John Herbert Dillinger was an American gangster during the Great Depression. He commanded the Dillinger Gang, which was accused of robbing twenty-four banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times and escaped twice. He was charged with but not convicted of the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana, police officer, who shot Dillinger in his bullet-proof vest during a shootout; it was the only time Dillinger was charged with homicide.
Lester Joseph Gillis, also known as George Nelson and Baby Face Nelson, was an American bank robber who became a criminal partner of John Dillinger, when he helped Dillinger escape from prison, in Crown Point, Indiana. Later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that Nelson and the remaining gang of bank robbers were collectively "Public Enemy Number One".
The Biograph Theater on Lincoln Avenue in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, was originally a movie theater but now presents live productions. It gained early notoriety as the location where bank robber John Dillinger was leaving when he was shot down by FBI agents, after he watched a gangster movie there on July 22, 1934. The theater is on the National Register of Historic Places and was designated a Chicago Landmark on March 28, 2001.
Melvin Horace Purvis II was an FBI agent instrumental in capturing bank robbers John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd in 1934. All of this would later overshadow his military career which saw him directly involved with General George Patton, Hermann Göring, and the Nuremberg Trials.
Charles Arthur Floyd, nicknamed Pretty Boy Floyd, was an American bank robber. He operated in the West and Central states, and his criminal exploits gained widespread press coverage in the 1930s. He was seen positively by the public because it was believed that during robberies he burned mortgage documents, freeing many people from their debts. He was pursued and killed by a group of Bureau of Investigation agents led by Melvin Purvis. Historians have speculated as to which officers were at the event, but accounts document that local officers Robert "Pete" Pyle and George Curran were present at his fatal shooting and also at his embalming. Floyd has continued to be a familiar figure in American popular culture, sometimes seen as notorious, other times portrayed as a tragic figure, even a victim of the hard times of the Great Depression in the United States. Floyd is viewed by many as a prime example of a real life anti-hero.
Ana Cumpănaș or Anna Sage, nicknamed Woman in Red, was a Romanian prostitute and brothel owner in the American cities of Chicago and Gary, Indiana. She is best known for having assisted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in tracking down gangster John Dillinger.
Vernon C. "Verne" Miller was a freelance Prohibition hitman, bootlegger, bank robber and the disgraced former sheriff of Beadle County, South Dakota. Most infamously, Miller, as the only identified gunman in the Kansas City massacre, was found beaten and strangled to death shortly after the incident.
Public Enemies is a 2009 American biographical crime drama film directed by Michael Mann, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman. It is an adaptation of Bryan Burrough's 2004 non-fiction book Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34. Set during the Great Depression, the film chronicles the final years of the notorious bank robber John Dillinger as he is pursued by FBI agent Melvin Purvis, Dillinger's relationship with Billie Frechette, as well as Purvis' pursuit of Dillinger's associates and fellow criminals John "Red" Hamilton, Homer Van Meter, Harry Pierpont, and Baby Face Nelson.
Homer Virgil Van Meter was an American criminal and bank robber active in the early 20th century, most notably as a criminal associate of John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson.
John "Red" Hamilton was a Canadian criminal and bank robber active in the 1920s–1930s, most notably as an associate of John Dillinger. He is best known for his lingering death and secret burial after being mortally wounded during a robbery.
Little Bohemia Lodge is a rural vacation lodge and restaurant located off US Highway 51 in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. The lodge was built in 1929 by Emil Wanatka on land he acquired that same year. Little Bohemia gained fame and infamy as the setting of a botched raid by the FBI, then called the Bureau of Investigation, against the John Dillinger Gang.
Arthur Raymond "Doc" Barker was an American criminal, the son of Ma Barker and a member of the Barker-Karpis gang, founded by his brother Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis. Barker was typically called on for violent action, while Fred and Karpis planned the gang's crimes. He was arrested and convicted of kidnapping in 1935. Sent to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in 1936, he was killed three years later while attempting to escape.
The Dillinger Gang was a group of American Depression-era bank robbers led by John Dillinger. The gang gained notoriety for a successful string of bank robberies, using modern tools and tactics, in the Midwestern United States from September 1933 to July 1934. During this crime spree, the gang killed 10 and wounded 7. They managed to pull off three jail breaks which wounded two guards and killed a sheriff.
Samuel Parkinson Cowley was an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who was killed in the line of duty in a gunfight with Baby Face Nelson in 1934 on Route 14 in Barrington, Illinois.
Verne Sankey and Gordon Alcorn were a pair of Depression-era outlaws whose successful kidnappings of Haskell Bohn and Charles Boettcher II in 1932 made them two of the most wanted criminals in the United States, and inspired a number of other kidnappings across the country. Their eventual capture was, in fact, a direct result of one of these copycat kidnappings, of which they themselves were wrongly accused. Sankey was initially a suspect in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, but was cleared after an investigation by the FBI.
Charles Batsell "Charlie" Winstead was an FBI agent in the 1930s–40s, famous for being one of the agents who shot and killed John Dillinger on July 22, 1934, in Chicago, Illinois.
Herman Edward Hollis was an American law-enforcement officer who worked as special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As an FBI special agent in the 1930s, Hollis worked with agents Melvin Purvis, Samuel P. Cowley and others fighting bank robbers, gangsters and organized crime in the Chicago area during the Great Depression. Hollis is best known for having been killed in the line of duty during an intense shootout with Chicago-area bank robber Lester Gillis, a.k.a. Baby Face Nelson, at the Battle of Barrington in 1934. Hollis was also one of the three FBI special agents who shot John Dillinger near the Biograph Theater earlier that year, resulting in Dillinger's death. One controversial account also implicates Hollis in the death of Pretty Boy Floyd. Hollis served as a special agent for the FBI's field offices in Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Chicago for over seven years; at the time of his death, he was 31 years old.
The College Kidnappers was a group of alumni from the University of Illinois who specialized in kidnapping wealthy mobsters for ransom. These mobsters were targets because they were less likely to approach the police and could pay the ransom.
Melvin Purvis: G-Man is a 1974 American TV movie about Melvin Purvis. It is a spin-off of Dillinger and was followed in 1975 by The Kansas City Massacre, also directed by Dan Curtis and starring Dale Robertson as Purvis.
The Kansas City Massacre is a 1975 American television film about Melvin Purvis. It is the second spin-off of the 1973 film Dillinger, following Melvin Purvis: G-Man in 1974, also directed by Dan Curtis and starring Dale Robertson as Purvis.
