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Post by Sam on Dec 1, 2015 1:10:28 GMT -5
Didn't Dillinger have a sister and some nieces and nephews? If he does, if the body was exhumed and there was any DNA, then it could be proved if he was the one who was killed that night.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Dec 2, 2015 13:49:20 GMT -5
Didn't Dillinger have a sister and some nieces and nephews? If he does, if the body was exhumed and there was any DNA, then it could be proved if he was the one who was killed that night. Dillinger had a sister, Audrey Hancock, who had seven children. He also had a half-brother and two half-sisters. The spokesman for the family in recent years is Jeffrey G. Scalf, grandson of Doris Dillinger (one of John's half-sisters). Scalf is a lawyer living and practicing in Mooresville, where the old Dillinger farm is located. He has a penchant for suing anyone in Indiana who dares use the Dillinger name without his permission because he claims he holds the "personality rights" to anything involving Dillinger.
As for DNA, at one time, Dillinger's other half-sister, Frances Thompson, had access to the blood-stained shirt and pants the man the FBI claimed was Dillinger was wearing at the time he was gunned down in front of the Biograph. These items were passed along to Joe Pinkston, who operated the Dillinger Museum in Nashville, Indiana. Pinkston died of what was concluded to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 1996 – some are convinced he was murdered. Following Pinkston's death, his son sold the Dillinger memorabilia to the City of Crown Point, Indiana, where a new Dillinger Museum opened last summer. Someone on a website suggested that if the blood-stained shirt and pants are still available, it's possible DNA could be extracted and compared with that of one of Dillinger's relatives. The problem, of course, would be the same as that in the case of Jack the Ripper in which the DNA of Aaron Kosminski was allegedly found on a shawl belonging to a Ripper victim, i.e., no one could be sure how it got there or which person in the Kosminski family left it. Many of Dillinger's relatives handled the clothing and more than likely left their DNA. If there are items such as the cloths people dipped in the blood outside the Biograph that have never been in the possession of any member of the Dillinger family and DNA could be extracted, then it could be determined if Dillinger was, indeed, the man killed that night. Dillinger's relatives insist John Dillinger is the man buried at Crown Hill Cemetery. His half-sister Frances, who died earlier this year, dismissed claims that the FBI killed the wrong man and when Dillinger: Dead or Alive? by Jay Robert Nash was published in the early 1970s, refused a request from Johnny Carson to appear on The Tonight Show. She also claimed the photo of the "old man" who wrote the letters looked nothing like her brother and passed up an opportunity to meet Johnny Depp when he was preparing for his rôle in Public Enemies.
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Post by jason on Dec 2, 2015 21:19:59 GMT -5
Dillinger had a sister, Audrey Hancock, who had seven children. He also had a half-brother and two half-sisters. The spokesman for the family in recent years is Jeffrey G. Scalf, grandson of Doris Dillinger (one of John's half-sisters). Scalf is a lawyer living and practicing in Mooresville, where the old Dillinger farm is located. He has a penchant for suing anyone in Indiana who dares use the Dillinger name without his permission because he claims he holds the "personality rights" to anything involving Dillinger.
As for DNA, at one time, Dillinger's other half-sister, Frances Thompson, had the blood-stained shirt and pants the man the FBI claimed was Dillinger was wearing at the time he was gunned down in front of the Biograph. She passed these items along to Joe Pinkston, who operated the Dillinger Museum in Nashville, Indiana. Pinkston died of what was concluded to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 1996 – some are convinced he was murdered. Following Pinkston's death, his son sold the Dillinger memorabilia to the City of Crown Point, Indiana, where a new Dillinger Museum opened last summer. Someone on a website suggested that if the blood-stained shirt and pants are still available, it's possible DNA could be extracted and compared with that of one of Dillinger's relatives. The problem, of course, would be the same as that in the case of Jack the Ripper in which the DNA of Aaron Kosminski was allegedly found on a shawl belonging to a Ripper victim, i.e., no one could be sure how it got there or which person in the Kosminski family left it. Many of Dillinger's relatives handled the clothing and more than likely left their DNA. If there are items such as the cloths people dipped in the blood outside the Biograph that have never been in the possession of any member of the Dillinger family and DNA could be extracted, then it could be determined if Dillinger was, indeed, the man killed that night. Dillinger's relatives insist John Dillinger is the man buried at Crown Hill Cemetery. His half-sister Frances, who died earlier this year, dismissed claims that the FBI killed the wrong man and when Dillinger: Dead or Alive? by Jay Robert Nash was published in the early 1970s, refused a request from Johnny Carson to appear on The Tonight Show. She also claimed the photo of the "old man" who wrote the letters looked nothing like her brother and passed up an opportunity to meet Johnny Depp when he was preparing for his rôle in Public Enemies.
