Relatives claim body at cemetery isn’t Dillinger’s
INDIANAPOLIS — Two relatives of notorious 1930s gangster John Dillinger who plan to have his remains exhumed as part of a television documentary say they have “evidence” the body may not be his and that FBI agents possibly killed someone else in 1934.
The FBI called it a “myth” that its agents didn’t fatally shoot Dillinger outside a Chicago theater. The agency said in a statement that “a wealth of information supports Dillinger’s demise,” including fingerprint matches.
But in affidavits released by the Indiana State Department of Health, two relatives of the famed criminal say they’re seeking to have “a body purported to be John H. Dillinger” exhumed from Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis for a forensic analysis and possible DNA testing. The planned exhumation will be part of a documentary on Dillinger for The History Channel, a spokesman for A&E Networks confirmed.
Mike Thompson and Carol Thompson Griffith, who say Dillinger was their uncle, wrote in affidavits supporting an exhumation and reburial permit the state agency approved in July that they have received “evidence that demonstrates that the individual who was shot and killed at the Biograph Theater in Chicago on July 22, 1934 may not in fact have been my uncle, John H. Dillinger.”
In their affidavits, both say that “evidence” includes that the eye color of the man killed outside that theater didn’t match Dillinger’s eye color, his ears were shaped differently, the fingerprints weren’t a match and he had a heart condition. The document doesn’t elaborate on why the heart condition supports their theory.
But both say they want the body exhumed and subjected to a forensic analysis and possibly DNA testing.