Infamous America - DILLINGER Ep. 9 | "Public Enemy No. 1"

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

Dillinger continues robbing banks as his girlfriend, Billie Frechette, receives a prison sentence. As law enforcement draws closer to Dillinger, he has plastic surgery to alter his famous face. Then Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson rob a bank in South Bend, Indiana that becomes their bloodiest heist to date. The Bureau of Investigation officially labels John Dillinger, "Public Enemy No. 1." For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the most famous players in the story of John Dillinger is someone who enters the narrative close to the end. After his death, newspapers across the country reported that the police received help from a woman in red who tipped them off to his whereabouts. The reference was to the dress she wore on the fateful night she went to the theater with Dillinger. Her real name was Anna Kumpanash. She was born in Romania, got married at 17, and immigrated to America with her husband. They settled in Chicago, but they separated when she was 25. She moved to East Chicago, Indiana with her son, where she worked as a prostitute and waitress. When the owner of that business was arrested for violating liquor laws, Anna took over the place.

She kept it in business by fostering a good relationship with the East Chicago Police. In 1921, she opened her own brothel in nearby Gary, Indiana. She was arrested numerous times, but her police connections helped her escape serious punishment. She was convicted twice for prostitution, but both times she was pardoned by the governor. She married a fellow Romanian immigrant in 1928. He dropped his Romanian last name and adopted the last name Sage, which was easier on the American tongue. So Anna became Anna Sage, the name she used when she became involved with John Dillinger in the spring, in summer of 1934. After surviving the showdown at Little Bohemia and the upcoming Wildest

shootout of his career, he unknowingly walked into a deadly trap, courtesy of Anna Sage. From BlackBarrel Media, this is Season 4 of Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the story of the most notorious bank robber in modern American history, John Dillinger. This is Chapter 9. Public Enemy Number 1. In the middle of the night, John Dillinger, Red Hamilton, and Homer Van Meter escaped from the lodge at Little Bohemia. Melvin Purvis and his agents didn't realize that fact for several more hours, not until they fired gas canisters into the lodge at dawn. Only the wives and girlfriends of the gangsters ran out of the building.

The outlaws were gone. Dillinger, Hamilton, and Van Meter ran from the lodge and eventually found themselves at the southern tip of Rest Lake. They arrived at a small resort owned by an elderly couple, and the wife was sick and bedridden. Dillinger placed an extra blanket around the woman and comforted her by explaining they meant no harm. They just needed a car. It was cold outside in late April, and while the couple had two vehicles, neither would start due to the weather. The gangster stole a 1930 Model A from a neighbor. The Model A was a far cry from Dillinger's dream car, the eight-cylinder Essex Terraploid.

lane. The Model A was a four-cylinder, and the outlaws puttered away at a whopping 45 miles an hour. Babyface Nelson had raced away from the lodge in a fast Ford coop after he'd attacked agents who'd been driving it, but he got the car stuck in the mud 12 miles down the road and had to walk to a nearby Native American reservation. He hid on the reservation for almost a week and then returned to Chicago unharmed. When agents found the abandoned car, They returned it to the young man who had reluctantly loaned it to Melvin Purvis for the raid. The failed attempt to capture the criminals at Little Bohemia inspired a wave of negative press. The Chicago Herald and examiner declared,

U.S. agents in Dillinger Hunt called Stupid. That claim probably came from the citizens of Mercer, Wisconsin. They passed around a petition to have Melvin Purvis removed from his position in charge. The petition called the agent's conduct. irresponsible and the raid, reckless and stupid. The overnight operation had resulted in two men dead and four others wounded, and none of them were the gangsters. While the agents tried to pick up the pieces, Babyface Nelson hid on the reservation

and Dillinger's crew made it to St. Paul, Minnesota. Dillinger, Hamilton, and Van Meter had successfully avoided police in several small towns, but as they reached St. Paul, they were spotted by a deputy. He fired at them with a hunting rifle and the bullet hit Red Hamilton in the back. Hamilton had an almost supernatural ability to attract bullets. It was at least his eighth gunshot wound. And now the confrontation evolved into a slow speed chase. Dillinger's team was still in the rickety Model A and the St. Paul Police didn't have anything better.