WTH?! You have all this information that you've been keeping from us? I didn't know that the Dillinger Museum had reopened or that the clothes the man was wearing that night were still around. How much more haven't you told us? You're right, though, DNA from the clothes wouldn't prove anything, but after more than 80 years, I doubt that there are even any bones left in his grave unless he was buried in a vault. Was he?
It's not surprising that the half-sister refused to discuss Nash's book or said that the old man in the photos wasn't her brother because at that time, Dillinger could still have been alive. Or it's possible that only certain family members, like his sister Audrey, knew he had escaped.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Dec 3, 2015 8:41:57 GMT -5
WTH?! You have all this information that you've been keeping from us? I didn't know that the Dillinger Museum had reopened or that the clothes the man was wearing that night were still around. How much more haven't you told us? You're right, though, DNA from the clothes wouldn't prove anything, but after more than 80 years, I doubt that there are even any bones left in his grave unless he was buried in a vault. Was he? It's not surprising that the half-sister refused to discuss Nash's book or said that the old man in the photos wasn't her brother because at that time, Dillinger could still have been alive. Of it's possible that only certain family members, like his sister Audrey, knew he had escaped. I haven't been keeping anything from anyone. I simply do not have enough time to include every minor detail. If people want to know anything more, they can ask. And to answer your question, no, according to Jay Robert Nash, Dillinger wasn't buried in a vault. However, a few days after the funeral, Dillinger's father appeared at Crown Hill Cemetery with a group of workmen and the coffin was disinterred, cement mixed with scrap iron was poured into the grave and then covered with layers of concrete mixed with chicken wire. Ostensibly, this was to prevent theft of the corpse. What has never been explained is that at the time, John Wilson Dillinger (the father) had fallen on hard times and was worried he wouldn't be able to raise enough money to bury his son, so where did he get the money to disinter the body and pay for the concrete reinforcements?
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Post by steve on Dec 3, 2015 13:21:46 GMT -5
Was the casket metal or wood? I don't know if that would make a difference after all these years because metal rusts away.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Dec 4, 2015 7:51:09 GMT -5
Was the casket metal or wood? I don't know if that would make a difference after all these years because metal rusts away. He was buried in a wooden coffin covered in rose-grey cloth, a popular color for coffins because it is one of the colors associated with mourning. On the day of his burial at Crown Hill Cemetery, there was a thunderstorm with heavy rain, so the coffin was wet, which would have hastened decomposition. I doubt there is anything at all left of the man buried there.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Jul 21, 2017 8:35:17 GMT -5
The Biograph today. ‘Dillinger Day’ in ChicagoLINCOLN PARK, Ill. – The John Dillinger Died for You Society marks the 83rd anniversary of the notorious bank robber’s death Saturday evening across from the Biograph Theater at Lincoln Station, 2432 N. Lincoln Avenue, at 7 p.m. “It’s part of the folklore” in the city’s gangster past, Lincoln Station owner Benn Hamm said. “It’s fun, though.”
