March 18, 2025 • 45 mins
Sunita Mani (Spirited, Glow) joins Arturo through a slew of gangster riddled escapades, as they peel back the pages of history surrounding the 1930's most "dashing" criminal, John Dillinger.
Read this episode's transcript on Mental Floss: https://www.mentalfloss.com/columns/greatest-escapes
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest
true escape stories. Now today we're going to go back
to the Great Depression and to the golden age of
the Bancheist to tell you a story of a man
who may be America's most celebrated outlaw. I'm Martro Castro,
and I'm joined by a fantastic actress, a super kind
soul always makes me want to get up and dance.
(00:23):
Sunita MANI.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Wha.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
That was a bench of special and everybody, we got
a real treat for you today. I'm I'm a big
fan of her and I've known her for for a
long long time, I guess by this point, so welcome
to the show. Sunita MANI give me ben? Where is
(01:15):
my prop pa pal?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Thank you? But but I love you. Okay, I guess
you just said you ready? I the sound effects, so
on that note, What do you consider to be your
greatest escape?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, I was just thinking about the time that I
feel like I escaped the jaws of death.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, dramatic music will put it on and post It's
gonna be so cool.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
It's the first thing that came to mind. I was
on my honeymoon with my now husband in Italy.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
We were in Sicily, So this is like twenty eighteen,
well before White Lotus.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Okay, twenty eighteen. You were there first.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
We had this like wonderful time, this like lovely week.
The whole week we had been doing like really remote stuff,
but this was like a populated place. Anyway, We're swimming
in the ocean, it's lovely. All of a sudden, we're
getting a little far away from the shore and it's
(02:21):
like kind of noticing no one. No one else is
like really in the water, Maybe we should go back.
Let's just like yeah, I don't know, it feels a
little far. So we're trying to go back. We cannot
get back to the shore.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And you feel like you're not making progress.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
We're not making progress at all. It's a riptide. I
guess I'd just never been caught in like a riptide before.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Could you feel the current?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah? Yeah, I wasn't like feeling like a swirling vortex
or anything.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
We just like couldn't swim out of it.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And now I know this to anyone who is ever
gotten a riptide. You don't swim like directly towards the shore.
You swim parallel to the shore now to get out,
and it was one of those guttural things of like
screaming for help, Oh my god, just like I don't know,
we don't know what to do.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
And it was like far enough away that the shore
was to not even know if anyone could hear.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Us, could you see people on the shore.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Eventually we see these like six men.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
In speedos run race into the ocean like to come
after us. They're like yelling Italian at us.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
You're like, I know, they're calling us.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Idiots, Like what were you thinking? And we're like, I
don't know. Do we miss a sign? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
So we're kind of like linked arms with these strangers
who are nice enough to like try and help us.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
And then all six of us can't get back to
the shore.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
No, well eight of us, me and my husband and
these like six men and speedo's.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
It was just six of us because the two of
them died.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
At all.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Wow, So now you're all funcked.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Now we're all screaming, we're all fucked. And that's when
they really start yelling at.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Us, like it's like fucking die, I want to die.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
By this point, the everyone on the beach is just
like standing up and watching and like looking.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Out and being like, uh, what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Finally, a lifeguard like comes to throw one of those
like life rings, you know, and he's going to try
to pull us in, and we're just like again, the shore,
the waves are really turbulent. So by the time it
like the donut gets to us and we're trying to
meet the donut halfway, it's like it's struggling.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Exhausted by this one, We're so exhausted.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
We finally reached the damn donut and it's connected to
a rope so that they could like pull us in
from the shore.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
They let go of the rope.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Why the fuck would they let go of the fucking rope? Man.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I don't know what happened, but I think we were
just too far out and they were like, well, at
least they have the donut.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
It's like one donut for fucking h my man, they
have the dona now they figured it. We're all job
and they all continued on with their day and they're like, okay,
that'd be fine.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Wow, And then eventually they like because it's a marina,
someone like someone in their like a little motor boat
come from behind us, like they don't come from the shore.
They actually like kind of come from behind because I
think the waves are just too strong.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
The visuals of this are amazing. You have to write this.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, So eventually we like do get on the boats,
and that's when I started like really panicking. Actually, it's
like when I totally broke down, like when we were okay.
I was like hyperventilating, like really fat and scared and like,
oh my god, they were so nice.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
We finally got back to the shore. It was such relief.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But also I was like, Okay, I guess we're like
drinking wine now, you know, another cafe or something.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
It was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
It's like that feeling of like life is so beautiful
and fine and lovely and I'm so grateful to be here,
and also like wow, the fuck yeah, am paralyzed by
like fear.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Oh much. Well, listen, thank you so much for sharing that.
I'm so glad we you are okay, And to the
Banana Ham gentleman of sicily said that, all right, well,
are you ready to hear of another escape?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I'm so ready.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yes. For today's story, We're headed to the American heartland.
Indianapolis and also incidentally, the romance capital of the world. No, no,
it's not nobody. Nobody there has ever so not the
romance capital of the world Indianapolis. But the year that
(06:46):
we're talking about is you're nineteen o three, and that's
when a boy named Johnny is born into a family
that owned a grocery store. That's it. I know it
sounds like random detail, but it's gonna come up again. Okay,
So grocery based crime, it's gonna be on the way. Okay.
So as he grew up, Johnny was constantly getting into
trouble and his dad, like many dads at the time,
(07:09):
try to punish the rebellion out of Johnny. Now spoiler alert,
it did not work. So Johnny got up to some mischief.
He formed a neighborhood gang of kids who called themselves
the Dirty Dozen. Did you have a did you have
a tight group of friends when you grow up?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I wasn't like a little neighborhood gang, and none of
us went to school together. It was it felt very
much of the like the three blocks you know I lived,
and like we shared.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I shared a.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Backyard with one of them, and yeah, we had our
little bikes and we would like run around in the
woods and.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
That's so cool. So you didn't come in any crimes
with your neighborhood friends. Nothing for I did. I'm sure
something were legal in Oh yeah. The worst thing we
did was we stole a stop sign.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah, because we wanted to holes like that.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, we were like we vandalyized some shit, for sure.
So sorry, I want them all on's if you ever
come get me. There's no extradition laws. So the crimes
of Johnny committed with this Dirty Dozen gang were little
things like the day they stole some liquor off a
train and Johnny showed up at school drunk. Yeah, I
was like, Johnny will hang out. And then there's a
(08:17):
time they make some coal from railroad cars to sell
to their neighbors.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
All these are such old timy.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, it's like, so, yeah, we have an ice box here.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
See yeah, distributing coal.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, it's kind of industrious, isn't it. So most neighbors
actually describe Johnny as a cheerful, likable youngster, and they
said that he dressed well and they thought he was
only as mischievous as every other boy.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Right, Okay, they gave him some slack, got it.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, they caught him some slacks. He dressed as well.
He goes his cold fuck it. So that's all it
took back then.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, simpler times.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, it was the romance capital of the world. It
could be word just like chilling. So in nineteen twenty,
John's dad moved the family out of the city to
a small and he was trying to keep John out
of trouble. But no doubt, like John got extremely bored
and he was always driving back into Indianapolis looking for.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Somebody to do It's Johnny's way.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, Johnny, or get out of the way, you know.
He wanted to see more of the world. Was there
ever any time growing up where you had a real
sense of wonder lust? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I think there was always like a small town girl
wide eyed for the city, like syndrome that I had.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You you always had New York at your sights.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, I mean I think it was like watching Annie
or something. You know, it was just having that I
don't know, just like wanting to be Annie.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, and you were Annie. It was also mat of fact.
So once when John was driving to the city to
visit his girlfriend also happened to be his uncle stepdaughter. Weird.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Okay, got it, that's like clueless, right.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Huh, it's kind of clueless.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I don't know where like Alicia Silverstone's character.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
That's what it is, Paul's character. I take it all back.
It's not weird, it's CLUELESSI victorian.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And also it's his uncle step daughter, so it's even
twice removed. Fair game, buddy. So the thing was, John
was driving a car that he had stolen for the trip,
so he ran through the Yep, he ran from this
traffic stop, and the cops actually fired a couple of
shots at him as he scampered away, and the whole
situation was generally a messive. So John decided that his
(10:25):
best way out was to skip town completely. So he
did the logical thing what you do at a time,
and he joined the navy.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Hop on a train.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Okay, this is like playing out like a Charlie Chaplin
film or something exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So he started. He learned how to tap dance and yeah, yeah,
uh peep you and just like a little kyri and
that says peep you. So John served on this ship
for only a few months. He thought that his dad
was harsh, but now that he was a fireman in
(11:00):
the navy, meaning that he shoveled coal into the end
in furnaces. Oh, the coal, the coal, the coal. It
fucking sucked. So John naturally when a wall and the
Navy placed a bounty on his head fifty dollars for
the runaway fireman.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Okay, fifty dollars must have been a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Seven hundred thousand dollars at the time. It was actually
the first you could buy a country with fifty dollars.
