John Dillinger
John Herbert Dillinger was an American gangster during the Great Depression. He commanded the Dillinger Gang, which was accused of robbing twenty-four banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times and escaped twice. He was charged with but not convicted of the murder of East Chicago, Indiana, police officer William O'Malley, who shot Dillinger in his bulletproof vest during a shootout; it was the only time Dillinger was charged with homicide.
Dillinger courted publicity. The media printed exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality, and described him as a Robin Hood-type figure. In response, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation, used Dillinger as justification to evolve the BOI into the Federal Bureau of Investigation, developing more sophisticated investigative techniques as weapons against organized crime.
After evading police in four states for almost a year, Dillinger was wounded in a gunfight and went to his father's home to recover. His Michigan hideout was in Charlevoix, Michigan. He returned to Chicago in July 1934 and sought refuge in a brothel owned by Ana Cumpănaș, who later informed authorities of his whereabouts. On July 22, 1934, local and federal law-enforcement officers closed in on the Biograph Theater. When BOI agents moved to arrest Dillinger as he left the theater, he attempted to flee but was fatally shot; the lethal use of force by the agents would eventually be ruled justifiable homicide.
Early life
Family and background
John Dillinger was born on June 22, 1903, at 2053 Cooper Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, the younger of two children born to John Wilson Dillinger and Mary Ellen "Mollie" Lancaster. His paternal grandfather, Mathias Dillinger, immigrated to the U.S. in 1854 from, a village of Wallerfangen in the Saar Region of Prussia due to poverty and fears of conscription.Dillinger's parents had married on August 23, 1887. His father was a grocer by trade and, reportedly, a harsh man. In an interview with reporters, Dillinger said that his father was firm in his discipline and believed in the adage "spare the rod and spoil the child". His mother died in 1907, just before his fourth birthday.
That same year, Dillinger's older sister Audrey married Emmett "Fred" Hancock, in a marriage that produced seven children. She cared for her brother for several years until their father remarried in 1912 to Elizabeth "Lizzie" Fields ; they had three children.
Formative years and marriage
As a teenager, Dillinger was frequently in trouble for fighting and petty theft; he was also noted for his "bewildering personality" and bullying of smaller children. He quit school to work in an Indianapolis machine shop. Fearing that the city was corrupting his son, Dillinger's father relocated the family to Mooresville, Indiana, in 1921. Despite his new rural life, however, Dillinger's wild and rebellious behavior was unchanged. In 1922 he was arrested for auto theft, and his relationship with his father deteriorated.In 1923, Dillinger's troubles resulted in him enlisting in the United States Navy, where he was a petty officer third class machinery repairman assigned aboard the battleship. He deserted when his ship was docked in Boston a few months into his service, and was eventually dishonorably discharged.
Dillinger returned to Mooresville, where he met Beryl Ethel Hovious. The two married on April 12, 1924. Despite Dillinger's attempts to settle down, he found it difficult finding a job. He subsequently began planning a robbery with his friend, ex-convict Ed Singleton. Hovious divorced him on June 20, 1929, while he was incarcerated, an event which he admitted broke his heart and further drove him to crime.
Dillinger and Singleton robbed a Mooresville grocery store, stealing $50. During the robbery, Dillinger struck a victim on the head with a machine bolt wrapped in a cloth, and carried a gun which, although it discharged, hit no one. While leaving the scene, the criminals were seen by a minister who recognized the two men and reported them to the police. They were arrested the next day. Singleton pleaded not guilty, but after Dillinger's father discussed the matter with Morgan County prosecutor Omar O'Harrow, his father convinced Dillinger to confess to the crime and plead guilty without retaining a defense attorney.
Dillinger was convicted of assault and battery with intent to rob, and conspiracy to commit a felony. He expected a lenient sentence of probation as a result of his father's discussion with O'Harrow but was sentenced instead to ten to twenty years in prison. Dillinger's father told reporters he regretted his advice and was appalled by the sentence, pleading with the judge to shorten the sentence without success. En route to Mooresville to testify against Singleton, Dillinger briefly escaped his captors but was apprehended within a few minutes. Singleton had a change of venue and was sentenced to a jail term of two to fourteen years. He was killed on September 2, 1937, when he fell asleep on railroad tracks while drunk.
