ENEMY NO. 1.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 147, 23 June 1934, Page 4 (Supplement)

ENEMY NO. 1.

GAOL-MADE KILLER. BITTEREST MAN IN U.S.A. DILLINGER'S LOST FAITH. Public Enemy No. 1, John Dillinger, the man who has at least thirteen murders to his discredit, has repeatedly declared that he would never be taken alive. He said that when he walked out of the State penitentiary just over twelve months ago on parole after serving eight years for a first offence, and it is plain that he meant it. That is why he lias gofie armed constantly since then, generally with a machine gun hidden under his overcoat. But despite this his vow proved futile, for he w.as captured alive. He and his gang had been committing robberies all over the countryside. He took £"28,000 from one bank alone, and every hold-up ho did was a' success.

Last December the Chicago police thought they had him. They raided his hide-out, and Dillinger shot his way to liberty over the dead body of PoliceSergeant Shanley. A little later a fire broke out in a hotel where Dillinger was staying. A fireman saw his arsenal and told the police. There was a swift, midden raid, and in the smoke and excitement ■of the blaze Dillinger had no chance.

Lost His Wife. Sheriff Lillian Holley—a woman—of Lake County, lodged him in Crown Point Gaol. But one day he made a dummy pistol out of wood, terrorised a warder, and forced him to let him out. Then he lined up all the guards in the prison, took their machine-guns, and escaped in a car, accompanied by a negro, who was killed in one of his later exploits. Yet Dillinger's wail has always been that "gaol made him a killer. I am a victim of a brutal sentence," he said after his return to his home at Mooseville on parole for his first offence. "1 got a sentence of from 10 to 20 years for robbing a man while I was under the influence of liquor. It was my first offence. The 'pen' made me bitter. I lost my wife, she divorced me, and I'll never trust any woman completely again. I'll only use them." That was what he told his fellow villagers of Mooseville. Gangsters with whom he has come into contact since, say that these words have held good. "Dillinger is the bitterest man in the world," one of them told me. "He hates everything in uniform. But he never liked to kill. He only shot men when lie knew that it was either that or being taken. And capture means death to him." Despite his eight years in the penitentiary, no man knows the backwoods of Indiana and the surrounding states better than Dillinger. *He has spent the greater part of the past year in motor cars, all of them stolen, dashing from one place to another, using obscure back-ways and constantly marking down hide-outs for future use. '

Luck Plays A Part. That is why the police, after allowing him to slip through their lingers a week ago, were baffled in their search day after day. Luck has played a large part in Dillinger's adventures. .He did not lay his plans very far in advunce. Ho hardly knew what he was going to do from one hour to another, and with the members of his gang up to a few weeks ago, he went about almost openly. Ail of tliem had their molls, and some of these women .travelled around with them. Dillinger's favourite was a redhaired beauty, known as Ann Martin. This woman had been with him on at least two occasions when he was trapped by the police and saw him shoot his way out with machine-guns. Dillinger, in all his exploits, which started with a robbery and almost immediately afterwards a murder, has depended solely on guns. His second crime, and the first after, his release on parole, was the robbery of a pay-roll messenger. The superintendent of a factoiy was shot and from that moment Dillinger knew that he was a marked man. t "Capture means the hot seat to me," he once said, "and I' can't stand heat." His reply to other gangsters, who advised more robbery and less murder, always was: "You can't argue with a machinegun." Members of the underworld here, who knew Dillinger's methods, have always said: "Keep machine-guns out of his way and he'll come out "into the open."