It was the first time the authorities offered money first capture,
but it was far far from being the last. And
apparently the Navy wasn't looking too hard for him. There's
just kind of like if it's no trouble, if you
find him on the way.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It was like how I dog sat one time in
la and the owner was like kind of joking about
like if the dog, like you know, runs away, it's
like it's all right.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
There's like an insurance saying, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
No, we don't like the dog very much. Actually, I mean,
my kids really liked the dog. But if something happens
to the dog, you know, Honestly, I.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Asked questions, I really like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
It wasn't sure if he was like trying to tell
me to like, like.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
What am I involved with a psychopath? So listen. So
since the Navy wasn't really looking to heart like, John
actually showed up back home and he was able to
pass it off to his family that he had been
honorably discharge. He spent a couple of months playing pool
and baseball and sweet talking a teenage girl. John was
twenty and he married a sixteen year old who moved
(12:24):
in with his family, which gross. I don't know. I'm
firmly on the side of no miners marrying.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I can't tell if this is just like is this
regular confidence that people had.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Back then, Like there are there a lot of Johnnies
like this. I don't know. I feel like you could
get away with all this shit.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
That's what lost the Industrial Revolution children, you know. So
things took a darker turn in the fall when John
and a friend robbed a grocery store. Yeah, the grocer
locked up the store at the end of the week
and was walking home with the money from his cash
register when John jumped in. He attacked a man with
an iron bar that's fucked up and John was arrested
(13:03):
for the attack. His dad was so pissed. Yeah, he
actually advised John to plead guilty and take his punishment
for the crime because he thought that this was John's
first arrest that he might get off easy. Well, no, no, no, John,
Johnny young Johnny was giving the maximum penalty of ten
years in prison, even though he had no previous criminal record.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, it's making up for all the bad shit he did.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So for ten years John stewed in prison rubbing his
shoulders with other social outcasts. And it is to turn
out a key kind of fit in.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So like him, they weren't suited for the discipline of
navy ships or backbreaking farm work or semi professional plates.
I don't know what the fuck they were doing the time.
They were burglars, bootleggers and train robbers, and John Dillinger
was taking lessons boat. What you know the story of
John Willinger?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I have heard of him, but I'm like forgetting history.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I got you you, thank you. One defining trait of
John Dillingder was his love for looking good. Think Paul Rudd,
He's just like ageless forever. When he made it on
a parole in May nineteen thirty three. He was ready
to go out there and get himself a straw boater,
had a fresh haircut and a silk cravat or two.
(14:21):
What's a cravat? Like a cravat like a little little tie?
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Cravat is like a neck handkerchief?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Is that what it is? That is correct? Nice little necktie? Oh?
I want one?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
It sounds delicious.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
That's one historian was very careful to note. John came
out of prison smarter, trimmer, and more muscular, which made
him I quote yeah, and I quote attracted to women
and respected by men.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
In history. That is history.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
It's hilarious commercial, right, but like for prison, yeah, prison exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Give me a light at music. All right, we haven't
rehearsed this. Here we go. Hi, Are you a loner
who hates the navy? You get compared to the shrimp
you sell at your dad's grocery store, Then you need
the one and only only in closest state guarantee make
you smarter, driver, more muscular, president, become instructed for women
(15:16):
and respected by men. This miss is brought to you
by Dapperanswool, private and characteries jealousy who I'm bad for
our first try of that. That's great. But John stepped
out of prison into hard times, right. The banks had
crashed in nineteen twenty nine, and it was a great depression.
So yeah, they were in a lot of jobs for
an ex con stepping out of prison, no matter how
(15:36):
fucking sexy he looked at pr Yeah, fucking sucksy, bro, bro,
you're looking good. So this is no problem for John though,
you know, because he didn't even try. First he went
home and he told his family that he had learned
his lesson. He was a new man.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
He is a liar.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
He's a fucking liar. Second, big a second. Second thing
he did, Sinnia. Second thing he did. He met up
with a bunch of guys who knew his prison buddies,
and they struck up a plan.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Uh, this was the beginning of what one historian calls
John Dillinger's wild Ride, one of the most buck wild
crime spreees in American history. The lord, yeah, no, it
was wild. So they kicked things off with a couple
of starter robberies, just ICs to get their feet with
some teasers. That's right, appetizers if you will, cravats cravat
(16:23):
for the hunger, so they hit up two grocery stores.
That was just a prime the pump a little bit right.
Then it was onto the real targets. In June nineteen
thirty three, John rolled into the new Carlisle, Ohio, a
second romance capital of the world, and together with his
new gang, he was headed for the National Bank. Word
(16:43):
on the street was that they always left the rear
window open in the bathroom, even the night, which to
me sounds like an inside job. How would you know
unless they were putting it like that was like their
shady slogan, like come to our bank. The windows are
open anytime. Our door is always open, and if it's not,
our window is in the back.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Because people be taking huge shits in the bank.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I guess they just get nervous depositing all this money.
Word on the street was correct. John and his gang
crawled in through the bathroom window under the cover of darkness,
and they walked right out because it smelled like shit,
and they're like, I don't know, I can't hang not
worth it. They laid down behind the counter and wait
(17:26):
until the morning when the staff came in to open
the bank. Oh my god, for a second I thought
that where this was going was like and then they
just kind of had have had at it, you know,
they're just like.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
The d of the bank in the dark, yeah, and
in the shield of like night. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
No, no, no. It was way more elaborate than or
way more violent, I guess. As they came in one
by one, John and his team grabbed them and tied
them up at gunpoint. The youngest member of Johnny's gang
was only nineteen, and his strongest memory of the heist
was how big John Dillinger's gun was, oh ok, and
how just and beastly in masculine he see him. And
(18:03):
also this this nineteen year old was the one that
went on to be a journalist and write into history.
How hot it was, yeah, exactly. So eventually John forced
the staff to open the vault and walked out with
thirteen thousand dollars, which is like three hundred thousand dollars
in cash today.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That's that's a lot, I mean, it was.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, especially for these young young whipper snappers. I guess
it must have been like thirty by this point. But
it wasn't just a kid who was impressed. One of
the local papers called it one of the most cleverly
executed crimes in the country's history. Jerlas really fucking love
this guy.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It's like waiting for like the review of your performance
as like an actor or something.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
But yeah, you're like you're yeah, you're waiting for the
Hollywood reporter.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Expected entry quite an expected premise of going through the
window that we all know is open.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Isn't that really fucking thing once that, once you're a
show or is out or whatever. It's just like, I'm
not one of those people that doesn't read the reviews.
I'm like one hundred percent in there. Do you skip
them or do you read them?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I have like a wind where I'm like, oh, I
just have to you know, I have to know the
morbid curiosity, and then I feel like I don't keep going.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Well, funny enough, you mentioned it, because we have the
review of each one of your shows. Come on, guys,
okay sung by the Vienna Boys Choir, Come on now.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Not as good as her Coastal.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So after the newspapers were really kissing his ass, the
bank employees actually remember that the other robbers all seemed
crazed or high, and they were all extremely nervous and
jumpy with their eyes bugging out. But not John Dillinger.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
No, no, this guy's a psychopath, right, No, he was
apparently very calm, yes, psychopath and gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Apparently it was very calm and just god, just like
it was just he was just bulging out of his fans.
He was polite through the entire thing, is what they said. Okay,
but it turns out that money wasn't enough through John Dillinger.
The very same day, the very same fucking day, when
they got back to Indianapolis, John and his accomplices robbed
you fucking guessed it, a grocery store. So the spree
(20:11):
has sprung. John Dillinger and his crew set about robbing
five Indiana and Ohio banks in four months, and John
started to gain real fame as the bold, polite, absolutely
fucking sexy, dressed to kill No but literally they said,
dressed to kill burglar with a big gun. Literally they
said that.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
The cops, I mean, people just want them to keep going. Really,
I can't catch.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
The second they're like putting out ads on the newspaper
like don't rob my bag.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
You know, and my money is shiny, don't take it.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Oh my god, this is the door, kno close proper,
What are we gonna do? So the next few scores
were all in the same area, and Dilager was cruising.
In July, he hit that commercial bank in Daleville, Indiana
and made off with thirty five hundred dollars. He hit
two banks in August, one in Indiana and one in Ohio,
and together they scored over twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Okay, what do you think he's doing with this money?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Buying amazing clothes? I don't know what you're doing?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah, with bane Crobots collection.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Right then they were back in Indianapolis for their biggest
heists yet, twenty one thousand dollars. But that by now
they had a routine.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, yeah, we know he's coming.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah yeah. By now, everybody's like, nobody's like ramping up
security or anything. They're just like, he's not. I think
he's done, you guys, this man is satisfied. None. His
routine was set.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It was two men went into the bank while get
away driver waited outside of the car. Doinger ran forward,
jumped the counter, and held the bank teller at gunpoint,
forced them to open the cash doors in the bank
vault and forcing them to fill the bags with money.
He and his accomplice would walk right back out of
the front, hopping the car and drive off. They were
super fast, and the whole thing was over in minutes.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
It was happening a broad daylight.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Of course, they were gone before help could arrive. Did
you know rob a bag? What's going to be this easy?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
No, it's almost like I want to try it.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, it's almost like what are you doing this weekend?
All right? So John knew how to thank his friends
for robbery lessons. He started sending pistols into their prison. Seriously.
Sometimes he even just walked up to the jail and
threw the guns over the walls.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Okay, he would also pack them, and that's in the
history books.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
That's in the history books. He did not give Yeah
he is if I don't give a fuck was a person.
It's this motherfucker.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Seriously.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
But he would also pack them in boxes of spoons
and send them into the prison workshops. And how did
they use their guns? Humorous? Dillinger's criminal cronies were now packing.
They all teamed up. They rushed the guards. They moved
through the halls and captured the superintendent with their hostage
in hand, they made their way outside to steal a
couple of cars. But now bullets were flying, blood is spilled,
(22:52):
the cars peeled away, and the boys were out of there.
