rendova
07-22-2006, 08:22 AM
On this date, gentleman bandit and Public Enemy Number One John Herbert Dillinger was gunned down outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago on a blisteringly hot day. He had been betrayed by the infamous "Lady in Red", Anna Sage, madam and penny ante crook, who was hoping to avoid deportation in exchange for bringing America's most famous and beloved outlaw to justice. She was also hoping to collect the reward money--$10, 000-- a huge sum for those Depression days.
(side note--she received not a cent and was deported anyway, haha).
Jay Robert Nash, crime writer, has an interesting theory which he's put forward in his book "Dillinger--Dead or Alive". In this book, he claims that it wasn't Dillinger shot that night, but rather a 3rd rate crook by name of Jimmy Lawrence, standing in for Dillinger. Lawrence, according to Nash, did this willingly as he was a dying man anyway and thought he'd do Johnny a favor.
Nash cites discrepancies in Dillinger's autopsy report which don't match up to the known facts of his real body type. He aslo claims that Harry Pierpont, longtime Dillinger cohort, knew of the plot and, just before he was electrocuted for murder at the Ohio Big House, said, "I'm the only one who knows the ins and outs of this little story and I'm taking it with me."
Nash also tells the tale of a Mooresville, Indiana man, familiar with Johnny, who spotted him driving a car down the streets of Mooresville in the 1960's and who then gave the man money to buy his kids some shoes.
He had been living in Mexico all that time, hiding out from the law.
True or not, to many it seems the man who engineered the biggest prison break in Indiana history and who later escaped from the "escape-proof" Crown Point Indiana jail, driving the sheriff's car, lives on in people's memories as the man who could never be caught.
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/2999/dillengfh6.jpg Dillinger posing outside his Dad's farm with the famous wooden gun used to escape from Crown Point.
(side note--she received not a cent and was deported anyway, haha).
Jay Robert Nash, crime writer, has an interesting theory which he's put forward in his book "Dillinger--Dead or Alive". In this book, he claims that it wasn't Dillinger shot that night, but rather a 3rd rate crook by name of Jimmy Lawrence, standing in for Dillinger. Lawrence, according to Nash, did this willingly as he was a dying man anyway and thought he'd do Johnny a favor.
Nash cites discrepancies in Dillinger's autopsy report which don't match up to the known facts of his real body type. He aslo claims that Harry Pierpont, longtime Dillinger cohort, knew of the plot and, just before he was electrocuted for murder at the Ohio Big House, said, "I'm the only one who knows the ins and outs of this little story and I'm taking it with me."
Nash also tells the tale of a Mooresville, Indiana man, familiar with Johnny, who spotted him driving a car down the streets of Mooresville in the 1960's and who then gave the man money to buy his kids some shoes.
He had been living in Mexico all that time, hiding out from the law.
True or not, to many it seems the man who engineered the biggest prison break in Indiana history and who later escaped from the "escape-proof" Crown Point Indiana jail, driving the sheriff's car, lives on in people's memories as the man who could never be caught.
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/2999/dillengfh6.jpg Dillinger posing outside his Dad's farm with the famous wooden gun used to escape from Crown Point.