GIRL CONFESSES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 21, 25 January 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

GIRL CONFESSES.

BETRAYAL OF DILLINGER. FOUND HE LOVED ANOTHER. ARRANGEMENT WITH POLICE. When America's Public Enemy No. 1, John Dillinger, was riddled with jjolice bullets outside a cinema last year, it was hinted that he had been betrayed by a woman. And that turns out to be the truth, as his first love, the girl he was about to abandon for another, revealed in an interview in Budapest. "I betrayed Johnny because he betrayed me. I met him first shortly after my arrival in the States, when 1 was a shopgirl, and lie was an honest boy working hard and dreaming of a bright future. "He won my heart, and I was the slave of my iove for him. Then ho was arrested and charged with theft. "I knew he- was innocent, but the police framed him so well that he was convicted. That changed his whole character. He vowed that after his sentence he would make war on the police, and lie kept his vow. "It was only then that he became the gangster of whom the world knows. I was loyal to him through it all, sharing all his dangers, and often helping him to baffle the police.

Shattered Dreams. "Then came the day when Johnny decided to retire and take a farm with the money he had saved in spite of his prodigality and his readiness to spend money on others." In these words "Red Anna" Sagen, who "gave" Dillinger to the police, opens her first frank avowal of the part she played in the drama that closed the career of the notorious gunman. After speaking of the relief she felt at the thought that the dangerous career of the man she loved was to end at last, and that together they would start a new life on a farm that had already been bought and stocked through an agent, she goes on: "Then one night I learned that all my dreams were shattered. It was not with me as his companion that Johnny counted to settle down. The great love I had borne him, the sacrifices I had made for him, all counted as nothing. Johnny had fallen for another woman who was ready to step into my place though she had been nothing to him in the days when he was a hunted man, tracked like a wild beast and liable to be shot at sight. "My love turned to hate, and I felt that sooner than see Johnny in the arms of my rival I would give him up to the certain death that awaited him if the jiolice caught sight of him. "Heart Turned To Ice."

"Before doing anything I decided to see him, to challenge him, and see if it were really true that he was capable of this treachery. We met for dinner that night in one of our safe retreats. So far from denying the story I had been told, he admitted it was true and laughed in my face when I reminded him of our love and implored him to forget the other woman." " 'Forget her?' lie retorted. 'Never while there is life in me. I love her more than 1 ever loved you.' "The heart within me turned to ice and I went away. All night I lay awake in agony wishing only death to bring me relief. "Next day I decided that there was only one punishment for the treachery he had shown, and that was to deliver him to his enemies. I called up the police and told them I was ready to hand Johnny over to them at the first chance.

"A meeting was arranged, and it was agreed that X should touch i'3OUO the day Johnny was in the liands of the police, living or dead. "Soon after that 1 telephoned to Johnny telling lnm that I had thought things over and realised chat I was wrong to tnink of grudging linn his happiness. X suggested a meeting that night at a cinema, and that he should bring the other woman, so that X might congratulate them both. My real idea was that she should suffer while X triurnphe'd. "Fell For My Tale." "Poor Johnny fell for my tale. He himself named the cinema where we met. X telephoned at once to the police and it was arranged that X should wear a bright red dress so that they could recognise me easily, and that X should drop a glove when Johnny approached to greet me.

"All the accounts so tar published m the Press about that night are wrong. It lias been said that we had been in the movie house for some time while tlie police wi.ited outside. "The truth is that I was in the entrance hall waiting for Johnny and the other woman, who were to enter by one of the side doors and come out to meet me, when we were to see the show and then go to a swell supper that had been ordered to celebrate Johnny's new conquest and our reconciliation. "I was tortured all the time I waited, torn by my love and by hate in turn. More than once 1 had made uj) my mind to go away and. break my pact with the police. "When this feeling cams to me for the last time 1 was on the point of going when Fate took a hand in the game. Johnny appeared, smiling his old smile, and the woman on his arm threw at me a look of triumph. "That look drove away all my remorse and sealed the fate of the man I had loved. As he stepped forward to 6hake my hand i let my glove drop in the direction of the hidden police. "Immediately there was a hail of fire. Johnny did not even suspect that I had given him away, but thought that it was accidental. lie drew his gun, but before he fcould use it he was lying at my feet lifeless with half a dozen bullets in his body.

"The police arrested me. but that was only part of the game. Had they not done so I would assuredly have been killed by Johnny's friends, for the truth had come out. Haunted Woman. "When at last I gained my freedom it was to find that I was a marked and haunted woman. I thought to escape my foes by wearing a wig to hide my red hair, and arranged to open a dressmaking business in a quiet corner of Chicago. "On the night I signed the lease I received a note warning me that the day I opened the shop would be my last on earth. "I knew it was no idle threat, and I fled, abandoning practically the whole of the blood-money which I had sunk in the business. "At last I managed to get away, after the United States'authorities had decided that, despite the service rendered them. I was an undesirable and ordered my deportation. "I know that I have been followed to Europe and that possibly soiae day I shall fall under the bullets of the avengers of Johnny." While their master lay dead on a bleak Argyll mountain, three sheep dogs kept a lonely day and night vigil by his body till the arrival of a search party. The dead man was James Young Crawford, aged 2f>, of Baltimore Farm, Stachur. He left hvi farm with his dogs to bring in sheep from the mountainside, and when ho did not return at night a search party went out. Shortly before midnight, when the party was on the point of giving up the search, they were directed to the missing man by the barking of his faithful dogs. He was dead, apparently having dropped through exhaustion.