Deviant Criminology
Dr. Richard Weaver Jr., Heather Kenney, and Rachel Czar take listeners on a journey through the world of true crime. With their unique careers in the criminal justice and academic world; they work to provide an entertaining and educational experience for listeners. This podcast examines many areas of true crime including; the formation of laws, cases that defined caselaw, and crimes that impacted the world. Please join us on this journey as we transition from professionals in criminal justice and academia to budding podcasters.
Deviant Criminology
The Spectacle of Dillinger's Pursuit and Ultimate End
Escape-proof jails and notorious gangsters rarely go in the same sentence, but John Dillinger shattered expectations with his legendary breakout from Crown Point Jail. Was his gun real or a wooden decoy? As we unravel this thrilling escapade, we uncover the audacity that turned Dillinger into a folk hero and the blunders that embarrassed law enforcement. Explore the fascination that gripped 1930s America, fueled by media glorification and a public enthralled by the exploits of Public Enemy Number One.
Experience the chaos and calamity that marked Dillinger's relentless pursuit by authorities. With outdated technology and poor communication, the officers found themselves outmatched in a cat-and-mouse game with Dillinger. From disastrous surveillance operations to shootouts that read like something out of a crime novel, this episode lays bare the tactical missteps and strategic errors that allowed Dillinger to repeatedly evade capture. Listen as we navigate the unpredictable twists of early 20th-century crime-fighting, where the firepower of criminals often dwarfed that of the police.
Join us as we recount the infamous Little Bohemia shootout and Dillinger’s eventual demise outside the Biograph Theater. Despite a botched capture, the FBI’s relentless pursuit, aided by informants like Anna Sage, culminated in a tragic yet captivating spectacle. Reflecting on Dillinger's complex persona and the irony of fate, we delve into the spectacle surrounding his death and the role of informants. Finally, discover how you can become part of our true crime community, embracing a shared passion for the captivating world of crime and justice.
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So, as we've seen in past episodes, 1930s was a crazy time for crime. This was the start of the modern law enforcement, the height of gangsters, and actually the 30s would be the inevitable downfall of that genre. Last two episodes we've discussed the life of John Dillinger from his early growing in Mooresville, indiana, and we kind of left off, with him being arrested in Tuscan, arizona, and being brought back to Crown Point, indiana. Last episode we did an overview of his bank robberies and this episode is going to really focus on the final chapter of John Dillinger's life that leads to the inevitable death by law enforcement. So I'm Richard I'm.
Speaker 2:Heather, and let's talk about the infamous escape by John Dillinger from Crown Point Jail in Indiana.
Speaker 3:So, as you mentioned, he had been captured in Tucson, Arizona, and after the whole gang is captured, Dillinger is extradited back to Indiana. So this is January 25th 1934. And at this time the chief of the Indiana State Police is Matt Leach, and that officer, state police officer, Matt Leach, and Dillinger, have this rivalry thing going on. So Matt Leach goes all the way out to Arizona and gets Dillinger himself and brings him back to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana. At that point Dillinger is charged with the murder of a policeman who was killed during a bank robbery in East Chicago on January 15, 1934. And the local law enforcement there make the mistake of bragging to the local newspapers about how the jail was escape-proof. And you know, they even assigned extra guards and there's no way that he's going to get out. But just like the Titanic, they jinxed it and on March 3rd 1934, Dillinger escapes again during the morning exercises with 15 other inmates and what's crazy about this?
Speaker 2:like you said, not only did he, did they brag about like how this jail had been beefed up, it was escape proof. But there's pictures of the warden and local police like taking these smiling, happy photos with dillinger, like his arms, like on the shoulder of the warden, and they're all smiley and it's almost like again this like folk legend, like look at John Dillinger, he's here, look at me standing with them. They seem to take it as their chance to be seen in these photo ops for their 15 minutes of fame. Instead of here's a cop killer who's escaped from at least one jail already, outran the police multiple times and has no problem killing law enforcement or civilians. And they're just bragging about it. So it's kind of disturbing and it does—I'm not accusing anybody of anything but it does kind of allude to how easily he breaks out of this jail.