The boys would taunt John Dillinger everything he knew. We're
now on the loose. But now, ironically, it was just like,
that's an impossible voice to keep for longer than that.
But isn't that wild? Yes, ironically, it was just after
his friend's escaped that Dillinger finally got caught. After five
(23:14):
bank robberies and god knows how many four grocery stores,
the cops had finally paid enough bribes to snitches and
sex workers to find out where John's girlfriend lived. Oh,
and now we know what he was using the money for.
And they staked out her boarding house in Chicago, which
I'm like, why don't you just buy her own apartment
with all this money? So one night, when Dillinger dropped by,
(23:35):
the cops swooped in, and just like that, the dashing
bank robber was arrested.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Wow at his girlfriend's house.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, and he was like he was already fully clothed
and expecting him. No, I don't know. Yeah, And there
was cravats everywhere. It seems almost too easy, right, it does.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
But at the same time, he just like kept coming
back to where he came from too.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Like he was like he got cocky. But yeah, while
John waited trial, the paper started printing that the jack
rabbit that jumped over a bank counters was finally caught.
But John was only in jail for a month. As
soon as John was in his whole gang's mission became
getting him out.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So Dyllinger was being held at the Allen County Jail
in Lima, Ohio. The cops had sent him there because
they were worried that he knew how to get out
of state prisons in Indiana. Sure, yeah, he had the
maps of prisons and he also helped his boys get
away already, but they moved him only once stayed over
Like it was just like a couple of miles out right.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
So the breakout completely unknown territory.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, of Ohio, where he's also already hit banks. So
the breakout actually happened on October twelfth, nineteen thirty three.
Six men gathered at the courthouse. Three men stayed outside
and three went in inside. They found the sheriff sitting
at his desk reading the newspaper while his wife sat
nearby working on a crossword. Okay, what a detail to
(24:58):
keep in the history books.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
It really is like scenes from a Chaplain movie or
something like every little detail that that feels.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Like it gets better. The deputy was sleeping on the
office couch.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
That's all we were missing.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And the men told the sheriff that they were officers
who needed to question Dollinger Lowel. When he asked to
see their credentials, they pulled out their pistols. The lead
man said, here are credentials, buddy, Hey, here's our credentials. See,
and they gunned down the sheriff where he sat. After
he was shot, they beat the sheriff until his wife
broke down and gave them the keys. Oh, so do
(25:35):
you think that like getting shot is enough to like
give over the keys.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
From Yeah, And it is shocking that there's just like
no protection of the like at all from this thing happening.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
And now how does the wife have the keys? Man?
They grabbed her and they dragged her to the cell
along with the drowsy deputy. So they put her in
when they pulled Billager out, So the gang ran outside
and they piled into two waiting cars and they hit
the road. Wow. Two days later, this is so wild,
they hit a police station at a little town north
(26:08):
of Fort Wayne, Indiana. They swarmed inside with guns drawn,
locked up the cops, and scooped up their arsenal, two
automatic rifles, a Thompson's submachine gun, three bulletproof vests in
all the ammo they could hire. Can you believe? You believe?
And that was only their first off. You would think
that maybe the police stations might be on alert point
I don't know, and apparently not in Peru, Indiana.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
No, everyone is so indefensible. It's like it's so wild,
there are no consequences.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah, see, done, get out of here.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Okay. So a week later they hit the police station
in Peru, Indiana, and they locked up all the cops
in the basement. They collected their weapons with two more
Tommy guns, a couple of shotguns, more body armor, and
so many rifles and pistols that it's really not even
worth listening. Wow, leaving bodies in his wake. Now, Dyllinger
was free, unarmed to the teeth. So his gang got
(26:58):
immediately back on their horse, hitting banks across the Midwest. Wow,
at one bank this is also fucking crazy. Where the
cops actually caught up with him. Dillinger marched right out
the front door with a human shield. The man jumped
out of the way and the police opened fire, but
Dillinger was armored up right. Witness it said, the bulls
just splashed off his chest, as if the newspaper people
(27:22):
needed more reason to be thirsty for this guy.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Right exactly. He is invincible.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
It was like a Superman before a Superman sort of thing.
He's like, oh my god, he's made of steel. So
the cop was shot eight times and Dillinger's accomplice was
also hit, but the robbers still managed to make a
getaway despite the rain of bullets slamming into their car.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
So much gun like battle, it's wild, so.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Much cup play, you guys. Yeah. As the news came
in a bank after bank getting turned over by Dillinger's
high powered gang, the National Guards started talking about sending
in tanks, planes and he loads of poison gas to
Indiana to try to stop him. One got their fu
plan was like where they gonna go to like gas
the whole state. Right, We're gonna We're gonna kill a
bunch of people, but we're definitely maybe gonna get into.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
One of them is probably gonna be John Delager.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
They could have stopped Dillinger, you know. At one point
he even mealed a little present to the chief of
Indiana State Police, a book called how to be a Detective.
Fucking trold Buddy, you got hooked?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Wow, dude, this guy is so psychotics.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
The gang rob banks in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois. When
it was all told, they were hauling close to three
million dollars in today's money.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Man, I mean maybe supporting the sex work economy of
nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Single handedly propping it up with their bank calls. With
that huge score in tow, they packed up and ducked
out of sight. They went to a place where everyone
brings their ill gotten gains. They went the floor, right, Yeah,
So they slept out of sight while the National Guard
was mobilizing. Eventually there were shotgun gangs and machine gun
(29:10):
squads of National Guard troops setting up checkpoints on the
highways across the Midwest. But Dillinger was already out of reach,
and he adopted a Kouba Knox and he was talking
to It'll be like this and it's like, I don't know,
you know, that's what gets Righty couldn't find him, and
everybody in Florida found him incredibly sexually attractive.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Oh my god, but.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
They probably did. He found the hiding place in Florida.
He and his gang spend their time playing cards, swimming, fishing,
drinking and hanging out. But Dyllinger was restless. They relax, Yes,
just enjoy your vacation, John, Why do people never did it?
Speaker 3 (29:48):
You made it out?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah? Are you a person when you're not trying not
to drown in your vacation? Are you a person that that?
Are you? Do you get angsy? Or are you good
with chilling for for a while?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I need I need those moments.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yes, I like have those vacations or whatever, retreats, whatever,
so that I.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Can be there.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
I love it. I love to just throw my feet up.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
When we were all starting out and there were like
periods of like in four like of involuntary resting, I
was never good at that. I was. I would hit
it every Craigsist, audition, every fucking backstage actors, access, Mandy
dot Com. I would find no downtime.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
It can feel like you're just like drowning. But when
I guess, I feel.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
That's fantastic. Yeah. So in the end, it was in
the National Guard who put the climbs on him. No, no,
it was the local police in Tucson, Arizona.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
In Arizona, No.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Arizona, Cotumn. As the Dilager gang was planning an escape
route to Mexico, some of John's got drunk at a
local bar and started bragging, as everybody fucking does. Cops
got win of it, and they raided the house where
the gang was staying and scooped up a lot of
the weapons and gear the rest of the people inside,
and they just waited. Dolinger pulled up a few hours later.
(31:09):
He walked up the steps and right into a police ambush.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Oh, just as he was loosening his cravats.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah, he was pooring himself as first tumbler of brandy.
Have you people know? Shame? Yeah, that's how they caught him,
and along with John and most of the gang, the
cops grabbed up tons of new clothes in a house.
It sounds odd for the cops to be thrift shopping
from the thieves like that, but whatever.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
It's like, it's just going to go into evidence anyway,
they may as well.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Just yeah, all these cravats are not going away. We
better be sponsored by a fucking cravat company after all
this plugging. But what they had actually found was the
clothes had been lined with money. That was it. It was
the secret sash Oh where the gangs get away to Mexico.
Oh okay, yeah, that one really shocked hu.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I just I love the visual of that, like putting
like dollar bills under like a sewing machine and like
sewing them into a suit jacket or something.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
It's so cinematic, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Good idea.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
That brings us to January twenty fifth, nineteen thirty four.
John Dillinger was shipped back to Indiana unlocked in Crown
Point Jail to await his trial. Tons of armguards marched
around the jail for the newspapers to snap pictures of
There was no way he was going to escape this time.
The trial was set for March twelfth, but Dillinger never
planned to face the music. Wow, so in his cell,
(32:34):
this is crazy, right, So John used the razor to
slowly carve out a piece of wood into a fake pistol,
then he blackened it with shoe polished and waited for
his chance.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Oh god, getting shoe polish on the black market.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Also like it's all over your fingers now, it's just
gonna look cross. But you can never get that stuff off.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
He's so obvious.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, So on the morning of Saturday, March third, he
was taking to the jail's exercise room and left to himself.
Nobody wanted to see him work out. Apparently he made
all the craziest sounds.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
They don't want to.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
See how the sausage is made.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
They He called out to one of the jailers who
came into the room alone. John stepped up behind him
and stuck the gun in his back. He marched the
man to the cells, locked in the jailer. Then one
by one he was able to track down the other
guards and locked him up, releasing another inmate along the way.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
It's just everything you've said about how he has just
sort of gone in through the front door, or just
like he killed someone to get the keys or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It's just like, how is this he finished the crossroad
possible to get the keys from the wife. Apparently, and
this is the Banana's part of the story. The prisoners
were able to lure in two dozen prison officers and
lock them up in the cells.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah, it seems like he has like power, mind control
powers or something.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah. Do you want to come here and listen to
some jazz and the smoke some Devil's lettuce. You're like, yeah,
I'll the fucking do that. John took one hostage, the
county's deputy sheriff, marched him to the prison locker, then
popped it open and pulled out all the guns and gear.
