Dillinger's Charisma
A consummate charmer
What made the prolific bank robber different from his peers was his charisma and wit. As seen above, he poses with a prospective prosecutor but moments later, he would take this opportunity to signal to his gang of a forthcoming escape.
The Dillinger Story
On the late evening of Saturday, September 6, 1924, John Herbert Dillinger's career in crime started inauspiciously enough with the botched robbery attempt of a grocer in his hometown of Mooresville, Indiana. Dillinger had turned 21 years of age just three months earlier. After playing two baseball games in Martinsville, the county seat, he was driven home by Edward Singleton, a distant cousin related to his stepmother and an umpire that traveled with the Martinsville team. Each team supplied one umpire. Singleton, an individual who had a knack for finding trouble, decided to expose John to some bootleg brew. After getting John fully intoxicated Singleton prepared John for the robbery of grocer Frank Morgan. The elderly Morgan was a friend of the Dillinger family and owner of the West End Grocery; a store that John Sr. sold farm goods to. Singleton pulled the car into an alley near the Christian Church and placed John in a dark inlet of the church near the side stairs. John was so drunk he could barely walk. Singleton gave John a bolt wrapped in a handkerchief. Singleton propped John up and hit the horn twice as Morgan passed Singleton's car halfway down the alley. That was the signal for John to attack Morgan. John came out of the inlet and hit Morgan on the head. At this point the 65 year-old grocer began to wrestle with the young and drunk John. He had John on the ground when Singleton came out of the car and shot his gun once into the air. This startled both Dillinger and Morgan. Dillinger got up and was confused. Eventually he rushed toward the car which Singleton was now backing down the alley. Morgan then screamed out the KKK (possiblyy the Masonic) scream for help and porch lights came on. Dillinger headed up town and poked his head in the pool hall to ask if Mr. Morgan was okay. Of course no one knew if he were as the incident had just happened but John was too drunk to know what he was asking.
John was sent to the reformatory in Pendleton, Indiana, where he was to meet future colleagues Harry Pierpont and Homer Van Meter. After serving five years without parole, an embittered Dillinger requested and received a transfer to the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana, where Pierpont and Van Meter were already in residence.
By mid-1932 Dillinger had become part of a group of prisoners intent on escaping. This group included Harry Pierpont as one of the leaders, along with Charles Makley, John Hamilton, Russell Clark, and later Walter Dietrich and James Jenkins. Since Dillinger's parole date was approaching he was selected to operate as their connection on the outside, carrying out robberies to raise funds for the escape.
Subsequent to his parole on May 22, 1933, he began a series of holdups. During this period Dillinger began to call attention to himself with his flamboyant style, which included wearing a fashionable straw hat, and a knack for athletic leaps over the teller's barrier into the cashier's cage. Not long after securing sufficient funds for the necessary bribes of guards and officials, along with arranging for the smuggling of weapons into the prison, he was once again arrested in Dayton, Ohio. The arrest took place on September 22, 1933, at the boarding house room of girlfriend Mary Longnaker, with whom he had visited the Chicago World's Fair that summer.
With the heat on and the development by the Chicago police of a special unit called The Dillinger Squad, it was decided by the gang that they should lay low for awhile. Dillinger reportedly dyed his hair red and grew a mustache. John and Billie Evelyn Frechette) joined Makley, Clark, and Pierpont in Daytona Beach, Florida. Also on hand were Clark's girlfriend Opal (mack Truck) Long, Pierpont's girlfriend mary Kinder and Mary's sister Margaret who they had tried to set up with Makley. Margaret and Makley didn't click. On Christmas Eve, Dillinger and Billie discussed marriage. John gave her a diamond ring, his sports sedan and thousands of dollars in cash. Billie was to return to the reservation and file for a divorce from her incarcerated husband Welton Sparks and get Christmas gifts for the Dillinger family in Mooresville, maywood and gifts for Billie's family in Wisconsin.
Dillinger returned north two weeks later to meet Billie iat a prearranged time and location. In the mean time Homer Van meter and John hamilton showed up in Florida asking for help with a mob arranged bank robbery in east Chicago. Pierpont told them no as did John and the others. They thought it was a trick by Nitti to kill them for hamilton's unauthorized act of killing a Chicago police detective. Pierpont, Mary and Margaret, after New Year's Day head south to Miami. Homer Van Meter and John "Red" Hamilton decided to rob The First National Bank in East Chicago, Indiana, on January 15. During the getaway Patrolman William O'Malley fired shots at one of the bandits only to have them bounce off the bulletproof vest the outlaw was wearing. In the exchange of fire that followed one of the bandits shot and killed the officer. Hamilton was wounded by police fire and was helped to the getaway car. Mary Kinder asserted that the third participant was a member of Baby Face Nelson's group. She felt it was probably John Paul Chase but could have been Tommy Carroll or Eddie Green. She said the only Dillinger members were Hamilton and Van meter and they were involved to make amends to Nitti for their disturbances and unauthorized acts in Chicago.