Speaker 3:But it does kind of allude to how easily he breaks out of this jail and perhaps he's just a really charming individual, because we've heard that about a lot of other criminals who have that kind of I don't know what you want to call it like cult of personality around them that people are drawn to, and I wonder if it was the same type of a thing with him because, like you said, all these law enforcement officers are getting photos with him and things like that, and yet they know, in one of the other escape attempts a sheriff was shot and if it was me in that position I'd be worried. Well, am I going to be the next one? It'd be more of a hey, when you escape, please don't shoot me. I have a family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the media didn't help back then because at that time there was this glorification of these bankruptcies, because it was big news and it sold newspapers and there was anything to get people to buy newspapers at the time, because it was the depression and they were selling a very morose type of hope and again making these people folk legends to sell papers and even dime store novels and stuff that were very exaggerating of these claims of how they were going. That even in a way I think these law enforcement officers got caught up in that and just wanted their 15 minutes of fame, not realizing that they're about to look like the biggest dumb asses in the Midwest.
Speaker 3:Which is ironically what happens, because after they've talked all about how it's inescapable, then they have this escape and there's several different accounts as to how this goes down exactly. But basically Dillinger had a pistol and he caught the deputies and guards by surprise. He ended up leaving without even using the gun and right away people start questioning if the gun was even real. According to Deputy Ernest Blunk, the weapon was real, but according to the FBI it was merely a fake carving of a weapon. Sam Cohun was taken hostage during the ordeal, believed that the weapon was carved from some type of shelving in Dillinger's cell using a razor.
Speaker 3:Another person, louis Pequette, an attorney I'm sure I said that name wrong an attorney for Dillinger at one point claimed that the gun was actually smuggled in and some accounts even alluded to an investigator having brought it in. Another account said that a defense attorney brought it in. So there's a lot of different stories there. But at that point in time Dillinger has a girlfriend, billie Frechette, and immediately after the escape he goes and meets up with her and they travel to Minneapolis, minnesota, and they end up being together for about two weeks.
Speaker 2:Now this is, if I believe, the case that made it federal.
Speaker 3:Yes. So when they escaped, he steals a car. And when they drive the stolen car to Chicago, when they, when they go across the state line, as soon as they cross the state line it's a federal crime. And so that's when J Edward Hoover's like yes, we have him, because at that point he's now broken a federal law.
Speaker 2:Now again I go back to things that I know and love. And last episode I talked about this Dillinger episode that Expedition Unknown did with Josh Gates, and there's actually a section in there where a local person in Crown Point found the original cop car that was stolen by Dillinger and he had it completely restored back to its original grand Like it's beautiful and if you watch that episode you can see it and he had he returned it to the local sheriff's department. So it's on display there now and there's a really cool parade like all the law enforcement officers like follow behind this car as it's being returned. So that's kind of like this weird, like piece of nostalgic history that was able to be found. But, yeah, he stole a cop car and drives off, like you said, and ends up in Minneapolis and that car, like 70 years later, is found and returned.
Speaker 2:Like there's something kind of cool and interesting about how these pieces of history show up. And in that same episode there's one of the Sheriff's Department I'm sorry I'm blanking on what Sheriff's Department is has one of Dillinger's Thompson guns and it still works. So not only are you able to see what these weapons could do, but that is almost a 90-year-old weapon that still is functioning today, if taken care of. So it also shows just the engineering and awe that those guns had even at that time period that are still highly dangerous and working to this day.
Speaker 3:So once they get to Minneapolis, after they escape, dillinger meets up with John Hamilton, which was one of the people we've been talking about for a while, going way back to his time in prison, and they form another new gang, and this one includes Babyface Nelson, homer Van Meter, Tommy Carroll and Eddie Green, and for three days after the escape they go and rob this bank in Sioux Falls, south Dakota, and then a week after that they rob another one in Mason City, iowa. And one person that really needs to be discussed here is Babyface Nelson, and I'll go ahead and let you take over that.
Speaker 2:So Lester Joseph Gillis, who would also be known as Babyface Nelson, which is a nickname he vehemently hated. It is rumored that he would literally get pissed off and throw things if he was called the name, heard the name or saw it in writing. So somebody decided to name him this and he does like. If you look at photos of him he does look very young. He wasn't the tallest guy in the world, so. But Babyface is born December 6, 1908 in Chicago, illinois, and he was a notorious gangster even in Chicago, before he links up with Dillinger. And one of the reasons is because he runs with this and I'm going to mess this name up, and this is sad because my Italian heritage just makes me want to punch myself for messing this up.
Speaker 2:But it's the Toey gang, t-o-u-h-y, and this is a organized crime family in Chicago ran by a guy named Roger Toey. The gang is involved in various criminal activities. Ran by a guy named Roger Toohey, the gang is involved in various criminal activities. Maybe Face just isn't a bank robber. He's involved in bootlegging, racketeering, armed robbery of all types of different places. They're known for being very violent. They had a lot of clashes with other criminal organizations, including Al Capone, so, kind of by linking up with Dillinger, dillinger's not only now putting himself against law enforcement but he's also kind of taking an enemy Al Capone's on. So Babyface joins the gang. He started his criminal career at a very young age, literally starting in petty theft and car theft. As an early teenager he honed his skills of serious criminal activity. He would go on to go in and out of jail but then he becomes a prominent member of Dillinger's gang and he participates in several high-profile bank robberies.