As every Chicagoan should know, Dillinger – declared “Public Enemy No. 1” by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover – was lying low in Chicago after escaping the Crown Point jail in Crown Point, Ind., in March 1934. He was hanging out in Lincoln Park with girlfriend Polly Hamilton and her landlady, Anna Sage, a Romanian immigrant brothel keeper. Sage betrayed Dillinger by advising federal agents of his whereabouts in exchange for their cooperation in halting deportation proceedings against her. On Sunday, July 22, 1934, the three went to see the Clark Gable movie Manhattan Melodrama at the Biograph, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, where, upon leaving the theater, Dillinger was ambushed by federal agents and gunned down in an alley just south of the Biograph. Two women were wounded in the gunfire – though Sage and Hamilton were unscathed. Sage, the notorious “lady in red,” was actually wearing a bright orange bouclé skirt that appeared blood red under the marquee lights. She was later deported to Romania.
There will be a Best Lady in Red Contest Saturday night and the winner will receive Dillinger memorabilia and gift certificates. Lady in Red cosmopolitans and period drinks such as Manhattans and highballs will be served; otherwise, the event is free. Steve Sato will host the event, having assumed the duties following the death of Richard Crowe, a local author, ghost-hunter and tour guide, who died five years ago. Beginning at 8 p.m., Sato and Ellen Poulsen, author of Don’t Call Us Molls: Women of the John Dillinger Gang and The Case Against Lucky Luciano: New York’s Most Sensational Vice Trial, will discuss Dillinger’s life and legacy. Renowned Dillinger researcher Tom Smusyn will also participate. They’ll play Manhattan Melodrama in the background, Hamm said, adding, “It’s not that interesting” as a Depression-era B-movie, even one starring Clark Gable. At 10:15 p.m. or so, a bagpipe-led procession will cross the street to the Biograph and down to the alley where Dillinger was shot and killed around the same time 83 years ago. The Dillinger Day commemoration continues in large part because the Biograph is still standing, now as home to the Victory Gardens Theater. Hamm said several tour groups a day stop by the Biograph to see the spot where Dillinger was killed.
The Dillinger Day proceedings were held at the old Red Lion Pub until it closed in 2008, after which the event moved to Lincoln Station. According to Hamm, the event’s biggest turnout was the following year when around 150 attended in the midst of the media mania over the Johnny Depp gangster film Public Enemies. Since then, Hamm said, around 30 to 40 people usually appear for the annual event.
The area recently lost another Dillinger haunt, the former site of Hi-Tops and before that, the Gin Mill and Orphans at 2462 N. Lincoln Avenue at the corner of Montana Street. In the 1930s, it was known as Club Biograph and supposedly, Dillinger was such a regular, he insisted on sitting on the third stool from the end of the bar. The building was recently razed for two new apartment buildings. Hamm confirmed the building’s owner used to come to Lincoln Station all the time and tell tales of the “secret poker room” in the back of Club Biograph where mobsters would play, including Dillinger, although he was not generally well-received by the local underworld. “Ironically, he wasn’t even a gangster,” Hamm explained. “The gangsters hated him just as much as the FBI did for bringing the heat on them. He was just kind of a rogue.” But Dillinger will always be identified with that block of Lincoln Avenue in Chicago, Hamm concluded.Source: Ted Cox, DNAInfo, July 21, 2017.
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Post by jason on Jul 21, 2017 11:51:09 GMT -5
Looks like most members of the Society believe that Dillinger was the man killed that night.
Didn't you used to dress in red and go to these events?
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Post by Sam on Jul 21, 2017 21:03:06 GMT -5
What reason would the old man have had for writing the letters if he wasn't Dillinger?
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Post by chris on Jul 22, 2017 15:28:52 GMT -5
I knew Richard Crowe. He operated Chicago Supernatural Tours from way back in the '70s. He didn't get along with Jay Robert Nash because he thought that the man killed that night was Dillinger and Nash didn't. Nash said that if Crowe admitted that the wrong man was killed, that it would ruin all of his stories about Dillinger's ghost. I don't think that Nash gets along with very many people.