Prison time
Incarcerated at Indiana Reformatory and Indiana State Prison between 1924 and 1933, Dillinger developed a criminal lifestyle. Upon being admitted to prison, he was quoted as saying, "I will be the meanest bastard you ever saw when I get out of here." His physical examination at the prison showed that he had gonorrhea, treatment of which at the time was painful. He became resentful against society because of his long prison sentence and befriended other criminals, including seasoned bank robbers Harry "Pete" Pierpont, Charles Makley, Russell Clark and Homer Van Meter, who taught Dillinger how to be a successful criminal. The men planned heists that they would commit soon after they were released. Dillinger also studied Herman Lamm's meticulous bank-robbing system and used it extensively throughout his criminal career.Dillinger's father began a public campaign to have him released and was able to obtain 188 signatures on a petition. On May 10, 1933, after serving nine and a half years, Dillinger was paroled. Released at the depths of the Great Depression, Dillinger, with little prospect of finding employment, immediately returned to crime.
On June 21, 1933, Dillinger committed his first bank robbery, stealing $10,000 from a bank in New Carlisle, Ohio. On August 14 he robbed a bank in Bluffton, Ohio. Tracked by police from Dayton, he was captured and later transferred to Allen County jail in Lima to be indicted in connection to the Bluffton robbery. After searching him before putting him into the prison, the police discovered a document which appeared to be a prison escape plan. They demanded Dillinger tell them what the document meant, but he refused.
Earlier, Dillinger had helped conceive a plan to enable the escape of Pierpont, Clark and six other prison acquaintances. He had friends smuggle guns into their cells, which they used to escape four days after Dillinger's capture. The group that formed, known as "the First Dillinger Gang", consisted of Pierpont, Clark, Makley, Ed Shouse, Harry Copeland and John "Red" Hamilton, a member of the Herman Lamm Gang. Pierpont, Clark and Makley arrived in Lima on October 12, 1933, where they impersonated Indiana State Police officers, claiming they had come to extradite Dillinger to Indiana. When the sheriff, Jess Sarber, asked for their credentials, Pierpont shot Sarber dead, then released Dillinger from his house. The four men escaped back to Indiana, where they joined the rest of the gang.
Bank robberies
Dillinger is known to have participated with the Dillinger Gang in twelve bank robberies, between June 21, 1933, and June 30, 1934.Evelyn Frechette
met Dillinger in October 1933, and they began a relationship the following month. After Dillinger's death, Billie was offered money for her story and wrote a memoir for the Chicago Herald- Examiner in August 1934.Escape from Crown Point, Indiana
On January 25, 1934, Dillinger and his gang were captured in Tucson, Arizona. Dillinger was extradited to Indiana and escorted back by Matt Leach, the Chief of the Indiana State Police. He was taken to Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana, and jailed for charges for the murder of police officer William O'Malley, who was killed during a Dillinger gang bank robbery in East Chicago on January 15, 1934.Local police boasted to area newspapers that the jail was escape-proof and had posted extra guards as a precaution. However, on Saturday, March 3, 1934, Dillinger was able to escape during morning exercises with fifteen other inmates. Dillinger produced a pistol, catching deputies and guards by surprise, and was able to leave the premises without firing a shot. Almost immediately afterwards conjecture began whether the gun Dillinger displayed was real or not. According to Deputy Ernest Blunk, Dillinger had escaped using a real pistol. FBI files, on the other hand, indicate that Dillinger used a carved fake pistol. Sam Cahoon, a trustee whom Dillinger took hostage in the jail, also believed Dillinger had carved the gun, using a razor and some shelving in his cell. In another version, according to an unpublished interview with Dillinger's attorney, Louis Piquett, investigator Art O'Leary claimed to have snuck the gun in himself.
On March 16, Herbert Youngblood, who escaped from Crown Point alongside Dillinger, was shot dead by police in Port Huron, Michigan. Deputy Sheriff Charles Cavanaugh was mortally wounded in the gunfight and later died. Before his death, Youngblood told officers Dillinger was in Port Huron, and officers immediately began a fruitless search for the escaped man. An Indiana newspaper reported that Youngblood later retracted the story and said he did not know where Dillinger was at that time, as he had parted with him soon after their escape.
Dillinger was indicted by a grand jury, and the Bureau of Investigation organized a nationwide manhunt for him. Just hours after his escape from Lake County jail, Dillinger reunited with his girlfriend, Billie Frechette.
According to Frechette's trial testimony, Dillinger stayed with her for "almost two weeks". However, the two had actually traveled to the Twin Cities and taken lodgings at the Santa Monica Apartments in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they stayed for fifteen days. Dillinger then met Hamilton, and the two mustered a new gang consisting of Baby Face Nelson's gang, including Nelson, Homer Van Meter, Tommy Carroll and Eddie Green.
Three days after Dillinger's escape from Crown Point, the second Gang robbed a bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. A week later they robbed First National Bank in Mason City, Iowa.