Some became famous for their style and panache, or just for
striking a blow against those whom an increasingly desperate and angry American
public blamed for the seemingly endless misery of the Depression. Floyd was
said to burn mortgage papers at the banks he robbed, freeing impoverished
farmers from the debts which were crushing them. To many, these were the modern
incarnations of the Robin Hood story.
The truth was, of course, quite different. Lost in the
re-telling of these tales was the murder and tragedy often left in their wake.
Police officers and innocent bystanders were killed by these outlaws, and the
rising tide of violence seemed to be reaching its crescendo as the weather
turned warm in 1934.
After at least 13 murders, Bonnie and Clyde were gunned down
by a posse of Texas lawmen alongside a country road in Louisiana in May. Floyd
died while fleeing police and FBI agents in Ohio in October, with ten murders
believed to be on his record including the 1933 “Kansas City Massacre.”
But none of these frontier outlaws captured the public
imagination quite like John Dillinger, who met his end outside a Chicago
theater on July 22, 1934.
Dillinger’s brush with fame was short: just ten months from
September 1933 until his death the following summer. But in that time he and
his gang stole over $300,000 in at least eleven bank robberies and were
believed to be responsible for 10 murders and seven other shootings, a trio of
prison escapes and a long series of robberies of everything from banks to
police stations.
He was never credited with burning mortgage paperwork or
helping the needy – the proceeds of his robberies went straight into his
pocket.
Dillinger sought to escape a troubled childhood in Indiana
by joining the Navy, but found service at sea not to his liking, and he quickly
deserted. He came home to Indiana and soon was in trouble with law. A botched
grocery store robbery ended with Dillinger and another thief in police custody.
Dillinger’s accomplice pled not guilty, was tried, convicted
and sentenced to two years. Dillinger confessed, but got a much harsher
sentence of 10-20 years in state prison. Paroled after eight and a half, he
emerged bitter and angry at the system. Four months after he was paroled he
robbed an Ohio bank and was captured again.
Meanwhile, eight of his friends made a violent escape from an Indiana state prison, shooting two guards. Days later they arrived at the Ohio jail where Dillinger was being held, claiming to have been sent to return Dillinger to Indiana for parole violation. Sensing that their plan was not working, one of the gang pulled a gun and murdered the sheriff, then freed Dillinger from the jail and fled.
Now on the run from authorities in two states, Dillinger and his gang armed themselves for battle, raiding two Indiana police stations and stealing machines guns, pistols, ammunition and bulletproof vests. They made their first strike in Illinois on December 14, killing a Chicago police officer in the process. Another officer was killed in a robbery in East Chicago, Indiana.Fleeing to Arizona in January, Dillinger and three members
of the gang were arrested when they were recognized after a fire broke out in
their hotel. Many of the guns and some of the money from the East Chicago
robbery were seized. Dillinger was returned to Indiana to await trial for the
East Chicago robbery and murder, but he escaped from the “escape-proof” jail
using a whittled wooden gun covered in black shoe polish. Dillinger took the
guards’ real weapons and vanished, once again free and heavily armed.
 |
| John Dillinger wanted poster. |
Meanwhile the remaining members of the gang hit banks across
Minnesota and Wisconsin. A suspicious landlord alerted agents to the
whereabouts of Dillinger and his girlfriend, Evelyn Frechette, in St. Paul,
Minnesota. Surrounded, the couple shot their way out of the apartment and got
away, but not before Dillinger was wounded. They made their way to Dillinger’s
family farm in Indiana where he recovered from his wound. Frechette went home
to Chicago, where she was picked up by federal agents.
Still on the run, Dillinger and an accomplice once again
stole guns and armor from a police station in Indiana then headed north,
narrowly avoiding capture after a wild shootout at a lodge in northern
Wisconsin in April 1934.
After this latest getaway, Bureau of Investigation Director
J. Edgar Hoover escalated the manhunt. He dispatched a special agent from
headquarters in Washington, Samuel Cowley, to work with the special agent in
charge of the Chicago field office, Melvin Purvis, and take control of the
investigation. They began methodically running down every lead and whisper they
received from the Chicago area.
