Dillinger, John (dĭl`ĭnjər), 1902–34, American bank robber, probably b. Indianapolis. Paroled after serving a prison term for attempted robbery, Dillinger organized a gang and terrorized the Midwest in 1933. He escaped jail twice, was held responsible for 16 killings, and was declared "public enemy number one" before he was shot (July, 1934) in a Chicago street by FBI agents.

Bibliography

See J. R. Nash, The Dillinger Dossier (1983); biographies by R. Cromie and J. Pinkston (1962) and by J. Toland (1963).

Dillinger, John (Herbert)

(born June 28, 1902, or June 22, 1903, Indianapolis, Ind., U.S.—died July 22, 1934, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. bank robber. Arrested in 1924 in the foiled holdup of a grocer in Mooresville, Ind., he spent the next several years in Indiana state prisons, where he learned the craft of bank robbery from tough professionals. After his parole in 1933, he and one to four confederates committed five bank robberies in Indiana and Ohio in a period of four months. Again captured and imprisoned, he escaped with the help of other convicts whose own escape he had earlier financed and plotted. He and his gang then robbed banks in Indiana and Wisconsin and fled south to Florida and then to Tucson, Ariz., where they were discovered and arrested by local police. In 1934 he used a fake wooden pistol to effect yet another escape from an Indiana prison. His end came in an ambush set by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Indiana police, and Dillinger's friend Anna Sage, a brothel madam. The well-publicized “lady in red” drew Dillinger to the Biograph Theatre in Chicago, where, on emerging, he was shot to death.

Dillinger, John (1902–34) robber; born in Indianapolis, Ind. He terrorized Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio with bank robberies (1933–34) and became the FBI's "public enemy number one." Betrayed by a woman friend, he was killed by FBI agents in Chicago.

Dillinger, John

(1902–1934) murderous gunslinging bank robber of 1930s. [Am. Hist.: Flexner, 290]

See : Outlawry