John Dillinger Biography
by Jennifer Remeta“Bank Robber Extraordinaire”
In the 1930’s, one name struck particular fear into the heart of every lawman. John Herbert Dillinger. He was considered “public enemy number” one by the US Justice Department, and was responsible for the death of an East Chicago police officer in 1934. Infamous for a string of successful bank robberies, no one has yet had the courage to even estimate how many thousands this notorious gangster stole over the years.
John Dillinger’s life involved more thrills than modern day action movies. Born to an extremely average mid-western family in June of 1903, John’s mother died when he was only three. His resulting home life was erratic to say the least, and often punctuated by disciplinary excesses. By his late teens and early twenties, John H. Dillinger was stealing cars and robbing grocery stores (perhaps not surprisingly, his own father was a grocer by trade). Convicted and sent to prison for the robbery of a grocery store in 1924, John Dillinger served eight and a half years before being released on parole. A short four months later, Dillinger was back in jail for yet another robbery, but this time escaped after less than a month of incarceration with help from his “gang”. Gang members generally consisted of various ex-cons and Dillinger’s occasional girlfriends, all of which changed fairly regularly. “Baby Face” Nelson, another notorious gangster of the 1930’s, was at one point a member of the John Dillinger bank robber gang.
September of 1933 to July of 1934 saw Dillinger’s gang on a wild bank-robbing spree across the Midwest. During the course of these robberies, the FBI also reports that the Dillinger gang repeatedly raided various police arsenals, giving them access to machine guns, unlimited ammunition, and bulletproof vests. In December of 1933, a gang member shot and killed a Chicago detective. Shortly thereafter, a Chicago policeman was killed during the robbery of the First National Bank of East Chicago. John Dillinger had suddenly escalated from a small time crook to a dangerous felon wanted by the FBI. After the January robbery, the gang made their way to what would later be known as the John Dillinger Tucson hideout. This hideout was, in reality, simply a hotel where the group stayed under assumed names. When a fire broke out in the hotel, Dillinger and a handful of his gang members were recognized by police and taken into custody. Dillinger was subsequently sent to the county jail in Crown Point, Indiana.
Though the local authorities claimed this particular jail was completely escape proof, John Dillinger escaped shortly thereafter; using what he later claimed was a wooden gun he had carved himself. Some legends tell of this particular gun being made of soap, but as no one is alive today that witnessed the event, the truth will never be known. In his escape, Dillinger stole the sheriff’s car and crossed the state line into Illinois. This one act brought the Federal authorities into the situation, as crossing state lines with a stolen car is a federal offense, and thus began the beginning of the end.
In July of 1934, Anna Sage (also known as Ana Cumpanas) telephoned police. As an illegal immigrant and the madam of an Indiana brothel, deportation proceedings had been started against her. In exchange for stopping the deportation proceedings, Anna provided the FBI with information on the whereabouts of John Dillinger. She advised authorities that she, another acquaintance, and Dillinger planned a trip to the movie theater that very night. She would wear a red dress so police could recognize the group easily. After the movie and just outside the back door of the theater, John Dillinger was shot and killed by a group of three FBI agents after a short gunfight. Because of her role, and more specifically her attire, it is often reported that “the lady in red” single-handedly brought down John H. Dillinger
The specific details of that night remain hazy, and there are even those who believe the man shot was not in fact John Herbert Dillinger, but a look alike. In the resulting round up, 27 different associates and accomplices were all indicted on various charges in Federal courts. And while Dillinger’s physical reign of lawlessness was limited to a short span of years, his legend will no doubt live on for eternity.