Then John and the other escapee walked across the street
to the city's garage. They waved the gun at the
(34:11):
mechanic and asked for the fastest car. He pointed them
to the sheriff's nineteen thirty three Ford v.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Eight hilarious.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, and the mechanic remember that, Dillinger laughed when he
realized it was the sheriff's car. Yeah. John pointed a
Tommy gun at the sheriff's deputy and forced him to
speed off down the road towards Chicago the Chicago bus.
Baby grab it on. So more bank robberies followed, with
new confederates like his new linkup with maybe the most
(34:39):
memorably named gangster of the era, Baby face Nielsen, Wow, adorable. Yeah,
he was just like so cute. I'm like vicious. Between
a South Dakota bank and an iol bank, they hit
that March. Dillinger came away with another two million dollars.
So it was an early birthday present for John. On
June twenty second, he turned thirty one, and on that
day he was.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Declared accomplished so much so, yeah, overachiever.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
It was declared America's first ever public enemy number one.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
That's right, that's how I know him, That's why I
know there you go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yeah, And the government started throwing cash around five thousand
for information leading to his arrest or. You could get
ten thousand if you manage to capture him yourself, So
that's like two hundred thousand in today's money. Is there
is there a time in your life where you might
have been tempted to go after him?
Speaker 3 (35:27):
What's the point you're gonna die?
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah? Fuck no, I don't know what would make me
chase down a dude. That's obviously I killed so many
people and stuck up so many fucking police stations.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I know, right, That's just it's like they kind of
they need all the help they can get It's just
a desperate like, we're.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Gonna get him, or you could get him if you can,
could you We're.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Gonna get it, but if you get to it first. Whatever,
Are you ready for a little more thirst?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Give me?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
This was the point when theaters were playing the news
before the movies, and as the story goes, when the
reels would play in the theater and Dillinger appeared on
the screen, the audience would cheer. And you know who
fucking hated this, the head of the government's Department of Investigation,
Jay Edgar Hoover's right, Okay, a little bit of true. Yeah,
they had to rebrand because they got kicked in the
ball so hard by Dillinger. Can you believe that's like
(36:17):
that the Department of Investigation that like, he completely destroyed
them in the pr battle. You know, so after just
one year they changed their name from the Department of
Investigation to the FBI.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, rebrand.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
It kind of makes sense of people at the time
were on dillinger side because this is I'm not condoning
violence or robbery, of course, yes i am, but this
is smack in the middle of the Great Depression. So
basically what people know is that banks fucking suck, the
government sucks, and their lives were ruined by shipbacks, monkeying
around with money beyond their control. Banks weren't loaning anyone
(36:50):
money for the things that they needed. You wanted to
buy a house, if you wanted to start a business,
then fucking tough like you weren't going to get any
other money. So Dillinger became kind of their fantasy. The
bank refused you the money, what if we just walked
in and took it.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
He's the revenge fantasy, totally exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
So during the early robberies, one letter to the Indianapolis
Star said, Yeah, I'm for John Dillinger. She he wasn't
even worse than the bankers or the politicians who put
the poor people's money. She he didn't rob poor people.
She he robbed those who became rich by robbing the poor.
She thank you, very right. That's a producer, tell you
thank you. But really made him robbin hood to the
(37:25):
American people with the mortgages, because when his game would
rob a bank, they wouldn't just take the money, They
would also take the mortgage records and the title deeds
that the banks held, and Dillinger would torch them. Suddenly
the banks didn't have the people work they needed to
claim ownership over people's houses. It wasn't exactly stealing from
the rates to give to the poor, but it was
pretty fucking close. Oh yeah. Interesting, And the stealing from
(37:48):
the rich part, he really had down path. That was
enough for a lot of people in the Great Depression
just to fuck up the rich people's day. At this point,
Dillinger was so popular and his mugshots were everywhere. He
realized that he needed to change his look. It was
too sexy. Some people said, so, if you're downing jer
and you got to change up the look, what are
you going to do? Are you gonna get some killer
sideburns or some.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Mutton chop so blonde?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
What would you do?
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Oh me, oh, mun chop sounds.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Good, right?
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I I really like style reinventions, like to change up
the exterior.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I don't know just what color palets I use it.
He's like, I'm going to try more blue. It's because
soundm feeling adventurous. John decided plastic surgery was the way
to go.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
What fucking posty whatever it was.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
You know a lot of advancements from plastic surgery happened
because of people mangled in World War One and so
to replace faces, and there are so a lot of
the you know, they did really some sort of crazy
shit with with very limited technology at the time. So,
but but John didn't go the full route. He had
two moles cut off, he slugged off a scar on
(39:00):
his lip, and he pushed his cheeks higher. Okay, he
had a dend in his nose filled in, but most importantly,
he filled the dimple on his chin. What Yeah, it's
a little limerick. On top of that, he had his
fingerprints burned off with acid. Okay. Also, that's the fucking like.
I didn't know that you could go that elaborate with
(39:21):
plastic surgery at the time.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I thought, Hey, oh, do you mean like just everything
like filling in dimples and getting like bocle fat trans.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Particularly the push his cheeks higher. It just seems like
that feel like that feels like really complicated to do.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I don't know, but yeah, that's like breaking your face.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
He mustn't look fucking wild.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Yeah, was he in like a face brace? I mean,
how do you like from all that shit?
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Well, emotionally, we don't know, but physically three months and
This was all for the lolo price of like one
hundred thousand dollars in today's money. That wasn't too bad.
Oh my god, what's like sown in corners?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Man?
Speaker 1 (40:02):
That is some cotting corner shed. I bet you they
gave him like a pig slab on his cheeks. Afterwards,
he was hanging out at a friend's house, lying low
for a month, or actually not exactly lying low. After
the surgery, John apparently thought he was untouchable, so he
spent the month hanging out with his girlfriend all around Chicago.
They went to restaurants.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Oh they're still together even though she turned his ass in.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I might have been a new one.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Wait, so he did this facial reconstruction to disguise himself,
or just as a vein to disguise himself.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Okay, okay, that's.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
What he was, just setting a hook. He was like
going to restaurants, amusement sparks. John went gambling, and he
went to shows. Can you imagine you're like at a
fucking like death cap of a cutie concert? You're like,
is that the No, it can't be.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
He looks like a public enemy Number one.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I love that people be like, no, no, he's got
a chin dimple. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
So, in true cinematic fashion, it was a trip to
the movies that finally got John caught. Orse. So, one night,
a broth madam who knew John's girlfriend told the cops
that she was going to join John for a movie
at the Biograph Theater. They were watching a gangster flick
naturally called Manhattan Melodrama Meta. The movie ended just after
(41:13):
ten o'clock that night, when Dyllinger stepped out of the
theater with the crowd, some freshly branded FBI agents moved
in rand As a crowd on the sidewalks thinned out,
Dillinger looked around and realized the agents were surrounding him.
He bolted for an alleyway, but they didn't chase. They
just threw their guns and opened fire. Oh this time,
(41:33):
John couldn't out run the bullets. A killer shot hit
him in the back of the head, and he went down.
After he died, something like fifteen thousand people came to
see his body, and the legends about him continued. Of course,
that included the story that he wasn't actually killed at
the theater. Some people said that his body was misidentified
and that the murdered man was someone else?
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Oh because of the cheeks.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Probably. There's even the idea that dillinger allies actually hoaxed
the investigators, that his girlfriend set up the cops with
someone else, and that the FBI were tricked into gunning
down some other man, which left Fyllinger free to disappear.
But the new FBI had no doubt the acid burd
hadn't worked. Dillinger's trigger finger was unmistakable. The Prince matched
(42:19):
America's Robin Hood had made his final escape.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Into the afterlife.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yeah, that's our stories.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
You need a what on epic Dad? I mean that
is that's a better served standing, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, Yeah, it's feeling anti climactic when he was just
like caught, even though like yeah he should be.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Also it feels like he's getting caught because he's like
keeps going to brothels and I was like, I don't know,
He's like this time around, it's gonna be fine. Exactly
what are he taken away from the story? What's what was?
What was something that really jumped out of you? Truly?
Speaker 2 (42:54):
All the guns, like just that there's such everyone had
like a stash of conment.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Everyone but like no.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Every single person. Yeah, yeah, everyone had a stash of
Tommy guns.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
The Tommy guns, Like, what the fuck? It's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
I took away that like the thirties, this era was terrifying, insane.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah, I don't want to be there. I'm glad let's not.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Go back there. But we're gonna be there in like
ten years, just in a different type of thirties. Hey, Snita,
thank you so much for being honest. Where can our
listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Great question?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
I guess I'm on the internet and are you in
the social meds? I'm on the social meds. I posted
about things like upcoming movies and what.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
You see, what we're gonna do movies in piction. Yeah,
so find her at Sunita Moni. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
The money, yeah, my first last name.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I got that one.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
Good for you, man, Yeah, thank you so much, thanks
for having me by our Tuto bye.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation
Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers from
Me are Turo Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka. From
Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Witning Donaldson from Gilded
Audio and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced
and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively,
our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is
(44:28):
Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein,
Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
(44:53):
for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
a rating or review. My mom will call you each
personally and thank you. We'll see you all next week.