The gangsters and the cops fired at each other for almost 50 miles. Eventually, the outlaws lost the cops. Soon after, they stole a 1934 Ford V8 deluxe. Now they had some real speed, and they needed it. Red Hamilton's gunshot wound was serious. They raced to find a doctor. Three months earlier, Dr. Joseph Moran had stitched up Red Hamilton after the gang robbed the First National Bank of East Chicago.

Red had been shot seven times during the escape. Now, Dillinger and Van Meter rushed their friend back to Dr. Moran. But this time, the doctor refused to help. No amount of money could persuade him. More than likely, he could tell that the wound was fatal. He suggested they find a safe place to take Redd where he could die peacefully. They stashed the wounded man in a friendly gang's hideout in Aurora, Illinois. A few days later, Red Hamilton died.

That night, Dillinger and his head. and the other gang members buried Red in a hole near a quarry. Dillinger reportedly said, Red, old pal, I hate to do this, but I know you'd do the same for me. Then he poured lie on Red's hands and head so the body couldn't be identified. Homer Van Meter filled in the grave,

and they marked it with a roll of barbed wire. By that time, the Bureau had recovered the Model A. The inside was soaked with blood, but the agents couldn't tell whose blood was, and they made the wrong assumption. Purvis thought Dillinger had died from wounds he'd suffered at little Bohemia or during the shootout with St. Paul Police. But of course, neither was true. John Dillinger was very much alive. He proved it a few days later when he and Homer Van Meeter robbed another bank. They went back to Ohio. The two men entered through a drug store that

was connected to the bank. They pulled out their Tommy guns and went to work. They reportedly took a $11,000 in cash and an unknown amount in bonds. As usual, they grabbed hostages for their getaway. They went back through the drugstore and they were met by cops and vigilantes. But the hostages prevented law enforcement from opening fire. Details of the robbery are sketchy, but one moment shines through. The female hostage, Ruth Harris, said Homer Van Meter held her so tightly she could feel the vibration of the Tommy gun every time he fired it.

Van Meter likely fired the cops to get them to back up to allow him and Dillinger to escape. In the process, five people were wounded, including the local police chief. Dillinger and Van Meter pushed their hostages outside. They stood the hostages on the running boards of the getaway car. And this time, the gangsters didn't make a slow exit because there were hostages hanging on to the car. They roared out of town at 80 miles an hour. The outlaws released the hostages shortly thereafter. Ruth Harris said Van Meeter held her wrist so tight

she could see the imprints of his fingernails for weeks. After the robbery, Dillinger made a quick trip back to Indianapolis to drop off money to his family. In case anything happened to him in the near future, he asked his father to give some money to his imprisoned girlfriend, Billy Fershut. Then Dillinger slipped out of town and headed for a new hideout. He and Van Meter went to a city they thought would be the last place anyone would look, Crown Point, Indiana, the location of his infamous jailbreak with the wooden gun.

A couple weeks later, the two men robbed another bank in Ohio. After their last experience, being confronted by cops and vigilantes, they appeared to be more jumpy this time. When an alarm went off inside the bank, they abandoned the job before they opened the safe. They ran out with only $5,400, and that wasn't nearly enough to pay for Billy's legal defense and Dillinger's plastic surgery. On May 23, 1934, in a courtroom in St. Paul, Billy Fershett received two years in prison for harboring a fugitive.

On the same day, notorious outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were killed in Louisiana by a posse led by Texas ranger Frank Hamer. Bonnie and Clyde weren't as famous as Dillinger at the time, but their end was front-page news nonetheless. For six months in the middle of 1934, the nation was riveted by news of gangsters. Bonnie and Clyde died in May. Then the manhunt for Dillinger reached its apex.

