John Herbert Dillinger (; June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American gangster during the Great Depression. He commanded the Dillinger Gang, which was accused of robbing twenty-four banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times and escaped twice. He was charged with but not convicted of the murder of East Chicago, Indiana, police officer William O'Malley, who shot Dillinger in his bulletproof vest during a shootout; it was the only time Dillinger was charged with homicide.
Dillinger courted publicity. The media printed exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality, and described him as a Robin Hood-type figure. In response, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), used Dillinger as justification to evolve the BOI into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), developing more sophisticated investigative techniques as weapons against organized crime.
After evading police in four states for almost a year, Dillinger was wounded in a gunfight and went to his father's home to recover. His Michigan hideout was in Charlevoix, Michigan. He returned to Chicago in July 1934 and sought refuge in a brothel owned by Ana Cumpănaș, who later informed authorities of his whereabouts. On July 22, 1934, local and federal law-enforcement officers closed in on the Biograph Theater. When BOI agents moved to arrest Dillinger as he left the theater, he attempted to flee but was fatally shot; the lethal use of force by the agents would eventually be ruled justifiable homicide.
John Dillinger was born on June 22, 1903, at 2053 Cooper Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, the younger of two children born to John Wilson Dillinger (1864–1943) and Mary Ellen "Mollie" Lancaster (1870–1907). His paternal grandfather, Mathias Dillinger, immigrated to the U.S. in 1854 from Gisingen, a village of Wallerfangen (near Dillingen/Saar) in the Saar Region of Prussia due to poverty and fears of conscription.
Dillinger's parents had married on August 23, 1887. His father was a grocer and reportedly a harsh man. In an interview with reporters, Dillinger said that his father was firm in his discipline and believed in the adage "spare the rod and spoil the child". His mother died in 1907, just before his fourth birthday.
That same year, Dillinger's older sister Audrey married Emmett "Fred" Hancock, in a marriage that produced seven children. She cared for her brother for several years until their father remarried in 1912 to Elizabeth "Lizzie" Fields (1878–1933) with whom he had three children.
As a teenager, Dillinger was frequently in trouble for fighting and petty theft. He was also noted for his "bewildering personality" and bullying of smaller children. He quit school to work in an Indianapolis machine shop. Fearing that the city was corrupting his son, Dillinger's father relocated the family to Mooresville, Indiana, in 1921. Despite his new rural life, however, Dillinger's wild and rebellious behavior was unchanged. In 1922 he was arrested for auto theft, and his relationship with his father deteriorated.
In 1923, Dillinger's troubles resulted in him enlisting in the United States Navy, where he was a petty officer third class machinery repairman aboard the battleship USS Utah. He deserted when his ship was docked in Boston a few months into his service, and was eventually dishonorably discharged.
Dillinger returned to Mooresville, where he met Beryl Ethel Hovious. The two married on April 12, 1924. Despite Dillinger's attempts to settle down, he found it difficult finding a job. He subsequently began planning a robbery with his friend, ex-convict Ed Singleton. Hovious divorced Dillinger on June 20, 1929, while he was incarcerated, which Dillinger later admitted broke his heart and further drove him to crime.
Dillinger and Singleton robbed a Mooresville grocery store, stealing $50 (about $917 in 2024). During the robbery, Dillinger struck a victim on the head with a machine bolt wrapped in a cloth, and carried a gun which, although it discharged, hit no one. While leaving the scene, the criminals were seen by a minister who recognized the two men and reported them to the police. They were arrested the next day. Singleton pleaded not guilty, but after Dillinger's father (the local Mooresville deacon) discussed the matter with Morgan County prosecutor Omar O'Harrow, his father convinced Dillinger to confess to the crime and plead guilty without retaining a defense attorney.
Dillinger was convicted of assault and battery with intent to rob, and conspiracy to commit a felony. He expected a lenient sentence of probation as a result of his father's discussion with O'Harrow but was sentenced instead to ten to twenty years in prison. Dillinger's father told reporters he regretted his advice and was appalled by the sentence, pleading with the judge to shorten the sentence without success. En route to Mooresville to testify against Singleton, Dillinger briefly escaped his captors but was apprehended within a few minutes. Singleton had a change of venue and was sentenced to a jail term of two to fourteen years. He was killed on September 2, 1937, when he fell asleep on railroad tracks while drunk.
Incarcerated at Indiana Reformatory and Indiana State Prison between 1924 and 1933, Dillinger developed a criminal lifestyle. Upon being admitted to prison, he was quoted as saying, "I will be the meanest bastard you ever saw when I get out of here." His physical examination at the prison showed that he had gonorrhea, treatment of which at the time was painful. He became resentful against society because of his long prison sentence and befriended other criminals, including seasoned bank robbers Harry "Pete" Pierpont, Charles Makley, Russell Clark and Homer Van Meter, who taught Dillinger how to be a successful criminal. The men planned heists that they would commit soon after they were released. Dillinger also studied Herman Lamm's meticulous bank-robbing system and used it extensively throughout his criminal career.
Dillinger's father began a public campaign to have him released and was able to obtain 188 signatures on a petition. On May 10, 1933, after serving nine and a half years, Dillinger was paroled. Released at the depths of the Great Depression, Dillinger, with little prospect of finding employment, immediately returned to crime.
On June 21, 1933, Dillinger committed his first bank robbery, stealing $10,000 ($241,000 in 2024) from a bank in New Carlisle, Ohio. On August 14 he robbed a bank in Bluffton, Ohio. Tracked by police from Dayton, he was captured and later transferred to Allen County jail in Lima to be indicted in connection to the Bluffton robbery. After searching him before putting him into the prison, the police discovered a document which appeared to be a prison escape plan. They demanded Dillinger tell them what the document meant, but he refused.
Earlier, Dillinger had helped conceive a plan to enable the escape of Pierpont, Clark and six other prison acquaintances. He had friends smuggle guns into their cells, which they used to escape four days after Dillinger's capture. The group that formed, known as "the First Dillinger Gang", consisted of Pierpont, Clark, Makley, Ed Shouse, Harry Copeland and John "Red" Hamilton, a member of the Herman Lamm Gang. Pierpont, Clark and Makley arrived in Lima on October 12, 1933, where they impersonated Indiana State Police officers, claiming they had come to extradite Dillinger to Indiana. When the sheriff, Jess Sarber, asked for their credentials, Pierpont shot Sarber dead, then released Dillinger from his house. The four men escaped back to Indiana, where they joined the rest of the gang.
Dillinger is known to have participated with the Dillinger Gang in twelve bank robberies, between June 21, 1933, and June 30, 1934.
It is a popular adage that he refused to plan robberies in the town of Anderson, Indiana. It was a busy factory town that had an abundance of railroad tracks, and there was too great a risk of getting stopped by an old a train and caught by authorities.