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Post by steve on Jul 22, 2018 9:55:01 GMT -5
I just saw something on TV about John Dillinger's robberies and escapes and that some thought that the wrong man had been killed and I realized that this was the day of the shooting. I've had discussions with some of his relatives online, nieces and nephews, I guess. At least they said that they were his relatives. They don't all agree if he was killed that night or if he escaped. I guess all of those who remember him are dead now, so they just know what they've been told.
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Post by LostLenore on Jul 23, 2018 8:36:45 GMT -5
When my brother was at the Fort in Indiana when he was in the Army, he dated a girl whose uncle or maybe it was great uncle was John Dillinger. My brother had dinner at their house one time and made the mistake of saying something about the book that Dillinger was still alive. He could be kind of crude at times and told us that it was like he had farted at the dinner table because of the way they ignored him and changed the subject. The girl told him that they always acted like that when someone brought it up and she thought that her uncle could still be alive somewhere and that some of the family knew it.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Jul 30, 2019 20:49:41 GMT -5
Body of John Dillinger Scheduled for Exhumation INDIANAPOLIS – The body – if there’s anything left of it – of John Dillinger, the notorious 1930s bank robber, is scheduled to be exhumed from his resting place (above) in Crown Hill Cemetery as part of a History Channel documentary.
Earlier this month, the Indiana State Department of Health approved a request from Dillinger’s nephew, Michael C. Thompson, to disinter and rebury the body by September 16. When contacted by the IndyStar, Thompson declined to comment.
The permit does not cite a reason for the request, but a History Channel spokesperson confirmed the exhumation is part of an upcoming project. No further details, including the date of exhumation or the production timeline, have been released.
Aaron Seaman, general manager of Crown Hill Cemetery, said he has not been contacted by the funeral home regarding the exhumation and a date has not been set.
Although the documentary’s focus is unknown, the legends surrounding the notorious bank robber – dubbed Public Enemy No. 1 – are many. For example, the claim Dillinger had his fingerprints removed by acid, dyed his hair, plucked his eyebrows into a fine line and had plastic surgery to alter his appearance has led many to theorize the wrong man was killed outside the Biograph Theatre the night of July 22, 1934.
Nevertheless, Dillinger biographer Bill Helmer said theories that the grave at Crown Hill contains a Dillinger doppelganger are “total nonsense.” Helmer, a longtime Playboy editor and author of Dillinger: The Untold Story and several other books about 1930s outlaws, claimed he’s unsure of what there is to be learned from Dillinger’s body, which was “perfectly well-documented” at the time of his death. “The only good thing about it is it keeps Dillinger’s name in the news.”
Born in Indianapolis on June 22, 1903, John Herbert Dillinger committed his first recorded crime – a car theft – in Mooresville, where his father had purchased a farm. Dillinger went from small-time crook to America’s most wanted after a string of bank robberies and an alleged ill-fated robbery that left a police officer dead – to this day, many argue Dillinger wasn’t present when Patrolman William Patrick O’Malley was shot and killed during an East Chicago bank robbery on January 15, 1934.
Unlike many trigger-happy outlaws of the time, Helmer said Dillinger was known for speaking lovingly of his father and showing kindness to hostages. The outlaw had a playful sense of humor and enjoyed pranks. Dillinger should be remembered “as a bank robber who was crooked, but not twisted,” Helmer continued. “He didn’t have any remarkably obscene or difficult or ingenuous or bloodthirsty traits about him. He was very much a professional.”
On July 22, 1934, 15 FBI agents and members of the East Chicago Police Department killed the 31-year-old Dillinger as he left the Biograph Theatre at 2433 North Lincoln Avenue in Chicago. He was betrayed by Anna Sage, the infamous “woman in red.”
The gangster has been the subject of numerous books and several movies, including the 2009 film, Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp.
Fearing the theft of his son’s corpse, a few days after he was buried, Dillinger’s father, who had little money to spare, ordered 2½ tons of concrete poured into the grave. Sources: Dawn Mitchell and Holly V. Hays, The Indianapolis Star, July 29, 2019; and Greg Norman, Fox News, July 30, 2019.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Dec 31, 2019 2:06:51 GMT -5
Judge Dismisses Action to Exhume John Dillinger
In early December, Marion County Superior Court Judge Timothy Oakes granted Crown Hill Cemetery’s motion to dismiss an action filed by Michael Thompson to exhume the body of his uncle, John Dillinger.
