Body of 1930s gangster John Dillinger to be exhumed in September
INDIANAPOLIS — The body of notorious 1930s gangster John Dillinger is expected to be exhumed in September from a concrete-encased grave at an Indianapolis cemetery more than 85 years after he was killed by FBI agents outside a Chicago theatre.
The exhumation could put to rest conspiracy theories suggesting that the violent criminal some people considered a folk hero during the height of the Great Depression isn’t even buried in his marked grave.
The Indiana State Department of Health approved a permit on July 3 sought by Dillinger’s nephew, Michael Thompson, to have the body exhumed from Crown Hill Cemetery and reinterred there.
The permit doesn’t give a reason for the request, and Thompson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. However, Dan Silberman of A&E Networks said the exhumation will be covered as part of a documentary on Dillinger for The History Channel.
Indiana health department spokeswoman Jeni O’Malley said that based on the permit, the agency expects Dillinger’s body will be exhumed and reinterred on Sept. 16 — the date listed on the document.
Digging up Dillinger’s grave might prove a difficult task because days after his son’s funeral, Dillinger’s father had the casket reburied under a protective cap of concrete and scrap iron topped by four reinforced-concrete slabs.
The Indianapolis-born Dillinger was one of America’s most notorious criminals. The FBI says Dillinger’s gang killed 10 people as they pulled off a bloody string of bank robberies across the Midwest in the 1930s.
Dillinger was never convicted of murder and he was considered a folk hero by some during his gang’s violent rise amid the Great Depression as banks were failing, others were limiting withdrawals and many Americans had lost homes and farms to foreclosure, Sutton said.
Dillinger was awaiting trial in the slaying of an East Chicago police officer when he escaped from jail in Crown Point, Indiana, in March 1934 with a gun carved out of wood. While on the run, he underwent plastic surgery to alter his face and was said to have tried to remove his fingerprints with acid.
Dillinger was fatally shot in July 1934 by FBI agents outside the Biograph theatre in Chicago after he was betrayed by a woman who became known in the papers as the “Lady in Red.”