This is Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest
true escape stories. Now today we're going to go back
to the Great Depression and to the golden age of
the Bancheist to tell you a story of a man
who may be America's most celebrated outlaw. I'm Martro Castro,
and I'm joined by a fantastic actress, a super kind
soul always makes me want to get up and dance.
(00:23):
Sunita MANI.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Wha.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
That was a bench of special and everybody, we got
a real treat for you today. I'm I'm a big
fan of her and I've known her for for a
long long time, I guess by this point, so welcome
to the show. Sunita MANI give me ben? Where is
(01:15):
my prop pa pal?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Thank you? But but I love you. Okay, I guess
you just said you ready? I the sound effects, so
on that note, What do you consider to be your
greatest escape?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, I was just thinking about the time that I
feel like I escaped the jaws of death.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, dramatic music will put it on and post It's
gonna be so cool.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
It's the first thing that came to mind. I was
on my honeymoon with my now husband in Italy.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
We were in Sicily, So this is like twenty eighteen,
well before White Lotus.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Okay, twenty eighteen. You were there first.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
We had this like wonderful time, this like lovely week.
The whole week we had been doing like really remote stuff,
but this was like a populated place. Anyway, We're swimming
in the ocean, it's lovely. All of a sudden, we're
getting a little far away from the shore and it's
(02:21):
like kind of noticing no one. No one else is
like really in the water, Maybe we should go back.
Let's just like yeah, I don't know, it feels a
little far. So we're trying to go back. We cannot
get back to the shore.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And you feel like you're not making progress.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
We're not making progress at all. It's a riptide. I
guess I'd just never been caught in like a riptide before.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Could you feel the current?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah? Yeah, I wasn't like feeling like a swirling vortex
or anything.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
We just like couldn't swim out of it.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And now I know this to anyone who is ever
gotten a riptide. You don't swim like directly towards the shore.
You swim parallel to the shore now to get out,
and it was one of those guttural things of like
screaming for help, Oh my god, just like I don't know,
we don't know what to do.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
And it was like far enough away that the shore
was to not even know if anyone could hear.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Us, could you see people on the shore.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Eventually we see these like six men.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
In speedos run race into the ocean like to come
after us. They're like yelling Italian at us.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
You're like, I know, they're calling us.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Idiots, Like what were you thinking? And we're like, I
don't know. Do we miss a sign? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
So we're kind of like linked arms with these strangers
who are nice enough to like try and help us.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
And then all six of us can't get back to
the shore.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
No, well eight of us, me and my husband and
these like six men and speedo's.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
It was just six of us because the two of
them died.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
At all.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Wow, So now you're all funcked.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Now we're all screaming, we're all fucked. And that's when
they really start yelling at.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Us, like it's like fucking die, I want to die.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
By this point, the everyone on the beach is just
like standing up and watching and like looking.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Out and being like, uh, what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Finally, a lifeguard like comes to throw one of those
like life rings, you know, and he's going to try
to pull us in, and we're just like again, the shore,
the waves are really turbulent. So by the time it
like the donut gets to us and we're trying to
meet the donut halfway, it's like it's struggling.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Exhausted by this one, We're so exhausted.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
We finally reached the damn donut and it's connected to
a rope so that they could like pull us in
from the shore.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
They let go of the rope.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Why the fuck would they let go of the fucking rope? Man.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I don't know what happened, but I think we were
just too far out and they were like, well, at
least they have the donut.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
It's like one donut for fucking h my man, they
have the dona now they figured it. We're all job
and they all continued on with their day and they're like, okay,
that'd be fine.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Wow, And then eventually they like because it's a marina,
someone like someone in their like a little motor boat
come from behind us, like they don't come from the shore.
They actually like kind of come from behind because I
think the waves are just too strong.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
The visuals of this are amazing. You have to write this.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, So eventually we like do get on the boats,
and that's when I started like really panicking. Actually, it's
like when I totally broke down, like when we were okay.
I was like hyperventilating, like really fat and scared and like,
oh my god, they were so nice.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
We finally got back to the shore. It was such relief.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But also I was like, Okay, I guess we're like
drinking wine now, you know, another cafe or something.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
It was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
It's like that feeling of like life is so beautiful
and fine and lovely and I'm so grateful to be here,
and also like wow, the fuck yeah, am paralyzed by
like fear.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Oh much. Well, listen, thank you so much for sharing that.
I'm so glad we you are okay, And to the
Banana Ham gentleman of sicily said that, all right, well,
are you ready to hear of another escape?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I'm so ready.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yes. For today's story, We're headed to the American heartland.
Indianapolis and also incidentally, the romance capital of the world. No, no,
it's not nobody. Nobody there has ever so not the
romance capital of the world Indianapolis. But the year that
(06:46):
we're talking about is you're nineteen o three, and that's
when a boy named Johnny is born into a family
that owned a grocery store. That's it. I know it
sounds like random detail, but it's gonna come up again. Okay,
So grocery based crime, it's gonna be on the way. Okay.
So as he grew up, Johnny was constantly getting into
trouble and his dad, like many dads at the time,
(07:09):
try to punish the rebellion out of Johnny. Now spoiler alert,
it did not work. So Johnny got up to some mischief.
He formed a neighborhood gang of kids who called themselves
the Dirty Dozen. Did you have a did you have
a tight group of friends when you grow up?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I wasn't like a little neighborhood gang, and none of
us went to school together. It was it felt very
much of the like the three blocks you know I lived,
and like we shared.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I shared a.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Backyard with one of them, and yeah, we had our
little bikes and we would like run around in the
woods and.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
That's so cool. So you didn't come in any crimes
with your neighborhood friends. Nothing for I did. I'm sure
something were legal in Oh yeah. The worst thing we
did was we stole a stop sign.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah, because we wanted to holes like that.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, we were like we vandalyized some shit, for sure.
So sorry, I want them all on's if you ever
come get me. There's no extradition laws. So the crimes
of Johnny committed with this Dirty Dozen gang were little
things like the day they stole some liquor off a
train and Johnny showed up at school drunk. Yeah, I
was like, Johnny will hang out. And then there's a
(08:17):
time they make some coal from railroad cars to sell
to their neighbors.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
All these are such old timy.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, it's like, so, yeah, we have an ice box here.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
See yeah, distributing coal.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, it's kind of industrious, isn't it. So most neighbors
actually describe Johnny as a cheerful, likable youngster, and they
said that he dressed well and they thought he was
only as mischievous as every other boy.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Right, Okay, they gave him some slack, got it.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, they caught him some slacks. He dressed as well.
He goes his cold fuck it. So that's all it
took back then.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, simpler times.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, it was the romance capital of the world. It
could be word just like chilling. So in nineteen twenty,
John's dad moved the family out of the city to
a small and he was trying to keep John out
of trouble. But no doubt, like John got extremely bored
and he was always driving back into Indianapolis looking for.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Somebody to do It's Johnny's way.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, Johnny, or get out of the way, you know.
He wanted to see more of the world. Was there
ever any time growing up where you had a real
sense of wonder lust? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I think there was always like a small town girl
wide eyed for the city, like syndrome that I had.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You you always had New York at your sights.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, I mean I think it was like watching Annie
or something. You know, it was just having that I
don't know, just like wanting to be Annie.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, and you were Annie. It was also mat of fact.
So once when John was driving to the city to
visit his girlfriend also happened to be his uncle stepdaughter. Weird.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Okay, got it, that's like clueless, right.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Huh, it's kind of clueless.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I don't know where like Alicia Silverstone's character.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
That's what it is, Paul's character. I take it all back.
It's not weird, it's CLUELESSI victorian.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And also it's his uncle step daughter, so it's even
twice removed. Fair game, buddy. So the thing was, John
was driving a car that he had stolen for the trip,
so he ran through the Yep, he ran from this
traffic stop, and the cops actually fired a couple of
shots at him as he scampered away, and the whole
situation was generally a messive. So John decided that his
(10:25):
best way out was to skip town completely. So he
did the logical thing what you do at a time,
and he joined the navy.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Hop on a train.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Okay, this is like playing out like a Charlie Chaplin
film or something exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So he started. He learned how to tap dance and yeah, yeah,
uh peep you and just like a little kyri and
that says peep you. So John served on this ship
for only a few months. He thought that his dad
was harsh, but now that he was a fireman in
(11:00):
the navy, meaning that he shoveled coal into the end
in furnaces. Oh, the coal, the coal, the coal. It
fucking sucked. So John naturally when a wall and the
Navy placed a bounty on his head fifty dollars for
the runaway fireman.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Okay, fifty dollars must have been a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Seven hundred thousand dollars at the time. It was actually
the first you could buy a country with fifty dollars.