Then it was Pretty Boy Floyd's turn. Then the spotlight moved to Babyface Nelson. And after that, it went to the Barker gang. And so, less than a week after Billy was sentenced, John Dillinger made an appointment to have plastic surgery on his face. He also ordered a procedure that would alter his fingerprints. A doctor had developed a technique for altering fingerprints with corrosive soda. He charged $100 per finger. The man would also perform Dillinger's facial reconstruction for a total bill of $5,000.

$11. Dillinger paid a friend $35 a day to use his Chicago house for the surgery and recovery. Homer Van Meter was considering the same procedures. He stayed at the house to observe and to help care for Dillinger during his recovery. In the evening, the doctor's assistant gave Dillinger ether to knock him out. Unfortunately, the assistant gave him too much. The unconscious Dillinger swallowed his tongue and began to choke. The doctor quickly freed the tongue and smashed Dillinger's elbows into his side to get him breathing again. To the doctor's relief, the most famous bank robber in America took a big breath and then began to breathe normally.

With the catastrophe avoided, the doctor started the surgery. He removed two distinctive moles, one between Dillinger's eyebrows and one from the left side of his forehead. Then the doctor performed a standard facelift by making an incision under the ear to remove tissue and tighten the face. Then, using tissue he'd removed from behind Dillinger's ears, the doctor filled in the famous dimple in the bank robber's chin. The surgery lasted seven hours. When Dillinger woke up, he was told that he had almost died. He joked, it might just as well have been now as some other time. In spite of the complications, Homer Van Meter decided to get the surgery as well.

Dillinger was never one to sit idle, no matter the possible reason. Within a week of his surgery, he popped up all over Chicago. He met with associates and friends like Tommy Carroll, who had also escaped a little bohemia. Tommy Carroll's girlfriend was pregnant. He was headed to Minneapolis to tell her mother the news when he was shot by police in Waterloo, Iowa, on June 7, 1934. Dillinger's confidants were dropping like flies, and he had other trouble as well. As his face healed, he was not pleased with the results of the surgery. He and Van Meter thought they still looked too much like themselves.

They confronted the doctor about his work. During one really heated conversation, Babyface Nelson arrived at the house. The doctor took the opportunity to sneak away. He escaped Dillinger's anger. But Dillinger eventually changed his opinion of the surgery. When his face healed, he dyed his hair and his mustache black. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and walked around town without incident. Maybe the doctor had succeeded after all.

Dillinger put it to the test. He met a new girl and strolled right into a Chicago police station. Rita Hamilton was known to most people as Polly. She was sent to the barrel of fun nightclub to find John Dillinger. She was exactly his type, a dead ringer for Billy Fichette. She had worked on and off as a prostitute for Anna Sage in Gary, Indiana. On an early June night in 34, Anna Sage asked Polly to go to the nightclub with the express purpose of attracting the famous outlaw.

When Dillinger spotted Polly, he couldn't stop staring at her. When they made eye contact, he approached her. He introduced himself as Jimmy Lawrence, and he claimed to work for the board. board of trade. To go with his new face, he toned down his outgoing personality and adopted a more passive, shy persona. Polly said later he was one of the shyest people she ever met, but she liked him. The next night, they had dinner and danced at the Staples Nightclub. After that, they were inseparable. Polly worked at a sandwich shop during the day, and Dillinger would wait for her outside until she got off work.

Polly's co-workers pegged him as a dandy with his glasses, his thin mustache, and his straight-laced wardrobe. But they only saw him from a distance. If they'd gotten closer, they would have seen the numerous scars on his face. He attributed those to a recent car accident. When other waitresses did get a closer look, they told Polly, he looks just like John Dillinger. It's hard to tell if she knew who he really was. If she did, she didn't admit it to her co-workers. It's also possible that her meeting with Dillinger wasn't just arranged by Anna Sage.

Dillinger might have requested the introduction himself. Criminals in Chicago knew that Anna Sage was a manum. When Polly took Dillinger to Sage's apartment for the first time, he seemed familiar with it, like he'd been there before. On June 11th, Dillinger tested his new appearance. Polly applied for a license to be a waitress at a hotel in Chicago's Loop District downtown. There'd been an outbreak of dysentery the previous summer, and the city had started a permitting process as a result. To get the license, Polly had to go to the Chicago Police Building on South State Street, and Dillinger went with her.