Speaker 2:Babyface, once Dillinger dies, becomes the next public enemy number one. He has a reputation of he has no problem killing individuals. There's a lot of stories of him, from Reno all the way to Chicago of Trail of Bodies. He has no problem killing FBI agents or law enforcement. So he's a really bad guy that Dillinger for some reason thinks is a good person to have on his role, which I think does come back to haunt him in a way. But Nelson would end up dying after Dillinger in November 27th of 1934, where he is killed in a shootout with law enforcement officers, where he just basically knows it's his time and walks straight into gunfire from law enforcement and takes two federal agents with him. It's a crazy story that if you want to look that one up, because we're not going to get any more into it. But I think it's important to realize how quickly, once Nelson joins, certain things he does brings on more heat and leads to their downfall.
Speaker 3:So a grand jury hands down an indictment for Dillinger, and the Bureau of Investigation, which is what becomes the FBI, begins a nationwide manhunt. And so, on March 6th of 1934, dillinger and his gang, including Babyface Nelson, commit a daring robbery at the Security National Bank and Trust Company in Sioux Falls, south Dakota, and I'll let you review the details on that one.
Speaker 2:So this one again is a large amount of money they're getting. It's $46,000. This robbery has Dillinger and Babyface as the two primary going into the bank. So at 10 am, when the gang entered the bank armed with Thompson submachine guns, which was their weapon of choice, they quickly took control of the situation as we've seen before, forcing employees and customers to lie down on the floor, and they emptied the drawers in the vault. The gang this time was efficient and swift, completing the robbery in minutes. So no shots are fired, no shootout with law enforcement. After they get the money, the gang escapes, successfully, evading police. This time they decide that they need to get away. They need to take some time off. So they head to a place called Little Bohemia, which is in Wisconsin, where they intend to stay for a week to kind of relax and let some of this heat blow over that they've developed. But before that happens, dillinger decides he's going to make a stop off to see his girlfriend in Minnesota.
Speaker 3:So on March 20th of 1934, this would have been about two weeks after that escape that we talked about Dillinger and his girlfriend Billie have relocated to an apartment in St Paul, minnesota, and they're using aliases and they're at something called the Lincoln Court Apartments. But their landlady starts watching them and on about March 30th, about 10 days after they've been there, she goes to the FBI office in St Paul and gives them information that she was gathering, including what car they were using. So, based on her tip, the FBI and the local law enforcement start to close in on Dillinger and his associates and while they're there, they have the blinds closed so no one sees who's coming or going and there's not much going on. So one of the agents, rufus Coulter, along with St Paul police detectives Harry Cummings, enter the building and about 10 minutes later another agent, agent Rusty Knowles, sees Homer Van Meter roll up and park his green Ford on the north side of the building. And this is where it gets into something that could basically be in a movie, because it's one of those the truth is stranger than fiction type events, and you have to remember that all of this is before law enforcement has radios and they don't have the technology they have now. So you have Agent Coulter and Detective Cummings heading into the apartment, homer Van Meter is parking his car and Agent Knowles is outside seeing all of this happen, realizing oh my gosh, he's parking this car and going in and my people are already inside there. So Agent Coulter and Detective Cummings are at that point knocking on Dillinger's door and Billy's inside, and she answers the door just a crack, just enough, so she can tell him that she's not dressed and they need to come back later. And the officers are telling her that well, we'll just wait for you to get dressed and we'll stand here and wait outside the apartment.
Speaker 3:And about that time Homer Van Meter is walking up and of course Homer doesn't know what's going on, asks Agent Coulter his name and is his name Johnson? And Coulter says it isn't and asks Homer Van Meter, what's your name? And Homer avoids the question and says oh, I'm a soap salesman, and that actually was a thing back then. My great grandmother went door to door selling soap, so that was like a real profession. And the detectives ask Homer, okay, well then, where are your samples? Because people who did that had samples they would pass out. And he says oh, they're in the car. And so then they ask him for identification and he, you know, do you have any? He says no and starts walking down the stairs.
