Born: June 22, 1903
Died: July 22, 1934
Dillinger liked to say that he robbed banks, not people. Known as “Gentleman Johnnie,” he was said to have been pleasant—and often flirtatious—during his many bank robberies. Although there is no evidence that he ever killed anyone, he became the subject of what was at the time the greatest manhunt in American history.
John Herbert Dillinger was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1903. Four years later, his mother, Mollie, died. His father, John Wilson Dillinger, a grocer, was left to raise his son and fifteen-year-old daughter, Audrey. In 1912 Dillinger’s father married Elizabeth Fields, who was from Mooresville, a farming community about twenty miles southwest of Indianapolis. When Dillinger was eleven years old, his half-brother, Hubert Dillinger, was born. Two year’s later, in 1916, his half-sister, Doris, followed.
Dillinger’s early life was quite normal. As a student, his grades were better than average. An outstanding athlete, he enjoyed playing baseball. He sometimes worked in his father’s store, and was well liked by his neighbors. But Dillinger eventually became involved with a youth gang known as the Dirty Dozen. As a member of the gang, he was charged with stealing coal from carts belonging to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and selling the stolen coal to neighbors.
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