While Polly filled out the paperwork and underwent medical exams, the nation's most famous bank robber loitered in the crowded waiting room. He went completely unnoticed by Chicago police officers. He grew more bold and began wandering the hallways. He stuck his head into crowded squad rooms, including one that belonged to the chief of detectives. After that first visit, Dillinger went back to the building three more times and was never once recognized. When the Chicago Times got wind of his visits,

the chief of detectives was ridiculed and demoted, and the chief wasn't alone in his embarrassment. Special Agent Melvin Purvis struggled as well. The little bohemia fiasco hung over his head like a dark cloud. He sent agents to interview as many people as possible who'd had anything to do with Dillinger, including his old girlfriend, Mary Longnacker. They had no information. By the middle of June, the reward for Dillinger had risen to $15,000.

Authorities hoped the money would convince one of his associates to turn him in. and then the Bureau of Investigation adopted a tactic used by the city of Chicago in its fight against Al Capone. On June 22nd, 1934, the Bureau declared John Dillinger, Public Enemy Number One. He was officially the most wanted man in America, and the first person to receive the label that was the forerunner to the FBI's most wanted list. Future criminals who wore the brand laid low or fled the country. But that wasn't Dillinger's style. He went right back to robbing banks, but the next would be his last, and it would be a bloodbath. Merchants National Bank in South Bend, Indiana, holds the distinction of being the last bank robbed by John Dillinger.

He arrived in town just before 11.30 a.m., June 30, 1934, in a tan Hudson sedan. He had four men with him, Homer Van Meter, Babyface Nelson, and two more. more accomplices who were probably John Paul Chase and Jack Perkins. Another man waited for them in a second vehicle outside of town. A few minutes earlier, the bank had received a drop-off of $7,900 in cash. It was the payroll for the post office. A teenager named Alex Slaby stepped out of his father's car near the bank. The tan Hudson with five gangsters inside stopped next to him.

The bank robbers exited and told Alex to beat it. The men headed for the bank. They covered their weapons with long pillowcases. That's when Alex noticed that the Hudson's engine was still running. He reached in for the keys. Someone yelled at him and asked him what the hell he was doing. Alex turned to find himself face to face with Babyface Nelson. The young man squeaked a response and then ran to the other side of the street.

He hurried into a store with a telephone and called the police. Babyface Nelson and Homer Van Meter took up positions outside the bank. Dillinger and the other two men went inside. The bank was supposed to close in 30 minutes, and almost two dozen customers were still inside trying to finish their business. Dillinger didn't know it, but the police were already responding to Alex's call. Cops scrambled from all over town. They were already racing toward the bank when Dillinger shouted, This is a stick-up.

Everybody stands still. A few people did as they were told, but the others didn't hear him or didn't understand. Dillinger ripped the pillowcase off his Tommy gun and fired into the ceiling. Instead of standing still, the crowd panicked. Some people screamed and ran. Others dove for cover under a counter. Half a dozen people locked themselves in a bathroom while others hid in a private office. A bullet from Dillinger's weapon bounced off the ceiling and hit a customer in the hip.

Dillinger looked at the bleeding man and shrugged. Chase and Perkins emptied the cash drawers into their pillowcases. Outside the bank, the gunfire attracted the attention of a nearby patrolman. He ran toward the bank, unsnapping his holster. Alex Slaby, the teenager who'd called the police, watched in horror through a store window. The patrolman ran straight into an ambush. Babyface Nelson and Homer Van Meter opened fire before the patrolman got. got his gun out of his holster.

Bullets tore into him, and he crashed to the ground. His head hit the pavement with a sickening thud. Three more police officers arrived just in time to see the patrolmen go down. As they ran in different directions to take cover, Homer Van Meter fired at all of them. He kept the cops pinned behind the cars. The first person to land a shot on one of the robbers was actually a jeweler who boasted of being an expert marksman. He walked out of his jewelry shop with a pistol and fired a bullet at Babyface Nelson.