Speaker 3:And at this point Agent Coulter waits for a minute and then starts following him down, because now he's suspicious as to what's going on with Homer. And this is when the whole thing really hits the fan, because Agent Coulter gets to the ground floor, where the lobby is, and at that point Homer's waiting for him and starts shooting at him. And so this is when it all hits the fan. Agent Coulter gets down to the ground floor lobby and Homer is waiting for him and begins shooting at him. Agent Coulter runs outside and Homer Van Meter is chasing him. Now Homer Van Meter is back at the front door and Agent Knowles is still outside. And Knowles realizes what's happening and he tells Agent Coulter which car was Homer's and Agent Coulter goes and shoots out the back tire homers and agent coulter goes and shoots out the back tire.
Speaker 2:This is like the cluster that everybody talks about and it's just interesting to me. Like you're a law enforcement officer, you're suspicious of this guy, so you just walk down in the lobby like I'm gonna follow this guy. You follow this guy downstairs, he starts shooting at you and you go from being the attack dog law enforcement officer to running from this guy. So not only have you lost the upper hand, lost the advantage and fell for the pretty woman at the door saying I need to get dressed, and it just is the ultimate challenge thing. You would make up for a bad book. But law enforcement has to own this from this moment forward.
Speaker 3:And it turns into quite the disaster. And again it's just like the movie, like you said, book type thing, where they're shooting out the back tire of the vehicle so that hopefully now they think they can't escape. And at this point you now have Detective Cummings still upstairs waiting outside the apartment waiting for Billy to get dressed, and while he's up there, coulter is hanging out with the car watching for the suspects and Agent Knowles is now running to the corner drugstore so that he can try to call for help Because, remember, we don't have radios or anything. So Knowles has to run to the corner store and when he gets there he calls the local police department and the bureau's office, but both of the lines are busy so he can't even call for backup at this point. And in the meantime Homer Van Meter is escaping by jumping onto a coal truck that's driving by.
Speaker 2:One of the things that gets me about. And again, this is just like a law enforcement thing. So you know these two detectives go to an apartment that they pretty much are sure Dillinger's in. You know this is a man that's killed law enforcement officers. He's a danger to everybody. There's a guy that you're suspicious of, so you leave your partner upstairs by himself to follow this guy and actually cause a bigger fight instead of you know what we're here for this. We'll find somebody to tail him.
Speaker 2:And I think it was at this time that there were radios in the cars, but they were one way so they could send a message to the officers through the radio in the car of what they were supposed to be looking for, like, hey, look for this person, match the description of this car or something. But you couldn't radio back. So, like you said, you had to run to a local business and try and call somebody again, not today where there's call waiting or anything. I still just imagine that there's somebody on the phone with a little insert plug in the thing like, yes, we're trying to reach the fbi. Right now there's a shootout happening. Could you get us through?
Speaker 3:just, oh god, it's such a cluster and you have to in some ways feel bad for agent knolls because he's sitting outside. He knows his guys are upstairs, he sees Homer walking in and I'm sure he's like, oh shit, what's going on with this? And he's suspicious enough. He doesn't like run away. He's still keeping an eye on a vehicle to make sure that nobody comes running out. And at that point of course nobody knows what's going through Agent Knowles' head. Was he thinking if I sit here I can take off after that pickup truck if they try to flee? At that point would it have been better to go get back up right then saying, oh my gosh, we have three people and there's two of us, or should he have at that point followed Homer Van Meter? So then maybe it'd be like Homer would be trapped between two agents and himself.
Speaker 3:It's hard to say and of course it's always easy to look at things in hindsight, but it's interesting just the way all of these events play out, because now you have Homer in the coal truck gone, you have Agent Knowles at the corner store trying to call for backup and, like you said, we have our other officer upstairs by himself and Billy Frechette when she finally is charged with her harboring of a fugitive for having Dillinger with her in her trial. She testifies as to what's happening inside the apartment while this is going on otherwise we would have no idea what happened. But she says that while they're inside the apartment, she tells Dillinger the police are here, and that's when they hear Homer shooting and Dillinger. The police are here, and that's when they hear Homer shooting and Dillinger grabs a submachine gun and starts shooting through the door. And this is where Detective Cummings, as we were just talking about, was standing by himself. And so now he's scrambling to take cover.
Speaker 3:Dillinger comes out of the apartment and starts shooting at Detective Cummings and of course Detective Cummings is shooting back, but he has a five-shot revolver and even so, with his five-shot revolver he's running out of ammo. He hits Dillinger in the calf and he's running for his own life down the stairs and out the front entrance. And as all of the officers are out front and calling for help and trying to do all of these things out front, dillinger and his girlfriend Billie run down the back staircase, go out the back door and jump into that car that the landlord had told them they were driving, that they didn't have anybody watching, that they didn't disable in any way, that was just sitting there waiting to be their escape vehicle sitting there waiting to be their escape vehicle and this sounds like just not only calamity errors, but again, we can.
