John Herbert Dillinger Biography

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World of Criminal Justice on John Herbert Dillinger

John Herbert Dillinger became a national figure during the early 1930s in the Unites States. His daring and brutal bank robberies made him the center of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) mahnunt, and his subsequent death at the hands of the FBI helped solidify the FBI as a crime-fighting force while also ensuring Dillinger's place in U.S. history.

Dillinger was born on June 22, 1903, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of a middle-class grocer father. As a teenager, Dillinger got into trouble and dropped out of school. His father sold his business and moved to rural Indiana in hopes of changing his son's outlook, but this proved a futile effort. Dillinger got into trouble with the law, joined the Navy and then promptly deserted. By 1924 he was back in Indianapolis, now married but without prospects.

Dillinger and another man, having ben unable to find work, robbed a grocery store. The two were caught soon after, and Dillinger confessed to the crime on advice from his father. While the other man received a short sentence, Dillinger spent eight years in prison. Released in 1933, Dillinger was bitter and immediately returned to crime. Dillinger's robbery of an Ohio bank resulted in another quick arrest, but four escaped inmates from an Indiana state prison freed Dillinger shortly thereafter. Now a gang, the five men proceeded to commit further robberies across multiple states.

While continuing their robberies, the gang also stole weapons from the Indiana police that included bulletproof vests and machine guns. Following the murders of two policemen, the gang fled to Arizona but were captured and returned to Indiana. Dillinger escaped from custody by fooling his guards with a fake gun. Dillinger stole weapons and a police car and fled.

Dillinger took the car into Illinois, which made him liable to the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, since he had taken the car across state lines and committed a federal offense. This allowed the FBI to get involved once a grand jury had indicted Dillinger on a number of counts including auto theft and murder.

Arriving in Chicago, Dillinger met up his girlfriend, Evelyn Frechette. The pair traveled on to St. Paul, Minnesota, where they joined other criminals to form a new gang. As before, Dillinger and his new gang began robbing banks. In April of 1934, Dillinger and Frechette escaped a shootout, returning to the home of Dillinger's father in rural Indiana. Dillinger and an accomplice robbed a police station of its guns and eluded the FBI during the following two months. The FBI's opening to finishing the case came when a woman told them that she, her girlfriend, and Dillinger would be at a Chicago movie theater on the night of July 22. When Dillinger left the theater that evening, the FBI closed in, and Dillinger was killed in the brief ensuing shootout. Eventually, 27 persons were convicted in federal courts on charges of harboring and aiding and abetting John Dillinger and his gang members during their crime spree.