BY LOUISE PETTUS Page 12-B The Lancaster News Wednesday, July 23,1986 AND RON CHEPESIUK The most wanted man in America walked up to the ticket window of the Biograph Theatre on Chicago's Purvis'Life Never The Same North Side on July 24,1934. He had a girl on each arm. After Killing Dillinger The movie the trio was about to see fit the drama about to unfold — "Manhattan Melodrama," a gangster movie starring Clark Gable, William Powell and Myma Loy. The police were ready for the hardened criminal and his female companions. Two hours before, from South Carolina's Story his seat in a parked car near the theater, Melvin H. Purvis, chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's The making of a stat^jiMji^| Chicago force, had placed his 15 men around the theater. So precise was the deployment that the theater manager thought his theater was about to be robbed and called the police. Upon arriving, the ^WINTHROP COLLEGE police were quietly ushered to the sidelines by Purvis' men.

When the movie ended at 10:40, Here is some of what Purvis had to the outlaw left the theater, turned Several newspapers across the say about the incident at the south and passed Chief Purvis' car. country carried front page stories Biograph Theatre: "As he Positively identifying the fugitive, about the hero from South Carolina. (Dillinger) bought a ticket, I got a Purvis gave the pre-arranged signal Back home in the Palmetto State, profile and front view of him and I to make the arrest. the press descended on his family knew I was not mistaken. These two home in Timmonsville to interview hours that he spent in the theater — When agents moved in, the outlaw Purvis' father and his seven reached into his pocket for his gun, two hours and four minutes to be brothers and sisters. exact — .were the longest I ever but was too slow. Three bullets spent." ripped through his body, and he Purvis' boss, J. Edgar Hoover, slumped to the ground. praised him as "absolutely fearless On Oct. 22 of that year Purvis lead where underworld figures are a spectacular raid on a farm near On the way to the hospital, John concerned." East Liverpool, Ohio, after Dillinger gasped his last breath. The receiving a tip that killer "Pretty Indiana farm boy gone bad, whose Melvin Purvis was born in Tim Boy" Floyd was hiding there. A total robberies amounted to $241,700, monsville on Oct. 24, 1903. In one of shootout took place around a had $7.87 and two keys in his pocket. the newspaper accounts of the day, haystack and Floyd was killed. the elder Purvis recalled young Dillinger's body was taken to the Purvis' life was never the same Melvin as "a quiet boy who after 1934. The following year, he morgue. Soon after, South preferred books to games, He didn't resigned from the FBI and joined a Carolinian Melvin H. Purvis became go in at all for cops and robbers and promotional campaign for "Post famous as America's No. 1 catcher cowboy and Indian games and that of public enemies No. 1. Toasties" cereal, inviting sort of thing when he was a child." youngsters to send in box tops to 1934 had been a big year for the Purvis graduated from the become "Junior G-men." slight, blue-eyed, red-haired law University of South Carolina Law He practiced law briefly in San enforcement officer. In addition to School in 1925. When the manhunt Francisco before coming back to catching Dillinger, he was leader of for John Dillinger began,Purvis was South Carolina to marry his high the Department of Justice law en special agent in charge of the school sweetheart, Rosanne Willcox forcement agents who also tracked Chicago office of the FBI. of Florence. down and killed gangsters George Dillinger eluded capture until (Baby Face) Nelson and Charles police got a tip from a woman Following World War II, Purvis (Pretty Boy)Floyd. named Anna Sage, who told the investigated evidence against ac agency that she knew where cused German and Japanese war The magazine "Literary Digest" Dillinger was hiding. The police, in criminals. ran a poll asking readers to name collaboration with the FBI, worked the outstanding personalities of 1934. out an elaborate trap for Dillinger. After the war, the former G-man President Franklin Delano The day before the FBI was to pursued careers in law and Roosevelt topped the list, but Purvis spring the trap, Purvis underwent a broadcasting. On March i, 1960, the stood eighth, just a scant six votes severe operation on his nose. man who caught John Dillinger behind Mrs. Franklin Delano Against the advise of his doctors, he committed suicide after a period of Roosevelt. took charge of the stakeout. poor health.