Speaker 2:Hindsight is always 2020, especially 90 years ago. But I'm wondering if they had gotten multiple reports of that time of, oh, we think Dillinger's in this place, in this place and just eventually they just didn't take it seriously and they're like you know what, just send some people over to say we did. They went up front. They didn't see the car because it wasn't out front, it was out back. They didn't send enough enforcement because the they were just learning to work feds and locals together. So what did communication look like? How many people were calling? Because I think there were. There were definitely rewards at this point form. So everybody, great depression. You offer ten thousand dollars. Everybody's gonna come out of the woodwork and their cousin say that they just saw dillinger in miami, when they know they're like he was just here two days ago. There's no way. So did they not take it seriously? Send the basic people?
Speaker 2:But then I can't imagine and I've been in some hairy situations in law enforcement but you're just standing outside of a door like oh, okay, like she's going to put on clothes and just submachine gun fire just starts coming out of that door and I almost have just this like cartoon image of when the person dives sideways.
Speaker 2:I feel so bad for this guy, but then I also have to like not feel bad but point a little finger at his partner.
Speaker 2:That should have been there to have his back instead of his partner running outside to chase this other person that was suspicious, because it didn't say anywhere that I've seen that he knew that was homer right, the guy was just acting suspicious. What if the guy just was thought you might have been the wife, the husband of a woman he was there to sneak up on. So he's like oh no, I'm not going to tell you who I am. And so you've just left your partner to the wolves and now both of you are under gunfire and neither of you can cover each other. And there's this guy outside that's just hearing and watching this. All who's like I have to get back up. You would have think there would have been better planning in this. But at the same time this goes again to law enforcement issues, where the criminals at the time were more organized than law enforcement was, and you see this in multiple cases at that time period, especially when you had multiple jurisdictions and departments trying to work together.
Speaker 3:And better equipment too. I mean, you know, we have an officer who is a five-shot revolver and like, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2:you might as well have a rock when the thompson is holding 10 times the round you have and putting them out much faster and easier to reload. That's just and this is what hoover. And then we're talking about when arming the officers. But even then those guns weren't cheap and somebody had to buy them for them and yeah, it was a calamity of errors and a horrible situation that again Dillinger slips right out of.
Speaker 3:But at least on this one, even with all the disadvantages, detective Cummings still is able to shoot him, so he doesn't make it out unscathed. He actually gets hit during this thing.
Speaker 2:Right, so he doesn't make it out unscathed. He actually gets hit during this thing, right. And then the hope would be that would slow him down, but he still gets away. So it's kind of one of those I got it with my woman and I got a bullet wound to come up in my mind. For dillinger is at some point he says and you're going to talk about this a little later like if we could just get out of this and stop this lifestyle. But you've killed cops, you've been shot and you're still not changing your ways. So this goes back to the dual personalities. Like I think there was part of him that wanted this lifestyle, that was free of all this, but there was just the thrill and excitement and the family he'd created in this gang that he couldn't get away.
Speaker 3:And I think that's very true because, like you said, he could have left, he could have gone to Canada or to Mexico and tried to start over at that point. But let's talk a little bit about Little Bohemia. I'll let you talk about that one.
Speaker 2:So this is a cluster of mass proportion that basically makes the Federal Bureau of Investigation well the Bureau of Investigation at the time look like five-year-olds who were given toy guns to go destroy something. So the shootout at Little Bohemia, this is in Manitowish man. If anybody from Wisconsin hears this I'm going to get butchered. But Manitowish Waters, wisconsin, minnetowish.
Speaker 3:Maybe. Okay, we're going to go with Manitowish.
Speaker 2:We're going to go with Manitowish, wisconsin. So it's April 22nd 1934. Again, the whole Dillinger gang has brought their girls with them and they've gone up to Little Bohemia, which is a lodge and restaurant kind of outside, not middle of nowhere, but it's a little resort area. The FBI receives tip from Henry Boss that Dillinger and his gang are hiding at Little Bohemian Lodge, which is still there today. It's not the lodging side but it has a restaurant and they actually have a little museum dedicated to their history as kind of a gangster getaway.
