John Dillinger

John Herbert Dillinger (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American bank robber, considered by some to be a notorious and dangerous criminal, while others considered him a Robin Hood-like hero. He gained this reputation for his graceful movement during bank heists, e.g. leaping over the counter, and narrow getaways from police. His exploits, along with those of other criminals of the 1930s Depression era, such as Bonnie and Clyde and Ma Barker, dominated the attentions of the American press and its readers during what is sometimes referred to as the public enemy era, between 1931 and 1935, a period which led to the further development of the modern and more sophisticated FBI.

Was it Dillinger?

To this day, there are doubts whether Dillinger actually died on July 22, 1934. Some researchers (chief among them famed Chicago crime writer Jay Robert Nash) believe that the dead man was in truth a petty criminal from Wisconsin named Jimmy Lawrence, who had dated Dillinger's sometime girlfriend Billie Frechette and bore a close resemblance to the famed bank robber. Some people who knew him said they did not recognize the body; in fact, Dillinger's father had suddenly exclaimed when first seeing his son's corpse, "That's not my boy!" After all, John Dillinger did receive rather crude plastic surgery some time before his death. Moreover, if indeed the agents did mistake Lawrence for Dillinger, the FBI would have had a strong incentive to cover up such a blunder, since J. Edgar Hoover was on the verge of being fired as Bureau director in the wake of the extensive public outrage over the earlier Little Bohemia incident. An autopsy contained information that was controversial, such as:

Related Topics:
Chicago - Jay Robert Nash - J. Edgar Hoover

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• None of his scars were mentioned in the report. (Actually, the dead man was positively identified as John Dillinger by his sister Audrey, by a scar on his leg received in childhood.)
• The corpse had brown eyes. Dillinger's were grey, according to police files. (This may have been an error on the part of the coroner, resulting from eye discoloration caused by a traumatic head wound.)
• The body showed signs of some childhood illness, which Dillinger never had. (This may be another error. The dead man had a rheumatic heart condition. So did John Dillinger, according to the later testimony of Dr. Patrick Weeks, who had been Dillinger's physician at Indiana State Prison.)

However, one disturbing fact does remain. The small Colt semiautomatic pistol that Dillinger had allegedly drawn on the approaching FBI agents outside the Biograph (and was for years shown in a display case at FBI Headquarters along with Dillinger's death mask) was not his; it in fact had been manufactured five months after Dillinger's death, which supports the claim that the FBI agents, without warning, shot and killed an unarmed Dillinger.

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In 1969 the newspaper The Indianapolis Star received a letter from a person called "John Dillinger". The letter contained a photo of a man who looked like a more aged Dillinger. The letter was bogus. The FBI has at least two sets of post mortem fingerprints of the dead man. Though scarred by acid, the prints were clearly identifiable as those of John Dillinger.

Related Topics:
1969 - The Indianapolis Star

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