It was the first time the authorities offered money first capture,
but it was far far from being the last. And
apparently the Navy wasn't looking too hard for him. There's
just kind of like if it's no trouble, if you
find him on the way.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It was like how I dog sat one time in
la and the owner was like kind of joking about
like if the dog, like you know, runs away, it's
like it's all right.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
There's like an insurance saying, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
No, we don't like the dog very much. Actually, I mean,
my kids really liked the dog. But if something happens
to the dog, you know, Honestly, I.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Asked questions, I really like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
It wasn't sure if he was like trying to tell
me to like, like.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
What am I involved with a psychopath? So listen. So
since the Navy wasn't really looking to heart like, John
actually showed up back home and he was able to
pass it off to his family that he had been
honorably discharge. He spent a couple of months playing pool
and baseball and sweet talking a teenage girl. John was
twenty and he married a sixteen year old who moved
(12:24):
in with his family, which gross. I don't know. I'm
firmly on the side of no miners marrying.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I can't tell if this is just like is this
regular confidence that people had.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Back then, Like there are there a lot of Johnnies
like this. I don't know. I feel like you could
get away with all this shit.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
That's what lost the Industrial Revolution children, you know. So
things took a darker turn in the fall when John
and a friend robbed a grocery store. Yeah, the grocer
locked up the store at the end of the week
and was walking home with the money from his cash
register when John jumped in. He attacked a man with
an iron bar that's fucked up and John was arrested
(13:03):
for the attack. His dad was so pissed. Yeah, he
actually advised John to plead guilty and take his punishment
for the crime because he thought that this was John's
first arrest that he might get off easy. Well, no, no, no, John,
Johnny young Johnny was giving the maximum penalty of ten
years in prison, even though he had no previous criminal record.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, it's making up for all the bad shit he did.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So for ten years John stewed in prison rubbing his
shoulders with other social outcasts. And it is to turn
out a key kind of fit in.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So like him, they weren't suited for the discipline of
navy ships or backbreaking farm work or semi professional plates.
I don't know what the fuck they were doing the time.
They were burglars, bootleggers and train robbers, and John Dillinger
was taking lessons boat. What you know the story of
John Willinger?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I have heard of him, but I'm like forgetting history.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I got you you, thank you. One defining trait of
John Dillingder was his love for looking good. Think Paul Rudd,
He's just like ageless forever. When he made it on
a parole in May nineteen thirty three. He was ready
to go out there and get himself a straw boater,
had a fresh haircut and a silk cravat or two.
(14:21):
What's a cravat? Like a cravat like a little little tie?
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Cravat is like a neck handkerchief?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Is that what it is? That is correct? Nice little necktie? Oh?
I want one?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
It sounds delicious.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
That's one historian was very careful to note. John came
out of prison smarter, trimmer, and more muscular, which made
him I quote yeah, and I quote attracted to women
and respected by men.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
In history. That is history.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
It's hilarious commercial, right, but like for prison, yeah, prison exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Give me a light at music. All right, we haven't
rehearsed this. Here we go. Hi, Are you a loner
who hates the navy? You get compared to the shrimp
you sell at your dad's grocery store, Then you need
the one and only only in closest state guarantee make
you smarter, driver, more muscular, president, become instructed for women
(15:16):
and respected by men. This miss is brought to you
by Dapperanswool, private and characteries jealousy who I'm bad for
our first try of that. That's great. But John stepped
out of prison into hard times, right. The banks had
crashed in nineteen twenty nine, and it was a great depression.
So yeah, they were in a lot of jobs for
an ex con stepping out of prison, no matter how
(15:36):
fucking sexy he looked at pr Yeah, fucking sucksy, bro, bro,
you're looking good. So this is no problem for John though,
you know, because he didn't even try. First he went
home and he told his family that he had learned
his lesson. He was a new man.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
He is a liar.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
He's a fucking liar. Second, big a second. Second thing
he did, Sinnia. Second thing he did. He met up
with a bunch of guys who knew his prison buddies,
and they struck up a plan.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Uh, this was the beginning of what one historian calls
John Dillinger's wild Ride, one of the most buck wild
crime spreees in American history. The lord, yeah, no, it
was wild. So they kicked things off with a couple
of starter robberies, just ICs to get their feet with
some teasers. That's right, appetizers if you will, cravats cravat
(16:23):
for the hunger, so they hit up two grocery stores.
That was just a prime the pump a little bit right.
Then it was onto the real targets. In June nineteen
thirty three, John rolled into the new Carlisle, Ohio, a
second romance capital of the world, and together with his
new gang, he was headed for the National Bank. Word
(16:43):
on the street was that they always left the rear
window open in the bathroom, even the night, which to
me sounds like an inside job. How would you know
unless they were putting it like that was like their
shady slogan, like come to our bank. The windows are
open anytime. Our door is always open, and if it's not,
our window is in the back.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Because people be taking huge shits in the bank.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I guess they just get nervous depositing all this money.
Word on the street was correct. John and his gang
crawled in through the bathroom window under the cover of darkness,
and they walked right out because it smelled like shit,
and they're like, I don't know, I can't hang not
worth it. They laid down behind the counter and wait
(17:26):
until the morning when the staff came in to open
the bank. Oh my god, for a second I thought
that where this was going was like and then they
just kind of had have had at it, you know,
they're just like.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
The d of the bank in the dark, yeah, and
in the shield of like night. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
No, no, no. It was way more elaborate than or
way more violent, I guess. As they came in one
by one, John and his team grabbed them and tied
them up at gunpoint. The youngest member of Johnny's gang
was only nineteen, and his strongest memory of the heist
was how big John Dillinger's gun was, oh ok, and
how just and beastly in masculine he see him. And
(18:03):
also this this nineteen year old was the one that
went on to be a journalist and write into history.
How hot it was, yeah, exactly. So eventually John forced
the staff to open the vault and walked out with
thirteen thousand dollars, which is like three hundred thousand dollars
in cash today.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That's that's a lot, I mean, it was.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, especially for these young young whipper snappers. I guess
it must have been like thirty by this point. But
it wasn't just a kid who was impressed. One of
the local papers called it one of the most cleverly
executed crimes in the country's history. Jerlas really fucking love
this guy.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It's like waiting for like the review of your performance
as like an actor or something.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
But yeah, you're like you're yeah, you're waiting for the
Hollywood reporter.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Expected entry quite an expected premise of going through the
window that we all know is open.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Isn't that really fucking thing once that, once you're a
show or is out or whatever. It's just like, I'm
not one of those people that doesn't read the reviews.
I'm like one hundred percent in there. Do you skip
them or do you read them?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I have like a wind where I'm like, oh, I
just have to you know, I have to know the
morbid curiosity, and then I feel like I don't keep going.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Well, funny enough, you mentioned it, because we have the
review of each one of your shows. Come on, guys,
okay sung by the Vienna Boys Choir, Come on now.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Not as good as her Coastal.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So after the newspapers were really kissing his ass, the
bank employees actually remember that the other robbers all seemed
crazed or high, and they were all extremely nervous and
jumpy with their eyes bugging out. But not John Dillinger.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
No, no, this guy's a psychopath, right, No, he was
apparently very calm, yes, psychopath and gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Apparently it was very calm and just god, just like
it was just he was just bulging out of his fans.
He was polite through the entire thing, is what they said. Okay,
but it turns out that money wasn't enough through John Dillinger.
The very same day, the very same fucking day, when
they got back to Indianapolis, John and his accomplices robbed
you fucking guessed it, a grocery store. So the spree
(20:11):
has sprung. John Dillinger and his crew set about robbing
five Indiana and Ohio banks in four months, and John
started to gain real fame as the bold, polite, absolutely
fucking sexy, dressed to kill No but literally they said,
dressed to kill burglar with a big gun. Literally they
said that.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
The cops, I mean, people just want them to keep going. Really,
I can't catch.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
The second they're like putting out ads on the newspaper
like don't rob my bag.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
You know, and my money is shiny, don't take it.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Oh my god, this is the door, kno close proper,
What are we gonna do? So the next few scores
were all in the same area, and Dilager was cruising.
In July, he hit that commercial bank in Daleville, Indiana
and made off with thirty five hundred dollars. He hit
two banks in August, one in Indiana and one in Ohio,
and together they scored over twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Okay, what do you think he's doing with this money?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Buying amazing clothes? I don't know what you're doing?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah, with bane Crobots collection.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Right then they were back in Indianapolis for their biggest
heists yet, twenty one thousand dollars. But that by now
they had a routine.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, yeah, we know he's coming.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah yeah. By now, everybody's like, nobody's like ramping up
security or anything. They're just like, he's not. I think
he's done, you guys, this man is satisfied. None. His
routine was set.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It was two men went into the bank while get
away driver waited outside of the car. Doinger ran forward,
jumped the counter, and held the bank teller at gunpoint,
forced them to open the cash doors in the bank
vault and forcing them to fill the bags with money.
He and his accomplice would walk right back out of
the front, hopping the car and drive off. They were
super fast, and the whole thing was over in minutes.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
It was happening a broad daylight.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Of course, they were gone before help could arrive. Did
you know rob a bag? What's going to be this easy?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
No, it's almost like I want to try it.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, it's almost like what are you doing this weekend?
All right? So John knew how to thank his friends
for robbery lessons. He started sending pistols into their prison. Seriously.
Sometimes he even just walked up to the jail and
threw the guns over the walls.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Okay, he would also pack them, and that's in the
history books.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
That's in the history books. He did not give Yeah
he is if I don't give a fuck was a person.
It's this motherfucker.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Seriously.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
But he would also pack them in boxes of spoons
and send them into the prison workshops. And how did
they use their guns? Humorous? Dillinger's criminal cronies were now packing.
They all teamed up. They rushed the guards. They moved
through the halls and captured the superintendent with their hostage
in hand, they made their way outside to steal a
couple of cars. But now bullets were flying, blood is spilled,
(22:52):
the cars peeled away, and the boys were out of there.