Speaker 2:So Special Agent in Charge, melvin Purvis, which Melvin Purvis, we don't talk a lot about him through this, but he plays kind of a big role in this time period in the pursuit of multiple gang members. He's kind of Hoover's appointed person over the public enemy number one task force. So Purvis and other FBI agents arrive at the lodge and start to surround it. It's nighttime when they get there. So they get this warning, they gather as many people as they can and they head up to this lodge. It's nighttime when they get there, it's dark. Again, the FBI, these agents aren't heavily trained, especially in these type of operations, like even now. This is something you would call the SWAT team in for and this is back no communication. You're trying to surround a decent sized lodge. So as the agents are approaching the lodge they see three individuals leaving the restaurant bar section and they get into a vehicle. They start trying to leave the area and the FBI starts telling them to stop. They're screaming at the car but these are three young men. They've been drinking. Their windows are rolled up. It's late at night and they end up being civilian conversation corps workers.
Speaker 2:The FBI, as they get closer, decide to open fire, thinking these are three members of Dillinger gang that are trying to escape. They end up killing one of the workers, wounding the two others. So a gentleman by the name and again butchering names Eugene Boisnois was killed and then the other two wounded and the gunfire alerts Dillinger and the rest of his gang. So from inside the lodge they open fire outwards towards what they believe are law enforcement officers at the time. I mean, it's pretty much firing in the dark, like even videos I've seen. Now with modern technology and lights are up there, shooting from inside the facility. Outside you're not going to see what you're shooting at, you're just kind of blindly firing to try and get away. So the gang members that are there at the time include Dillinger, babyface, nelson, homer Van Meter, tommy Carroll and John Hamilton. They all managed to escape. They catch none of them.
Speaker 2:But in the fracas of this there's Officer Water or Special Agent W Carterter bomb, he is killed and he is sitting in a car and baby face walks up to the car and shoots him. And this is kind of, again, baby faces mo, he's very, he's very violent, he has no problem killing somebody. Um, and I can't remember, I believe it was Purvis really took this hard because Baum was relatively new, younger, and Purvis felt that it was his failures that led to his death directly. So another two officers are injured. That is Jay Newman. He's a special agent with the FBI, and then a constable from Spider Lake, carl Christensen.
Speaker 2:There is a civilian again killed who was a Lodge customer named Eugene Bosnier. I messed that up, I know it. Civilians that are injured were John Hoffman and John Morris. So everybody escapes this. The shootout at Little Bohemia now is seen as a significant event that highlighted the challenges faced by law enforcement, not only in their lack of training and preparation for things like this, but also the problems they were having capturing Dillinger and his gang. So, despite the intense gunfire, the number of officers and agents that were present, dillinger and his gang. So, despite the intense gunfire, the number of officers and agents that were present, dillinger and his associates pop out of there and they continue their crime spree for a few more months.
Speaker 3:So after the infamous shootout at Little Bohemia Lodge in April of 1934, Dillinger does not commit any more bank robberies and the shootout was a significant enough event that has led to the death of several people and has heightened the manhunt for Dillinger. So following the shootout, Dillinger went into hiding and he actually underwent plastic surgery to alter his appearance which I didn't even realize they had at that point in time, but apparently they did which I didn't even realize they had at that point in time.
Speaker 2:but apparently they did. If you go back and look at some of the photos and stuff, what they were considering plastic surgery was like removing a mole. There were some like attempted cuts to try and change his eyebrow design and stuff. But it is archaic type of work and he couldn't go to. I mean big doctors anyway and the mob, especially in Chicago, new York and the bigger areas, had had their own doctors, but these weren't people that that's not the type of work they did. So when you see the pictures of him before and after the cosmetic surgery air quotes he doesn't look much different. It was not a time period conducted to that but they call it plastic surgery. But it was like two or three moles he had removed, manipulating the eyebrows. I think they tried to move his hairline back a little bit. It was.
Speaker 3:And dimples too. I read somewhere they tried to get rid of his dimples and then fingerprints. They did some type of an acid thing and I think I read that it was $100 per finger or $500 per hand that they would do this acid procedure where they would, and I'm not a doctor so I don't know the details of how this works, but I guess take off the top layer of skin and then put some type of an acid on it to impact the cells at that lower level so that supposedly your fingerprints wouldn't come back when the skin would heal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it didn't work yeah.
Speaker 3:I didn't think it would.
Speaker 2:After that, they'd fingerprint him. Of course, fingerprinting is another thing we won't get into.
Speaker 3:But hey, you know, somebody made a couple hundred dollars off of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that may be the one time he gave back to society was helping this struggling doctor who came up with fake procedures to maybe be able to buy an anniversary present for somebody because it did not work so, after he goes through this plastic surgery to alter his appearance, which you know, as we said, was minimally effective, he continues to evade law enforcement until he eventually is betrayed and killed outside of the biograph theater in Chicago on July 22, 1934. And I'll let you talk about that.
