2 Dillinger kin doubt his body is in grave
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 buried in an Indianapolis cemetery may not be him and that FBI agents possibly killed someone else in 1934.
The FBI immediately disputed that idea, calling it a “myth” that its agents didn’t fatally shoot Dillinger outside a Chicago theater more than 85 years ago. 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 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 earlier this week.
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 outside 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 that he had a heart condition. The document doesn’t elaborate on why the heart condition supports their theory that the man wasn’t Dillinger.
But both say they want the body exhumed and subjected to a forensic analysis and possibly DNA testing “in order to make a positive identification.”
“It is my belief and opinion that it is critical to learn whether Dillinger lived beyond his reported date of death of July 22, 1934. If he was not killed on that date, I am interested in discovering what happened to him, where he lived, whether he had children, and whether any such children or grandchildren are living today,” both say in the documents.