On January 23,1934, Makley and Clark were forced out of hiding at the Hotel Congress in Tucson, Arizona, by a fire that broke out in the hotel that morning. One of the firemen, having recognized them from a crime magazine photo, notified the sheriff. A few days later, Dillinger and Billie Frechette arrived in town for the reunion of the gang. Acting on a tip, the police first arrested Makley, and then Clark, at the house they had been staying in since the hotel fire. Later, following leads, the police were able to capture Pierpont. Dillinger, unaware of these events, arrived at the house where Makley and Clark had been grabbed, and was arrested by officers just as they were setting up their stakeout. The gang was in custody except Hamilton and Van Meter who were still in Chicago. Dillinger had checked on hamilton before going to Tucson and hamilton paid Dillinger some gambling debts using east Chicago funds. This is why Dillinger had a little bit of East Chicago money on him when he was arrested.
By an arrangement made in Chicago, the gang decided to meet in Northern Wisconsin, at the Little Bohemia Lodge near Mercer. The criminals took up residence beginning April 20. Along with them they brought Van Meter's girlfriend Marie Comforti, Nelson's wife Helen and Tommy Carroll's wife Jean. The Nelsons moved into a cabin next to the lodge, with the rest taking rooms on the second floor of the lodge itself. They immediately began to enjoy the rest, relaxing and playing cards.
Within a short time, the owner of the lodge, Emil Wanatka, had identified Dillinger from a newspaper photo. With his wife becoming increasingly nervous, and growing tired of the pushy gangsters, it was decided to find a way to contact the police. Passing the information on to Mrs. Wanatka's brother, he and her brother-in-law, Henry Voss, drove to the town of Rhinelander. That afternoon the local sheriff put him in contact with Melvin Purvis in Chicago. Purvis immediately chartered two planes to fly into the Rhinelander airport.
The arraignment for the O'Malley killing took place on February 9, 1934. Louis Piquett, a Chicago attorney who specialized in representing underworld characters, acted as his lawyer. After some legal maneuvering, Judge William J. Murray, set the trial for March 3. During the succeeding weeks there was little concern about a jailbreak, for along with the escape-proof reputation of the county jail and the fifty guards employed there, the sheriff had added armed citizens and National Guardsmen. When Dillinger bluffed his way out with the wooden pistol on March 3, it left officials stunned and the public captivated.
By March 4, Dillinger, having rejoined Billie Frechette, arrived in St. Paul to add the final members of his new gang. This was to include John Hamilton and old prison friend Homer Van Meter (paroled from the Indiana penitentiary nine days after Dillinger in May 1933). Van Meter brought in fellow criminals, Eddie Green and his partner Tommy Carroll. To this group, was added underworld character Lester Gillis, better known as Baby Face Nelson, known for his reputation as a trigger-happy killer.
On March 6, the gangsters robbed The Security National Bank and Trust in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As Dillinger and Van Meter collected $49,000 in cash and bonds from the vault, alarm blaring, a large crowd of onlookers gathered in the street. Nelson, spying off-duty policeman Hale Keith peering through the window, fired through the glass, wounding the man. To make their getaway, they took hostages to ride the running boards of their Packard, acting as a human shield. Once they arrived at the main highway they threw nails into the road in order to slow down any pursuing police. When the Packard overheated due to a police bullet hole in the radiator, the gang stole another car just as the police closed in. This led to a running gun battle, which nevertheless they were able to escape from, heading back to their Twin Cities hideout.
At about the same time, a panic arose in Lima, Ohio, at the trial of Pierpont and Makley, as word got out that Dillinger might try to break them out. The March 13th robbery of The First National Bank in Mason City, Iowa, netted only $52,000 of an anticipated $240,000. Both Dillinger and Hamilton received shoulder wounds and a bystander was wounded when fired on by Nelson. The gang once again escaped behind a shield of hostages, all of whom were released after about 45 minutes. Back in Minneapolis, both Dillinger and Hamilton were treated for their wounds. John's plans to use his share of the $240,000 to leave the country had to be abandoned.