Thompson filed the lawsuit to unearth Dillinger’s remains for DNA testing as a means of proving whether it was the famous bank robber, or someone else, buried in the Dillinger family plot. In support of his proposal, Thompson cited the many stories that the man killed July 22, 1934, outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater was someone other than his uncle. Crown Hill Cemetery opposed the exhumation and filed a motion to dismiss.
In his order, Oakes noted the law requires the cemetery’s consent for such an endeavor, writing: “The limited question before the Court today is whether disinterment may occur under this section of the statute without cemetery approval. The Court finds that the statutory requirements for this section of the statute are clear in that disinterment requires the cemetery owner to give consent before disinterment may occur.” Indiana law, he continued, “does not require that the cemetery have a valid, rational, or meaningful reason” for withholding its consent.
Thompson originally requested an exhumation permit last summer after he was contacted by The History Channel concerning a proposed documentary on the Indiana outlaw which would include claims the wrong man is buried in Dillinger’s grave. In early September, the Indiana State Department of Health approved the request and plans were to dig up and rebury the grave’s occupant by no later than September 16.
For reasons unknown, the documentary was tabled, but Thompson, who claimed he wanted to settle things once and for all, and either prove, or disprove, the man in the grave was, or wasn’t, his uncle, obtained a second permit in October for exhumation of Dillinger’s remains on December 31.
Attorneys for Crown Hill Cemetery, calling the allegations the wrong man was killed “a decades-old conspiracy theory,” opposed the exhumation, saying Indiana’s legislature has granted cemetery owners the right to “protect its grave sites from unwarranted disturbance.”
Additionally, in August, the FBI issued a statement claiming it was a “myth” that its agents didn’t fatally shoot Dillinger outside the Chicago theater and “a wealth of information supports the bank robber’s demise” including fingerprint matches.
Others disagree, citing the fact Dillinger’s own father didn’t recognized his son when he traveled to Chicago to claim the corpse. The FBI attributed the significant changes in the dead man’s appearance to plastic surgery and also alleged his fingerprints had been burned off with acid, which begs the question: If his fingerprints had been obliterated by acid, how could they have possibly matched those of Dillinger?
For the present, the man in Dillinger’s grave – whoever he is – will be allowed to rest in peace.
Sources: Rick Callahan, The Indianapolis Star, and The Associated Press.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Jul 22, 2023 11:40:51 GMT -5
Infamous John Dillinger Escape Car up for AuctionOn Saturday, March 3, 1934, Public Enemy No. 1 John Dillinger was an inmate in the “escape-proof” Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana, where he had been incarcerated since January 30. That day, he used a wooden gun he had carved and blacked with boot-black to force jailers to open the door of his cell, and he and another prisoner escaped, using Sheriff Lillian Holley’s 1933 Ford V8 (above) as their getaway vehicle. Johnnie had a flair for the dramatic.
Now that big, shiny, black car could be yours – the current bid is still under $11,000 (as of 12:30 p.m., July 22) – for it is one of the items featured for auction through Witherell’s Auction House. The vehicle, which has been on display at the California Automobile Museum, is expected to fetch as much as $250,000, but if some rich Dillinger aficionado decides he (or she) can’t live without it, the selling price could be much higher.
According to Witherell’s, the car has been restored, however, it retains many original parts, including the frame, engine block, some body parts, steering wheel, some upholstery, one windshield wiper and various other small parts. The tires are new, and where possible, all other parts are original to other vehicles of the same date and model. The car as restored is in excellent, drivable condition.
The auction ends Sunday, August 27, 2023. You may sign up for the auction, or view additional information about the getaway vehicle here.Other Dillinger-related items up for auction include numerous photos and documents.Sources: Matt Christy, IndianaNews, June 28, 2023, and Witherell’s Auction House.
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