John Dillinger (1903-1934) ... or the 1960s?

Did John Dillinger die in 1934?  Popular consensus says yes.  However, more recent events (such as the lawsuit involving a proposed exhumation of Dillinger's body in Indianapolis) have stoked interest in an investigative report published in 1970 suggesting that Dillinger survived into the 1960s.  It's speculative, of course, but makes for an interesting read.

Click the video below to play our book trailer.

Dillinger:  Dead or Alive? by Jay Robert Nash & Ron Offen

(MPL Book Trailer #706)

 

John Dillinger's Body

(Post last updated December 5, 2019)

Although John Dillinger was born in Indianapolis (at 2053 Cooper Street), he moved with his family to Mooresville when he was young and spent his formative years here.  (There's a self-guided walking--or driving--tour of significant Dillinger points-of-interest around town.)  After a harsh criminal sentence for a botched local holdup sent him to prison (shaping his unlawful ambitions), he became a hardened criminal, robbing banks and entering American folk legend.

John Dillinger's Funeral

(Mooresville Moments #17)

(Click Above to Play Video) 

After Dillinger was shot by FBI agents in Chicago in July, 1934, his remains were returned to Mooresville before burial at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.  Hundreds braved the 103° F. heat wave to see Dillinger’s body at Harvey Funeral Home on July 25, 1934. The line of onlookers circled the block twice (Harvey Funeral Home was located on the southeast corner of Indiana and Harrison Streets).

Hundreds stood in line to see John Dillinger's body at Harvey Funeral Home

(July 25, 1934) (click image to enlarge)

The Indianapolis Star (July 31, 2019) reported that Dillinger's body was scheduled to be exhumed for a documentary on the History Channel,  presumably to extract DNA to compare with that of known Dillinger descendants to establish conclusively that the individual buried in the Crown Hill grave is (or isn't) actually John.  Crown Hill Cemetery, however, balked at the plan, the History Channel bailed on the project, and a lawsuit ensued (no pun intended).  The Indianapolis Star (December 4, 2019) reported that the trial judge ruled Dillinger's body could not be exhumed without Crown Hill's consent.  So we may never know for certain whether Dillinger is actually buried in his family's plot at Crown Hill. 

 File photo from The Indianapolis Star

Some have questioned whether or not John Dillinger was actually shot near Chicago's Biograph Theater in July, 1934.  When John's father saw the body, he said it was not his son, but John was said to have had plastic surgery, which might have changed his facial appearance.  The FBI stated definitively that Dillinger's body was identified at the time.  Not everyone was convinced, however.  Investigators Jay Robert Nash and Ron Offen popularized a theory that another person was shot, and that Dillinger escaped and lived into the 1960s.  In their book, Dillinger: Dead or Alive? (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1970), Nash and Offen reprinted letters purportedly written by John Dillinger from 1959 and 1963, along with photographs alleging to be Dillinger from that time.  Admittedly, there's a strong resemblance in the 1959/1963 photos with Dillinger photos from the early 1930s.  The '59/'63 pictures show a sixty-something man whose face (particularly the ears) resembles a younger Johnny D.

Of course, it's possible to find lookalikes for many famous people, so the '59/'63 claimant could simply have been an opportunist attempting to cash-in on a criminal's infamous past.  For example,  William T. Phillips, a Washington resident who served in prison along with Butch Cassidy, later convinced some of Cassidy's Utah family that he was Cassidy.  Butch reportedly died in Bolivia in 1908, and Phillips died in Spokane in 1937.  Perhaps Dillinger, too, had an imposter who claimed survival; perhaps Dillinger survived after all.  If DNA tests were made of Dillinger's remains, that mystery might be put to rest, but, as it now stands, exhumation seems unlikely.

Burial Map to Mooresville's Old M.E. Cemetery

Thanks to Mooresville sexton Ed Bucker, the Indiana Room at Mooresville (Indiana) Public Library has a burial map for the Old Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Cemetery on West Washington Street. A spreadsheet accompanying the map lists burial plots of many of the town's earliest pioneers and settlers.  (Click the photos below to enlarge.)

Old Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Cemetery,

also known as Old Mooresville Cemetery,

on West Washington Street 

Old M.E. Cemetery was established in 1829

Painting of the first Mooresville M.E. Church (built in 1839)

(on West Washington Street, in front of the cemetery)

Photograph of the first Mooresville M.E. Church

(from Hadley, Almira Harvey.  A Brief History of Mooresville and Vicinity [1918])

(Click here to see a digital copy of the entire book)

The photos below show where to find the cemetery burial map.  To the left of the map (in a yellow binder) is the spreadsheet listing the names of those buried there, as noted on the map.

Although these materials do not circulate, they may be examined in the library's Indiana Room.

There are several online resources available to search burial records of the Old M.E. Cemetery.  These include:

• The Morgan County History & Genealogy Association website; and
• The Find-a-Grave website.

The MCH&GA website also lists other Morgan County cemetery burial records, among other historical and genealogical information.

Besides the Bucker burial map mentioned above, the MPL Indiana Room has several print materials that list burials in Old M.E. Cemetery.  These include:

• Cemetery records compiled by the Mooresville, Indiana White Lick Chapter of the D.A.R. (Mrs. Olin D. Keith and Mr. and Mrs. Carl C. Cowen, compilers) (click here for a library catalog entry--library call number I REF 929.5 DAR).  Other Morgan County cemetery records may be found in these reference books and related materials, all under the library call number I REF 929.5;
• Local History vertical files (under specific cemetery names).  These files are kept in locked drawers in the MPL Indiana Room.  Please ask library staff for assistance.

A digitized library handout provides these details about the Old M.E. Cemetery:

• "Samuel and Eliza Moore donated the land on West Washington Street for use as a cemetery, now known as 'Old Cemetery,' and to serve as the site of the first M.E. Church (built in 1839). Martha J. Worthington, Eliza Moore’s first cousin, became the first person buried in Old Cemetery in Mooresville. She died at age 21 on May 15, 1829."

The source for the above-quoted paragraph was page 76 of A Brief History of Mooresville, Indiana, 1824-1974, by Clara S. Richardson (1974).  Read a digitized copy of the entire book here.  The relevant page is reprinted below (click image to enlarge).

Page 76 of Clara Richardson's book

Besides these materials, there are some other online discussions about the Old M.E. Cemetery, both from this blog (click here and here and here) and the library's digitized handouts (click here).

Visit the MPL Indiana Room for more local history resources, or click here to find a quick summary of online links available.  The MPL website also has a variety of web pages devoted to local history.