie at the nearby Biograph Theater (Manhattan Melodrama (1934), with William Powell and Clark Gable). Purvis assembled a squad and headed to the theater. On that sweltering summer night, Purvis and his assistant, Sam Cowley, positioned agents around the theater with Purvis stationed by the door to alert the other agents by lighting a cigar upon seeing Sage (they didn't know what Dillinger looked like after his surgery). When the movie let out, Purvis spotted Anna, whose orange dress looked red under the lights of the awning--thus giving birth to the "Woman In Red" --and lit his cigar. Two nearby FBI agents muscled their way through the crowd of exiting patrons. Just as they were coming up behind Dillinger, he spotted them and made a run for it. Seeing him desperately groping for a gun in his pants pocket, the two agents opened fire. Mortally wounded, Dillinger stumbled forward and fell face down in the mouth of a nearby alley while Polly Hamilton, who may not have known who "Jimmy" really was, screamed hysterically. Only 31 years old, the infamous John Dillinger was dead. Even in death, however, Dillinger still managed to captivate the nation. When the news hit the radio waves, friends called friends saying, "Did you hear what happened?". Newspapers carrying the story were instantly sold out. His corpse was taken to The Alexian Brothers Hospital in Chicago, who put it on display for several days so people could come in and look at the slain outlaw like he was an art exhibit. Finally his body was returned to his father, who buried his notorious son in the local cemetery in Mooresville, Indiana. Before the dirt was shoveled onto John's coffin, cement was poured in to prevent treasure seekers from robbing Dillinger's grave. John Dillinger continues to fascinate the public, with his good looks, cocky attitude, daring robberies and fantastic escapes. He has been immortalized in folk songs, books, television and movies. He has gone down in history as one of the most famous criminals who has ever lived.