Speaker 2:So he kind of puts his trust— there's a theme here to a point where Dillinger kind of puts his trust in the wrong people and the girl he's seen is friends, or there's a relationship with Anna Sage. And Anna Sage she's known as the woman in red. There's some places that say she's a sex worker. There's others that say she was kind of a madam for sex workers, but either way she's kind of in the sex working trade and she's also an immigrant. She does not have citizenship, which plays a key part into what happens here. So Sage was a Romanian born brothel owner facing deportation. So again there's that. Is she just running it? Was she involved in the sex trade? Is the sex worker? I don't know, it's kind of gray. So she had kind of been harassed by the FBI for a while now because they knew she was connected to Dillinger. So they're kind of leaning on her like, hey, if you want to get out of these deportations or you want us to speak up for you and drop these charges and maybe help you get citizenship, you need to do something. Give him up, let us give us something. Give him up, let us give us something. So she reaches out to the.
Speaker 2:The night of July 22nd Dillinger and his girlfriend and Sage are going to go to the Biograph Theater in Chicago. One of the things about that time period was there weren't a lot of areas with air conditioning so the theater was one of the few places that had it. So it was interesting learning about the biograph and other theaters at that time period where people didn't really actually go to watch the movie as much as socialize and be in the air conditioning. So Sage arranges to meet Dillinger at the theater to watch a movie along with his girlfriend. She said she was gonna be wearing an odd dress, that way she would stick out. But it appeared red under the lights of the theater at night on the outside and that was to be the signal to Purvis and the other agents in the area. So one of the issues with this that's interesting is Purvis was standing at the ticket booth. He was one of the only agents that actually seen Dillinger in person, so he was to light a cigar when Dillinger, sage and this other lady left the theater.
Speaker 2:One interesting thing that happens is there's agents kind of outside mixing around and the local people get nervous and somebody I don't know if it's from the theater or other business calls local law enforcement and says, hey, there's some shady guys hanging around outside the biograph theater. Local authorities show up and there's this first, what I like to to call the first territorial dispute between the feds and the local police, because the FBI well Bureau again was like your presence is going to mess this up, you need to get out of here. So I'm like no, so it started back in the 1930s when the FBI and locals didn't start working together. So there's a lot of different stories of what happened, but basically in the end there's different views on who shot, if Purvis signaled him or somebody else.
Speaker 2:But in the end, eventually, dillinger is leaving the theater, starts walking away. Somebody on the task force recognizes him as they approach Dillinger. It's reported that he turned towards Purvis, reached for a gun that he had on him I'm going to put air quotes again and before he could pull, was shot dead there in the street. So again, john Dillinger is shot dead outside of the theater. July 22nd 1934, a little over 14 months after being released from prison, john Dillinger was killed by federal agents. So when you look at all the history and the documentaries and the folk legend that this guy became, it was only a 14 month span that he was operating and his death. It kind of became a spectacle, like his death photos. You can still find them very openly and people lined up to take pictures with the body from law enforcement.
Speaker 3:I read somewhere too that people were coming up to where he'd been shot and trying to soak handkerchiefs and things like that to collect the blood as like a keepsake of the time or something along those lines.
Speaker 3:But I guess that used to be a common thing because when we went to Washington DC the flag that they had from the Star-Spangled Banner when they wrote the song, the whole bottom right-hand corner of it was gone and I guess for a while the people who owned it and would show it off to people they'd let people cut little pieces of it to take with them as a souvenir. And when we went to Mammoth Cave they had found a body of what they presumed to have been a Native American woman, because it was very, very old and they ended up having people come through and they would take souvenirs of like her body basically home with them. And so it sounds like with dillinger it wasn't that much different that people's came across it saw what happened and got out handkerchiefs and started dabbing up blood to take with them as a memento of that experience also it.
Speaker 2:It just goes to the glorification of these individuals and how they became. You know, going back from Billy the Kid and Jesse James and all those up to Dillinger and even some gangsters we see in the 80s, 90s, even with murder, obelia and serial killers and stuff. There's just this macabre interest and attachment that people formed to these criminals in a way. I can't explain it. Psychology has tried for years, but Dillinger was one of those. So on that night Dillinger, hamilton and Sage go to the biography theater and while they're watching the movie, dozens of federal agents are surrounding the theater. Melvin Purvis was given the task of waiting outside the box office, like I'd said, until the movie ended.
Speaker 2:There are a couple of different stories around how the events leading up to the shooting of Dillinger happened.