The boys would taunt John Dillinger everything he knew. We're
now on the loose. But now, ironically, it was just like,
that's an impossible voice to keep for longer than that.
But isn't that wild? Yes, ironically, it was just after
his friend's escaped that Dillinger finally got caught. After five
(23:14):
bank robberies and god knows how many four grocery stores,
the cops had finally paid enough bribes to snitches and
sex workers to find out where John's girlfriend lived. Oh,
and now we know what he was using the money for.
And they staked out her boarding house in Chicago, which
I'm like, why don't you just buy her own apartment
with all this money? So one night, when Dillinger dropped by,
(23:35):
the cops swooped in, and just like that, the dashing
bank robber was arrested.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Wow at his girlfriend's house.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, and he was like he was already fully clothed
and expecting him. No, I don't know. Yeah, And there
was cravats everywhere. It seems almost too easy, right, it does.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
But at the same time, he just like kept coming
back to where he came from too.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Like he was like he got cocky. But yeah, while
John waited trial, the paper started printing that the jack
rabbit that jumped over a bank counters was finally caught.
But John was only in jail for a month. As
soon as John was in his whole gang's mission became
getting him out.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So Dyllinger was being held at the Allen County Jail
in Lima, Ohio. The cops had sent him there because
they were worried that he knew how to get out
of state prisons in Indiana. Sure, yeah, he had the
maps of prisons and he also helped his boys get
away already, but they moved him only once stayed over
Like it was just like a couple of miles out right.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
So the breakout completely unknown territory.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, of Ohio, where he's also already hit banks. So
the breakout actually happened on October twelfth, nineteen thirty three.
Six men gathered at the courthouse. Three men stayed outside
and three went in inside. They found the sheriff sitting
at his desk reading the newspaper while his wife sat
nearby working on a crossword. Okay, what a detail to
(24:58):
keep in the history books.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
It really is like scenes from a Chaplain movie or
something like every little detail that that feels.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Like it gets better. The deputy was sleeping on the
office couch.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
That's all we were missing.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And the men told the sheriff that they were officers
who needed to question Dollinger Lowel. When he asked to
see their credentials, they pulled out their pistols. The lead
man said, here are credentials, buddy, Hey, here's our credentials. See,
and they gunned down the sheriff where he sat. After
he was shot, they beat the sheriff until his wife
broke down and gave them the keys. Oh, so do
(25:35):
you think that like getting shot is enough to like
give over the keys.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
From Yeah, And it is shocking that there's just like
no protection of the like at all from this thing happening.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
And now how does the wife have the keys? Man?
They grabbed her and they dragged her to the cell
along with the drowsy deputy. So they put her in
when they pulled Billager out, So the gang ran outside
and they piled into two waiting cars and they hit
the road. Wow. Two days later, this is so wild,
they hit a police station at a little town north
(26:08):
of Fort Wayne, Indiana. They swarmed inside with guns drawn,
locked up the cops, and scooped up their arsenal, two
automatic rifles, a Thompson's submachine gun, three bulletproof vests in
all the ammo they could hire. Can you believe? You believe?
And that was only their first off. You would think
that maybe the police stations might be on alert point
I don't know, and apparently not in Peru, Indiana.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
No, everyone is so indefensible. It's like it's so wild,
there are no consequences.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah, see, done, get out of here.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Okay. So a week later they hit the police station
in Peru, Indiana, and they locked up all the cops
in the basement. They collected their weapons with two more
Tommy guns, a couple of shotguns, more body armor, and
so many rifles and pistols that it's really not even
worth listening. Wow, leaving bodies in his wake. Now, Dyllinger
was free, unarmed to the teeth. So his gang got
(26:58):
immediately back on their horse, hitting banks across the Midwest. Wow,
at one bank this is also fucking crazy. Where the
cops actually caught up with him. Dillinger marched right out
the front door with a human shield. The man jumped
out of the way and the police opened fire, but
Dillinger was armored up right. Witness it said, the bulls
just splashed off his chest, as if the newspaper people
(27:22):
needed more reason to be thirsty for this guy.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Right exactly. He is invincible.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
It was like a Superman before a Superman sort of thing.
He's like, oh my god, he's made of steel. So
the cop was shot eight times and Dillinger's accomplice was
also hit, but the robbers still managed to make a
getaway despite the rain of bullets slamming into their car.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
So much gun like battle, it's wild, so.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Much cup play, you guys. Yeah. As the news came
in a bank after bank getting turned over by Dillinger's
high powered gang, the National Guards started talking about sending
in tanks, planes and he loads of poison gas to
Indiana to try to stop him. One got their fu
plan was like where they gonna go to like gas
the whole state. Right, We're gonna We're gonna kill a
bunch of people, but we're definitely maybe gonna get into.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
One of them is probably gonna be John Delager.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
They could have stopped Dillinger, you know. At one point
he even mealed a little present to the chief of
Indiana State Police, a book called how to be a Detective.
Fucking trold Buddy, you got hooked?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Wow, dude, this guy is so psychotics.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
The gang rob banks in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois. When
it was all told, they were hauling close to three
million dollars in today's money.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Man, I mean maybe supporting the sex work economy of
nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Single handedly propping it up with their bank calls. With
that huge score in tow, they packed up and ducked
out of sight. They went to a place where everyone
brings their ill gotten gains. They went the floor, right, Yeah,
So they slept out of sight while the National Guard
was mobilizing. Eventually there were shotgun gangs and machine gun
(29:10):
squads of National Guard troops setting up checkpoints on the
highways across the Midwest. But Dillinger was already out of reach,
and he adopted a Kouba Knox and he was talking
to It'll be like this and it's like, I don't know,
you know, that's what gets Righty couldn't find him, and
everybody in Florida found him incredibly sexually attractive.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Oh my god, but.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
They probably did. He found the hiding place in Florida.
He and his gang spend their time playing cards, swimming, fishing,
drinking and hanging out. But Dyllinger was restless. They relax, Yes,
just enjoy your vacation, John, Why do people never did it?
Speaker 3 (29:48):
You made it out?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah? Are you a person when you're not trying not
to drown in your vacation? Are you a person that that?
Are you? Do you get angsy? Or are you good
with chilling for for a while?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I need I need those moments.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yes, I like have those vacations or whatever, retreats, whatever,
so that I.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Can be there.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
I love it. I love to just throw my feet up.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
When we were all starting out and there were like
periods of like in four like of involuntary resting, I
was never good at that. I was. I would hit
it every Craigsist, audition, every fucking backstage actors, access, Mandy
dot Com. I would find no downtime.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
It can feel like you're just like drowning. But when
I guess, I feel.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
That's fantastic. Yeah. So in the end, it was in
the National Guard who put the climbs on him. No, no,
it was the local police in Tucson, Arizona.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
In Arizona, No.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Arizona, Cotumn. As the Dilager gang was planning an escape
route to Mexico, some of John's got drunk at a
local bar and started bragging, as everybody fucking does. Cops
got win of it, and they raided the house where
the gang was staying and scooped up a lot of
the weapons and gear the rest of the people inside,
and they just waited. Dolinger pulled up a few hours later.
(31:09):
He walked up the steps and right into a police ambush.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Oh, just as he was loosening his cravats.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah, he was pooring himself as first tumbler of brandy.
Have you people know? Shame? Yeah, that's how they caught him,
and along with John and most of the gang, the
cops grabbed up tons of new clothes in a house.
It sounds odd for the cops to be thrift shopping
from the thieves like that, but whatever.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
It's like, it's just going to go into evidence anyway,
they may as well.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Just yeah, all these cravats are not going away. We
better be sponsored by a fucking cravat company after all
this plugging. But what they had actually found was the
clothes had been lined with money. That was it. It was
the secret sash Oh where the gangs get away to Mexico.
Oh okay, yeah, that one really shocked hu.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I just I love the visual of that, like putting
like dollar bills under like a sewing machine and like
sewing them into a suit jacket or something.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
It's so cinematic, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Good idea.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
That brings us to January twenty fifth, nineteen thirty four.
John Dillinger was shipped back to Indiana unlocked in Crown
Point Jail to await his trial. Tons of armguards marched
around the jail for the newspapers to snap pictures of
There was no way he was going to escape this time.
The trial was set for March twelfth, but Dillinger never
planned to face the music. Wow, so in his cell,
(32:34):
this is crazy, right, So John used the razor to
slowly carve out a piece of wood into a fake pistol,
then he blackened it with shoe polished and waited for
his chance.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Oh god, getting shoe polish on the black market.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Also like it's all over your fingers now, it's just
gonna look cross. But you can never get that stuff off.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
He's so obvious.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, So on the morning of Saturday, March third, he
was taking to the jail's exercise room and left to himself.
Nobody wanted to see him work out. Apparently he made
all the craziest sounds.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
They don't want to.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
See how the sausage is made.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
They He called out to one of the jailers who
came into the room alone. John stepped up behind him
and stuck the gun in his back. He marched the
man to the cells, locked in the jailer. Then one
by one he was able to track down the other
guards and locked him up, releasing another inmate along the way.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
It's just everything you've said about how he has just
sort of gone in through the front door, or just
like he killed someone to get the keys or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It's just like, how is this he finished the crossroad
possible to get the keys from the wife. Apparently, and
this is the Banana's part of the story. The prisoners
were able to lure in two dozen prison officers and
lock them up in the cells.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah, it seems like he has like power, mind control
powers or something.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah. Do you want to come here and listen to
some jazz and the smoke some Devil's lettuce. You're like, yeah,
I'll the fucking do that. John took one hostage, the
county's deputy sheriff, marched him to the prison locker, then
popped it open and pulled out all the guns and gear.