The bullet slammed into the outlaw's back, but Nelson didn't go down. The robbers were wearing bulletproof vests. Nelson whipped around and fired more than a dozen bullets in the jeweler's direction. The jeweler dove back into his shop. He wasn't hurt, but one of the bullets hit the man's friend in the leg and deflected into his stomach. The friend collapsed inside the shop. A 16-year-old boy, sitting in his family's car just down the street, decided to run at Babyface Nelson. He caught the madman by surprise and jumped onto his back.

Nelson whacked the kid in the head with the barrel of his machine gun. The young man's grip weakened, and Nelson shoved him through a plate glass window. When the kid tried to stand, Nelson fired a burst from his Tommy gun. A bullet hit the kid's hand, and he fell onto his back in shock. The gunfight attracted more attention. Two police officers had dropped off the payroll at the bank just before the robbers arrived, and then they'd gone to lunch. Now the gunshots grabbed their attention.

One jumped in a car and drove toward the bank. The other ran on foot. Inside the bank, Dillinger, Chase, and Perkins had filled their pillowcases with money, and it was time to leave. They grabbed three hostages for protection, two bank employees and the customer who'd been shot. shot in the hip. They headed for the door. Outside, Homer Van Meter had corralled a group of hostages from a shoe store. The three robbers inside pushed their hostages outside, and the

two groups merged into one. But in the jostling that followed, the robbers and the hostages were separated for a moment. An officer named Niels Hansen crouched behind his parked car and aimed his gun at the bank. With a sliver of daylight between the hostages and the robber, Robbers, Hansen fired. He targeted the biggest gangster and hit the man in the shoulder, but the big man barely flinched. Hansen aimed at the man's head and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit gangster Jack Perkins in the right side of the jaw, but Perkins still didn't

go down. And then Hanson's window of opportunity closed. The civilians were too close to the robbers, but other officers were willing to risk it, and they opened fire. One of the human shields took a bullet to the leg. Dillinger and Chase let go of their bleeding hostages and hurried to the getaway car. Jack Perkins still had his hostage, but then that man was shot in the leg too. Dillinger shouted at Perkins to release the hostage and get in the car.

Perkins tossed the hostage aside and dove in with Dillinger, Chase, and Van Meter. Homer Van Meter was behind the wheel. He was about to put the car in gear when the officer who was running to the scene from his lunch break arrived at the bank. The officer had a 12-gauge shotgun, and he fired at Van Meter. Some of the buckshot hit Homer in the head. He slumped forward, but then straightened back up. The officer fired again, and again it looked like it hit Homer Van Meter, but Homer was still able to shift the car into gear and get it moving. The officer's partner arrived in their vehicle. He fired three shots at the back window of the getaway car,

and again, for the third time, Homer Van Meter slumped forward as if he'd been hit, but he managed to prop himself up and keep the car going. The getaway car stopped long enough for Babyface Nelson to jump inside, and then it sped out of South Bend, Indiana. Next time on Infamous America, it's the season finale and the end of the John Dillinger story. Dillinger plans one last job so he can retire and disappear, But brothel owner Anna Sage helps Melvin Purvis set a trap that finally brings down the most wanted man in America. That's next week on the final episode of John Dillinger, portrait of public enemy number one.

Don't want to fight no more. Searching for happiness, love is my law before. Searching for happiness, love is my law. Don't gonna let me down. Primary research for this season was provided by Derry Matera, author of the best-selling book, Dillinger, The Life and Death of America's First Celebrity Criminal. This season was written by Sean Paglisi and myself. Vocal editing by Molly Bach. Music editing and sound design by Mike His song at Sneaky Big Studios.

Artwork by Matt Lockery of My Colorful Past. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Please visit our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, for more details and join us on social media. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell Media on Twitter. And if you want to contribute to the production of our shows, please visit our Patreon page. You can also find discounts on our merchandise. That's patreon.com.

Black Barrel Media. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. Don't go let me down