Speaker 2:Some reports state that as Dillinger exited the theater, purvis lit his cigarette, but the other officers didn't see this because all of the other people exiting the theater at the same time. Officers didn't see this because all of the other people exiting the theater at the same time, but that one alert agent who actually had come up from Texas spotted Dillinger walking down the sidewalk and moved in to make the arrest Either way, either by seeing the cigar lit or this eagle eyed officer, agents moved in to apprehend Dillinger Dillinger, no matter what details happened in there. When the smoke settled, john Herbert Dillinger, public enemy number one, laid dead on the ground in Chicago, shot three times at the age of 31 years old. The irony behind all of this is that Anastasia did not get any reward money and she was still deported. So I find it kind of ironic. She did her end of the deal but yet she still kind of got screwed over there. So it seems like there was maybe like what do you think happened there?
Speaker 3:I mean I hate to say somebody being lazy, but that kind of would be my feeling Like, promise you whatever you want, I'll tell you anything that you want to hear, just so long as I get what I want. And once they had what they wanted, then well to heck with you. I got what I wanted, I'm done now, type of a deal. And then there's also, like, the question of jurisdiction as far as, like, what can you actually promise if she's being deported? Is that something that anyone on law enforcement side can stop, whether it be the FBI or whether it be, you know, like the local sheriff? Like if you're the local sheriff and you say, oh, I promise you won't be deported if you help me with this, it's not an enforceable promise because it's not up to that person.
Speaker 2:And that's. This is kind of like the TV. I always like to watch TV because I'm a huge pop culture person and stuff, but in TV all the time you'll see officers be like well, if you tell us this, we'll make sure the DEA or the prosecutor goes easy on you. I would never say that because there's some of me that seems inherently like I can't make you any promises like that. But is that even really a thing where an officer can be like you know what, we'll get you a better deal. I don't think officers make deals or detectives make deals right, I don't think they really have that authority.
Speaker 3:No, they don't, they don't. The closest thing they could say is the we'll put in a good word for you with the prosecutor. But even then they could turn around and go to the prosecutor and say so, we told them we would put in a good word for him if he cooperated, and he cooperated. So we're letting you know that we said we would put in a good word for him and then kind of wash their hands, whether it be like the wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But I did what I said I was going to do.
Speaker 2:You're telling me TV lied to me again.
Speaker 3:They do it all the time. Don't watch CSI.
Speaker 2:Man everything I learned about being a police officer. I really learned from TV man everything I learned about being a police officer.
Speaker 3:I really learned from TV. So I mean with that Dillinger, through all the folklore and publicity and everything else, he was really just a common criminal who, though many may say he was lucky, was not really worth the anti-hero status or Robin Hood label, because he really wasn't either of those. He didn't give back to anyone. He robbed big banks and small mom and pop shops. His actions either directly or indirectly led to the deaths of more than 10 individuals, and he was always looking out for who he thought was most important, which was, of course, himself.
Speaker 2:As for his luck, yes, history has linked him to some moments of good fortune being in the right place at the right time, or his pursuers being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or leaving their post five minutes before he got to where he was supposedly going to be and they got bored. His life was anything but lucky. He spent a third of his life in prison. He was arrested multiple times. He failed at every legitimate job he tried. He deserted the military, had multiple failed relationships and ended up shot down again in the streets of chicago at the age of 31, turned in by those around him constantly he was. Every time he was arrested it was people writing on him or his own stupidity. It is not a romantic tale of rebellion, but the truth, not so uncommon story of a criminal fighting the system and ultimately losing it all.
Speaker 2:Dillinger was not the only famous criminal killed in 1934. There were others. That included on March 16th, Herbert Youngblood, who was shot and killed. April 10th, Eddie Green, shot and killed. April 26th, Red Hamilton, shot and killed. May 23rd, Bonnie and Clyde shot and killed Again John Dillinger, July 22nd. August 23rd is when Homer Van Meter was shot and killed. Charles Mackley was shot and killed on September 22nd. October 17th, Harry Pierpont died in the electric chair. October 22nd, Pretty Boy Floyd, who is believed to have been part of that shooting at the Kansas City Union Station, was shot and killed. November 27th, the new public enemy number one, Babyface Nelson, shot and killed, and then November 28th, Tommy Carroll shot and killed. So by the end of 1934, almost every member of Dellinger's gang was either killed by law enforcement or had a shocking end through the electric chair.
Speaker 3:And I think that that entire period was a massive turning point for law enforcement, and I think that you can see that through the list of people that you just named who were gone at that point in time, and how it was such a rapid change. And Melvin Purvis wrote, and how it was such a rapid change and Melvin Purvis wrote. There is probably no one whose career so graphically illustrates the inadequacies of our system as does that of John Dillinger.
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