Matters accelerated in mid-July when the trackers received a
tip from a madam in Gary, Indiana, Anna Cumpanas who was facing deportation
proceedings back to her native Romania. In exchange for reward money and help
in preventing her deportation, Cumpanas; using the alias Anna Sage; told Cowley
and Purvis that she, Dillinger and another woman were planning to escape the
summer heat by visiting an air-conditioned Chicago theater the next evening.
On the boiling hot afternoon of Sunday July 22, Cumpanas called
to tell agents that the trio would either be at the Marbro Theater on the west
side or the Biograph in Lincoln Park. Cowley and a team of agents and police
officers would stake out the Marbro, Purvis and his group would be at the
Biograph. To make it easier to spot the three theatergoers amidst the crowd,
Cumpanas told agents she would wear an orange dress.
 |
| Samuel Cowley and Melvin Purvis |
Purvis stationed his 20 men around the exits to the theater.
When he spotted Dillinger he would light his cigar, signaling the agents to
swarm in and make the arrest. While he was talking, the theater manager took
note of the large group of men gathering around his building. Convinced that he
was about to be robbed by a gang of thieves, the manager called the police. Responding
officers were shooed away by federal agents, their weapons concealed inside
their coats.
The show ended around 10:30 p.m. and theatergoers began to
file out. Purvis spotted Dillinger and struck his match, but only a few agents
were close enough to spot the signal on the crowded sidewalk. One person who
did see the signal was Dillinger, who quickly realized he was surrounded by men
wearing overcoats on a sweltering night. He drew a .380 Colt automatic pistol
from the right side pocket of his gray slacks and ran for the alley. The three
agents nearest him opened fire.
Dillinger was struck three times, falling face down as more
agents rushed in. He was taken to Alexian Brothers Hospital where he was
pronounced dead at 10:50 p.m.
Three agents, Herman Hollis, Charles Winstead and Clarence
Hurt fired their weapons at Dillinger, though it was never established who had
fired the shot which killed him. All three were recognized by Hoover for their
courage.
Dillinger was buried in Indianapolis’ Crown Hill Cemetery.
But the story doesn’t end there.
With Dillinger dead, the dragnet continued to round up the
members of his gang. In November Agents Cowley and Hollis were killed in a
shootout in Indiana with one of them.
The morning after the shooting at the Biograph, the Chicago
Tribune led with the banner headline “Kill Dillinger here” along with the full
story of the stakeout and confrontation, “Slain by U.S Agents as he Leaves
Theater.” Inside pages carried details of Dillinger’s heists and his life
story, including a series of photos of his “characteristic poses.” Another
newspaper account told of spectators using handkerchiefs to collect daubs of
Dillinger’s blood as souvenirs.
The death of the man identified by authorities as “Public
Enemy Number One” was as big a story as his life had been. Over the next 24
hours, as many as 15,000 people came through the Cook County morgue to see
Dillinger’s body.
Over the years, the Dillinger legend grew. The first movie
about Dillinger was released in 1935. It was followed by a dozen more films
either about Dillinger or featuring fictional characters closely based on him. Recent
moviegoers will remember the 2009 film Public
Enemies starring Johnny Depp as Dillinger and Christian Bale as Purvis.
Much of the final scene was filmed at
the Biograph, which still stands on Lincoln Avenue.
Stories spread that Dillinger had
not been killed outside the Biograph, that it had been a look-alike. According
to the Justice Department, agents took fingerprints from the body before it was
placed in the ambulance. These prints, as well as another set taken during the
autopsy, matched Dillinger’s.
 |
| The Biograph in 1934 |
Dillinger’s death in that Chicago alley, combined with the
captures or violent deaths of several other prairie outlaws in the summer of
1934 brought an end to the Depression’s gangster era, though the age of the
“celebrity criminal” was far from over.
They also catapulted the federal officers who brought the
outlaws to justice to heights of fame once enjoyed by the criminals they
pursued. Soon the Hollywood image of the unflappable “G-man” became all the rage,
and J. Edgar Hoover (having shoved Melvin Purvis out of the spotlight following
the Dillinger killing) set out to squeeze every last bit of publicity he and
his agency could get from it.
Riding the wave of public acclaim that came from having
saved the nation from Public Enemy Number One, in 1935 Hoover became the
director of the newly created Federal Bureau of Investigation – the nation’s
leading G-man. He would remain at the helm of the FBI until his death in 1972.
 |
| John Dillinger |