Then John and the other escapee walked across the street
to the city's garage. They waved the gun at the
(34:11):
mechanic and asked for the fastest car. He pointed them
to the sheriff's nineteen thirty three Ford v.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Eight hilarious.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, and the mechanic remember that, Dillinger laughed when he
realized it was the sheriff's car. Yeah. John pointed a
Tommy gun at the sheriff's deputy and forced him to
speed off down the road towards Chicago the Chicago bus.
Baby grab it on. So more bank robberies followed, with
new confederates like his new linkup with maybe the most
(34:39):
memorably named gangster of the era, Baby face Nielsen, Wow, adorable. Yeah,
he was just like so cute. I'm like vicious. Between
a South Dakota bank and an iol bank, they hit
that March. Dillinger came away with another two million dollars.
So it was an early birthday present for John. On
June twenty second, he turned thirty one, and on that
day he was.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Declared accomplished so much so, yeah, overachiever.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
It was declared America's first ever public enemy number one.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
That's right, that's how I know him, That's why I
know there you go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yeah, And the government started throwing cash around five thousand
for information leading to his arrest or. You could get
ten thousand if you manage to capture him yourself, So
that's like two hundred thousand in today's money. Is there
is there a time in your life where you might
have been tempted to go after him?
Speaker 3 (35:27):
What's the point you're gonna die?
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah? Fuck no, I don't know what would make me
chase down a dude. That's obviously I killed so many
people and stuck up so many fucking police stations.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I know, right, That's just it's like they kind of
they need all the help they can get It's just
a desperate like, we're.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Gonna get him, or you could get him if you can,
could you We're.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Gonna get it, but if you get to it first. Whatever,
Are you ready for a little more thirst?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Give me?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
This was the point when theaters were playing the news
before the movies, and as the story goes, when the
reels would play in the theater and Dillinger appeared on
the screen, the audience would cheer. And you know who
fucking hated this, the head of the government's Department of Investigation,
Jay Edgar Hoover's right, Okay, a little bit of true. Yeah,
they had to rebrand because they got kicked in the
ball so hard by Dillinger. Can you believe that's like
(36:17):
that the Department of Investigation that like, he completely destroyed
them in the pr battle. You know, so after just
one year they changed their name from the Department of
Investigation to the FBI.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, rebrand.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
It kind of makes sense of people at the time
were on dillinger side because this is I'm not condoning
violence or robbery, of course, yes i am, but this
is smack in the middle of the Great Depression. So
basically what people know is that banks fucking suck, the
government sucks, and their lives were ruined by shipbacks, monkeying
around with money beyond their control. Banks weren't loaning anyone
(36:50):
money for the things that they needed. You wanted to
buy a house, if you wanted to start a business,
then fucking tough like you weren't going to get any
other money. So Dillinger became kind of their fantasy. The
bank refused you the money, what if we just walked
in and took it.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
He's the revenge fantasy, totally exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
So during the early robberies, one letter to the Indianapolis
Star said, Yeah, I'm for John Dillinger. She he wasn't
even worse than the bankers or the politicians who put
the poor people's money. She he didn't rob poor people.
She he robbed those who became rich by robbing the poor.
She thank you, very right. That's a producer, tell you
thank you. But really made him robbin hood to the
(37:25):
American people with the mortgages, because when his game would
rob a bank, they wouldn't just take the money, They
would also take the mortgage records and the title deeds
that the banks held, and Dillinger would torch them. Suddenly
the banks didn't have the people work they needed to
claim ownership over people's houses. It wasn't exactly stealing from
the rates to give to the poor, but it was
pretty fucking close. Oh yeah. Interesting, And the stealing from
(37:48):
the rich part, he really had down path. That was
enough for a lot of people in the Great Depression
just to fuck up the rich people's day. At this point,
Dillinger was so popular and his mugshots were everywhere. He
realized that he needed to change his look. It was
too sexy. Some people said, so, if you're downing jer
and you got to change up the look, what are
you going to do? Are you gonna get some killer
sideburns or some.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Mutton chop so blonde?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
What would you do?
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Oh me, oh, mun chop sounds.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Good, right?
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I I really like style reinventions, like to change up
the exterior.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I don't know just what color palets I use it.
He's like, I'm going to try more blue. It's because
soundm feeling adventurous. John decided plastic surgery was the way
to go.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
What fucking posty whatever it was.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
You know a lot of advancements from plastic surgery happened
because of people mangled in World War One and so
to replace faces, and there are so a lot of
the you know, they did really some sort of crazy
shit with with very limited technology at the time. So,
but but John didn't go the full route. He had
two moles cut off, he slugged off a scar on
(39:00):
his lip, and he pushed his cheeks higher. Okay, he
had a dend in his nose filled in, but most importantly,
he filled the dimple on his chin. What Yeah, it's
a little limerick. On top of that, he had his
fingerprints burned off with acid. Okay. Also, that's the fucking like.
I didn't know that you could go that elaborate with
(39:21):
plastic surgery at the time.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I thought, Hey, oh, do you mean like just everything
like filling in dimples and getting like bocle fat trans.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Particularly the push his cheeks higher. It just seems like
that feel like that feels like really complicated to do.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I don't know, but yeah, that's like breaking your face.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
He mustn't look fucking wild.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Yeah, was he in like a face brace? I mean,
how do you like from all that shit?
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Well, emotionally, we don't know, but physically three months and
This was all for the lolo price of like one
hundred thousand dollars in today's money. That wasn't too bad.
Oh my god, what's like sown in corners?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Man?
Speaker 1 (40:02):
That is some cotting corner shed. I bet you they
gave him like a pig slab on his cheeks. Afterwards,
he was hanging out at a friend's house, lying low
for a month, or actually not exactly lying low. After
the surgery, John apparently thought he was untouchable, so he
spent the month hanging out with his girlfriend all around Chicago.
They went to restaurants.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Oh they're still together even though she turned his ass in.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I might have been a new one.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Wait, so he did this facial reconstruction to disguise himself,
or just as a vein to disguise himself.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Okay, okay, that's.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
What he was, just setting a hook. He was like
going to restaurants, amusement sparks. John went gambling, and he
went to shows. Can you imagine you're like at a
fucking like death cap of a cutie concert? You're like,
is that the No, it can't be.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
He looks like a public enemy Number one.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I love that people be like, no, no, he's got
a chin dimple. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
So, in true cinematic fashion, it was a trip to
the movies that finally got John caught. Orse. So, one night,
a broth madam who knew John's girlfriend told the cops
that she was going to join John for a movie
at the Biograph Theater. They were watching a gangster flick
naturally called Manhattan Melodrama Meta. The movie ended just after
(41:13):
ten o'clock that night, when Dyllinger stepped out of the
theater with the crowd, some freshly branded FBI agents moved
in rand As a crowd on the sidewalks thinned out,
Dillinger looked around and realized the agents were surrounding him.
He bolted for an alleyway, but they didn't chase. They
just threw their guns and opened fire. Oh this time,
(41:33):
John couldn't out run the bullets. A killer shot hit
him in the back of the head, and he went down.
After he died, something like fifteen thousand people came to
see his body, and the legends about him continued. Of course,
that included the story that he wasn't actually killed at
the theater. Some people said that his body was misidentified
and that the murdered man was someone else?
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Oh because of the cheeks.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Probably. There's even the idea that dillinger allies actually hoaxed
the investigators, that his girlfriend set up the cops with
someone else, and that the FBI were tricked into gunning
down some other man, which left Fyllinger free to disappear.
But the new FBI had no doubt the acid burd
hadn't worked. Dillinger's trigger finger was unmistakable. The Prince matched
(42:19):
America's Robin Hood had made his final escape.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Into the afterlife.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yeah, that's our stories.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
You need a what on epic Dad? I mean that
is that's a better served standing, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, Yeah, it's feeling anti climactic when he was just
like caught, even though like yeah he should be.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Also it feels like he's getting caught because he's like
keeps going to brothels and I was like, I don't know,
He's like this time around, it's gonna be fine. Exactly
what are he taken away from the story? What's what was?
What was something that really jumped out of you? Truly?
Speaker 2 (42:54):
All the guns, like just that there's such everyone had
like a stash of conment.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Everyone but like no.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Every single person. Yeah, yeah, everyone had a stash of
Tommy guns.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
The Tommy guns, Like, what the fuck? It's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
I took away that like the thirties, this era was terrifying, insane.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah, I don't want to be there. I'm glad let's not.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Go back there. But we're gonna be there in like
ten years, just in a different type of thirties. Hey, Snita,
thank you so much for being honest. Where can our
listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Great question?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
I guess I'm on the internet and are you in
the social meds? I'm on the social meds. I posted
about things like upcoming movies and what.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
You see, what we're gonna do movies in piction. Yeah,
so find her at Sunita Moni. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
The money, yeah, my first last name.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I got that one.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
Good for you, man, Yeah, thank you so much, thanks
for having me by our Tuto bye.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation
Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers from
Me are Turo Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka. From
Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Witning Donaldson from Gilded
Audio and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced
and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively,
our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is
(44:28):
Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein,
Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
(44:53):
for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
a rating or review. My mom will call you each
personally and thank you. We'll see you all next week.
Host
Arturo Castro
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com