Nelson is very temperamental, extremely violent, and unpredictable. Dillinger will live long enough to regret bringing him into the new gang. But now his choice of dedicated gang members is severely limited. Within a few days, they are robbing banks. Their first heist is the Security National Bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, several hundred miles from St. Paul. They get $46,000 (today $828,000). Dillinger uses some of his share to get funds to his shady lawyer for the legal defense of Pierpont, Makley and Clark. (Again, loyalty.)
For newspapers of the day, Dillinger’s exploits make for great headlines, and vastly increased circulation. They like Dillinger because the public likes him, or at least feel grudging admiration.
Humorist and columnist, Will Rogers, wrote of this episode: “They had him surrounded in Chicago, but he robbed a bank in Sioux Falls that day. So they was right on his trail. Just three states behind.”
A relaxed John Dillinger, Jr., at a family reunion, poses with his Thompson sub-machine gun and the wooden toy gun he used to escape from jail.
April 4, 1934. John Dillinger and Billy Frechette visit his father’s farm for a family reunion, perhaps his last. Federal agents have been staking out old man Dillinger’s home but did not realize Johnnie was there. In addition to a dozen family members, most of the neighbors also know that John Dillinger is visiting his hometown. At the reunion, John Dillinger tells his father, “I’ve set my course and I’ll have to follow it to the end. I will never go back to prison alive.” Together they have a fine outdoor picnic with at least 20 in attendance.
No one turns him in to the local police or the feds. The next day, a newspaper headline reads, “Dillinger Given Warm Welcome in Home Town”. Interviewed by federal agents after the homecoming, the neighbor who hid Dillinger’s car was asked if he would have let the outlaw sleep on the floor of his house. To which the neighbor replied, “Why, I would have given him my bed.”
April 9, 1934. Federal agents arrest Dillinger’s girlfriend, Billy Frechette for harboring a known criminal. She will be sentenced to two years in prison.
May 1934. Dillinger has arranged with an unscrupulous physician for a face lift for disguise and removal of fingerprints. The procedures do not go well. However, some of his facial features are now altered.
June 2, 1934. Opal Long, lady friend of Russell Clark, is arrested for harboring a fugitive, having been identified by the same snitch that turned in Billy Frechette in April. She is paroled in November and never tells the authorities anything about the gang, even though it would have made her time in prison much easier.
Polly Hamilton
July 1934. Dillinger is hiding out with new girlfriend Polly Hamilton in a Chicago apartment. She is a part-time waitress, part-time prostitute. She looks a lot like Frechette. He tells her his name is Jimmy Lawrence and works downtown at the Chicago Board of Trade. She believes him, even though a friend tells her he looks a lot like Dillinger. In later interviews, she describes him as “intelligent and fascinating”. “He was a good dresser, clean and neat”. Dillinger gives Polly money to have her teeth fixed and other gifts. Most importantly, according to Polly, he liked to go out at night. He did not drink much or use foul language. After a home-cooked meal, he even washed the dishes. After Dillinger’s death, Polly tells a newspaper reporter, “He really couldn’t have been kind and good and do the things [they say] he did.”
Their apartment belongs to Anna Sage, a madam. Ms. Sage is an illegal immigrant from Romania. She fears she will be deported. In exchange for reward money and legal status, she tells FBI agent Melvin Purvis that she will turn Dillinger in.
Anna Sage; the “Lady In Red”.
July 22, 1934. Anna Sage calls FBI agent Melvin Purvis and tells him that she, Polly Hamilton, and John Dillinger will attend a movie at the Biograph Theater that evening. So that his agents can identify her, Sage tells Purvis that she will be wearing an orange skirt.
10:40 PM. Seventeen armed federal agents and five East Chicago police officers are waiting outside the theater when Dillinger emerges with Polly Hamilton on one arm and Anna Sage on the other. Under the marque lights, her orange skirt appears red. History will remember Sage as “the woman in red”.
Among the federal agents is Charles Winstead whom Director Hoover had recruited as a firearms expert.
As the officers close in, Dillinger, realizing he is in a trap, lets loose of the women and turns into an alley. Winstead and two other officers fire five shots into Dillinger’s back at very close range. Public Enemy #1 is dead. Hamilton and Sage disappear into the crowd.
Dillinger’s blood in the alley where he was shot in the back.
At the morgue, two plaster “death masks” are made of Dillinger’s face. The Chicago undertaker props Dillinger’s body up behind a glass window. 15,000 people file by in the next few hours.
Public Enemy #1 On Display
July 23, 1934. Dillinger’s death is front-page news in every newspaper in America. Dillinger’s father and half-brother claim the body and take it back to their hometown in Indiana for burial.
July 25, 1934. Thousands attend the funeral service and burial. Some commentators note that shooting a man in the back, even if that man is John Dillinger, seems “Un-American”. Another newspaper columnist writes: “Dillinger died as he lived … with a smile on his lips and a woman on each arm.”
John Dillinger, Sr., with his family, signs a contract to perform in a stage production titled; “Crime Does Not Pay”.
In the weeks that follow, Dillinger’s family begins appearing on stages to tell their side of the John Dillinger Story, which differs considerably from official accounts. Billy Frechette and other gang molls sell their story to newspapers and magazines.
August 23, 1934. St. Paul policemen shoot and kill Van Meter, Dillinger’s trusted partner in crime since March 1934.
September 23, 1934. Charles Makley and Harry Pierpont, awaiting execution in Ohio, attempt to imitate Dillinger’s escape with a fake gun. Makley is killed and Pierpont is wounded.
October 17, 1934. Harry Pierpont is executed by electrocution.
Anna Sage, the “Lady In Red”, receives only $5,000 of the $25,000 reward and is deported to Romania, where she dies in 1947.
Billy Frechette is released from prison after serving two years for harboring a known criminal. After her release she joins a touring company with Dillinger family members in a production called “Crime Does Not Pay”. She dies of cancer in 1969 at the age of 62. Coincidently, another of Dillinger’s molls, Polly Hamilton, also dies of cancer in 1969.
November 7, 1934. Dillinger gang member, George “Baby Face” Nelson is killed in a shootout with federal agents.
December 24, 1968. Russell Long, who received a life sentence for murder after his capture in Tucson, dies of cancer.
May 21, 1981. Mary Kinder, an active member of the gang, was never convicted. She dies of natural causes. While her lover, Harry Pierpont, was in prison awaiting execution, Mary joined the traveling Dillinger show along with Billie Frechette. Mary used some of her earnings to pay a lawyer to appeal Pierpont’s sentence. She was the last surviving member of the infamous Dillinger Gang.
Reenactors stage a daring getaway for Dillinger Days at Hotel Congress.
FREE Dillinger Days Tours
Don’t miss Dillinger Days at Hotel Congress Friday January 22 and Saturday January 23, 2016. This is a FREE family-friendly celebration that includes reenactments, historic walking tours, classic cars, and much more. I will be leading 2 Dillinger-related FREE tours on Saturday from Hotel Congress.
IF you have not read Part 1 or 2 of the Dillinger Story, please start with Part 1.
Buy the Book!Hoosier Public Enemy: A Life of John Dillinger
March 3, 1934. Captured in Tucson in late January and extradited to Indiana, Dillinger is locked up in the Crown Point Indiana jail awaiting trial for robbery and murder. According to Dillinger, he fashions a toy handgun from a piece of wood. He stains it black using shoe polish and embeds metal from old razor blades to give it a realistic metallic appearance. Even though the jail is heavily guarded, Dillinger, using his fake gun, escapes. Dillinger, already a huge celebrity, now becomes a legend. Even if the law catches him, they can’t keep him.