Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,543

This is the grave of John Dillinger.

Born in Indianapolis in 1903, Dillinger grew up hard. His father was a gangster who abused his family. His mother died in 1907. He mostly grew up with his older sister, who married fairly young herself. But then he ended up back with his awful father after said father remarried.

Dillinger was a scumbag from the time he was a teenager. As we know, environmental factors play a huge role in this, but not everyone who grows up with an abusive father becomes John Dillinger. Rather, Dillinger was special. He loved bullying small children as a teen. He got into tons of fights, started getting arrested for theft. His father, again, a no good bastard of his own, had no idea what to do with his punk son. Dillinger was also a weird guy from most accounts and who knows what he might be diagnosed as today, but there were issues. So his father sent the boy to the country, which seems to never work and didn’t here either. He stole a car in 1922 and his father pretty much gave up after that.

Dillinger sure didn’t give up on the gangster life though. He was all in. There was a brief naval stint after the car theft, probably encouraged by the justice system, but he didn’t last long. He deserted in Boston in 1923 and was finally given a dishonorable discharge. He briefly tried to settle down and even got married. But money was so easy through robbery. His personal issues had most certainly not improved over time. He was, well, twitchy. He almost needed to commit crimes. So he and a buddy planned a big robbery. Well, for them maybe, it was just a grocery store. As criminals are largely idiots, they screwed it up. They only got away with $50, Dillinger pistol whipped someone on the escape, and a local minister who knew both of them saw it happen. Dillinger’s father, now reformed himself at least to some extent and a deacon at the church with the minister, convinced his idiot son to plead guilty and throw himself on the court. Didn’t work. He got 10-20 years.

Dillinger was in the Indiana State Prison from 1924 to 1933. In those nine years before his release, he really learned to be a criminal. This is of course what happens with minor criminals. Prison turns them into major criminals. I mean, Dillinger was probably on this path anyway, but still, it sure didn’t help. Supposedly at least, when he was checked in, he stated,  “I will be the meanest bastard you ever saw when I get out of here.” Sounds apocryphal to me, but who knows. He also had a very bad dose of the clap upon admission. Wonder what happened to his poor wife, now that I consider it. They divorced, sure, but her health married to that guy…. Well, this was the golden age of the bank robbery and a lot of seasoned robbers were in that prison. Dillinger got to know them. They taught him a lot of tricks of the trade that was going to take him far away from little grocery stores. They started planning jobs too. Dillinger’s father, now trying to save his son, worked hard for his release, which happened in 1933.

Dillinger’s father might have reformed, but his son had not. It was 1933. There were no jobs for anyone, not to mention a hardened criminal who had spent the last decade in the clink. Plus Dillinger now really wanted to be a criminal. He always did. All that time in prison made him want it more. So he immediately started robbing again. Now it was banks and hit them hard and fast. Of course he almost immediately got arrested again, this time in Lima, Ohio. It would have been easy (and smarter but let’s be clear, brains were not Dillinger’s strong suit) to forget about those guys after he was released, but nope. Dillinger had friends smuggle guns into the prison even before he was caught again. The idea was that they would escape and join him. And in fact, when the cops arrested Dillinger, he had what was clearly a prison escape map in his pocket. So with the guns already in there, the guys broke out, freed Dillinger from the jail where he was, killed a cop, and headed back to Indiana. Now having killed, they were all in together.

Between June 1933 and June 1934, the Dillinger Gang robbed 12 banks. He also worked to get his buddies out of prison, using schemes they dreamed up in prison. They were going to have fun and go all the way until they were finally gunned down. I guess they didn’t see much point to life otherwise. They went on crime sprees, lived the high life, traveled around. Dillinger got arrested again, this time in Tucson, Arizona, in January 1934. He was extradited back to Indiana, but almost immediately broke out of prison, taking 15 other guys with him and this after reporters asked the sheriff if Dillinger, now famous, could break out and he said no one could break out. Ouch.

Now, throughout all of this, Dillinger was self-promoting. He wanted his picture in the papers and he was a braggart. He was good at publicity if nothing else! And it worked. People called him a Robin Hood figure, though the redistribution of the wealth part, well, uh, OK maybe that doesn’t work. But in the height of the Depression, someone like Dillinger could get a lot of sympathy by robbing the banks that seemed to be screwing people over. Disgust over this, not to mention his propensity to escape, helped the feds start taking gangsterism seriously. It was Dillinger and others like him that got J. Edgar Hoover to convince the federal government to take the Bureau of Investigation and create the FBI as a more independent agency with much greater resources.

After the latest escape, Dillinger then went to his part-time girlfriend, Billie Frechette, a Native American woman who had plenty of hard times herself. She agreed to hide him (she would later serve two years in prison for that move). They went to Minneapolis, where Dillinger started a new gang. But most of the time here, Dillinger was on the run. There were shootouts and near misses from law enforcement. Dillinger started exploring plastic surgery as an option to help him out of this jam. He tried it and the quack who did it almost killed him with ether, which would have been a delightful way for him to go out.

Finally, in July 1934, a madam at a brothel in Gary, Indiana told the FBI (in order to save her own skin from deportation back to Romania for being a madam at a brothel) that she not only knew Dillinger but that he was dating one of her workers and they were all going to the movies the next night. The FBI showed up. Manhattan Melodrama, with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, was playing. The FBI wasn’t real subtle. The movie manager thought his place was about to be robbed by these obvious guys doing a stakeout. He called the Chicago cops and they showed up. The FBI then had to get them out of there. Anyway, when Dillinger left the theater, the feds moved. Dillinger ran, the feds shot him several times and he finally died. Dillinger was 31 years old.

John Dillinger is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana.

If you would like this series to visit other gangsters of the Depression, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Both Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are in Dallas, albeit in different cemeteries. Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd is in Akins, Oklahoma. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.

Moreover, thanks to all who have given funds the last two days to help with me with upcoming trip to New Orleans (and really to Georgia as well). There will be graves of southerners! Many many graves of southerners! If you want to help make those trips happen and want me to see someone in those areas for your donation, please let me know and thanks again!