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Dillinger's Ghost

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Dillinger's Ghost [ INVESTIGATIVE FILES JOE NICKELL Joe Nickell, PhD, is CSI’s senior research fellow. A former stage magician and private detective, he has—since 1969—investi- gated numerous cases of alleged ghosts, poltergeists, and demons from a scientific perspective. Dillinger’s Ghost and Hoover’s Vendetta against G-Man Purvis ot since Jesse James had a bank Dillinger to fend for himself. Although stepped on the gas and sped them to robber attained such a Robin both were soon arrested, the latter safety. Dillinger had another close call NHood image. Although there was sentenced to just two years, while one night a month later in the infamous were other “public enemies” of the Dillinger drew a prison term of ten to affair at Wisconsin’s Little Bohemia Depression Era—such as “Pretty Boy twenty years. Freed in 1933, after only Lodge. FBI agents led by Melvin Purvis Floyd” and “Baby Face” Nelson—John nine years, he was rearrested while still approached the lodge but were forced Dillinger had daring and style to spare. on parole as the leader of a new band of to dive for cover from machine-gun But so did a tenacious G-man named bank robbers (Girardin 1994, 10–32). fire. Three non-gangsters, who jumped Melvin Purvis (Figure 1), an agent so After some of his old prison buddies in a car and failed to stop when ordered effective and so adored by the public escaped, they raided the jail in Lima, to, were shot by Purvis’s men, one fa- and press that his boss, Federal Bureau Ohio, where Dillinger had been lodged, tally, and Dillinger, Nelson, and others of Investigation Director J. Edgar freeing him but accidentally killing the escaped (Girardin 1994, 113–156; Pur- Hoover, seethed with jealousy. Well, sheriff in the process. Over the next few vis 1936, 21). I’m getting ahead of a most frightening months, the gang committed a series of Dillinger underwent plastic surgery story in the annals of crime fighting, bold bank heists, although probably to alter his appearance and damage and I don’t mean the tale of Dillinger’s not the more than thirty credited to his fingerprints. Neither attempt was ghost. them. Then, in January 1934, police very successful. Billie having been ar- in Tucson, Arizona, arrested Dillinger rested, Dillinger had taken up with a Dillinger and most of his gang. Sent to an “es- waitress who shared an apartment with cape-proof” jail in Indiana, he was soon a Romanian woman, Ana Cumpanas, The biography of John Herbert escaping—using a pistol he suddenly a brothel owner known as Anna Sage. Dillinger (1903–1934) begins with an brandished. Legend says the pistol was She recognized Dillinger and tipped endearing story of him at age three, a dummy that Dillinger carved from off police who passed her on to Melvin dragging a chair to the side of his wood and blackened with shoe polish, Purvis. Sage later informed Purvis that mother’s coffin, climbing up, and try- while a conspiracy theory holds that a Dillinger was to take her and his girl- ing to shake her awake. It is tempered bribed judge smuggled in a real pistol friend to a movie, and that she could be by the account of a moonshine-in- (Girardin 1994, 32–108; Toland 1963). identified by her attire. She would be- toxicated punk of twenty-one, who Dillinger assembled another gang, come forever known as “the woman in teamed up with a more seasoned thug, this time including the infamous red,” although she actually wore an or- attempting to rob an elderly grocer of George “Baby Face” Nelson. Two rob- ange skirt and white blouse that night. his weekend receipts. As they beat the beries later, the FBI got the drop on John Dillinger was soon dead in a hail struggling old man, Dillinger’s revolver Dillinger in St. Paul, but he escaped of gunfire outside Chicago’s Biograph went off and the pair fled, the accom- with only a gunshot to the leg as his Theater (Girardin 1994, 169–173, plice driving off and leaving young girlfriend, Evelyn “Billie” Frechette, 217–230). 14 Volume 39 Issue 4 | Skeptical Inquirer Melvin Purvis dying. “Later after leaving this scene,” man who would become “the nation’s Dillinger’s nemesis was the FBI’s Purvis wrote, “I tried to button up my top cop,” had parlayed his Master Melvin Purvis (1903–1960) who coat and found both buttons gone. of Laws degree into a job with the became a special agent in 1927 and Apparently I had grabbed for my gun Department of Justice in 1917. Thus soon headed investigative offices in without thinking, and I am frank to say escaping the draft, he pursued draft Cincinnati, Washington, Oklahoma that I do not know how it came into my evaders, suspected German partisans, City, and Birmingham before taking hand” (Purvis 1936, 275–277). and communists on the home front. A charge of the Bureau’s most high-pro- Purvis’s self-effacement notwith- biographer (Hack 2004, 54) observed: file office in Chicago in 1932. In standing, he gained tremendous noto- The fledging civil servant had devel- just eight years, he captured more riety for his lead role in bringing down oped an unpopular habit of ridi- FBI-designated public enemies than John Dillinger, and—three months culing those who dared to disagree any agent in the history of the FBI later—Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, with his interpretation of the law, (“Melvin Purvis” 2014). dismissing them with a flutter of the killed in an Ohio farm field. J. Edgar hand as if clearing the air of annoy- Standing just five feet nine inches Hoover steamed at the attention given ing cobwebs. and weighing only 140 pounds, Pur- Purvis. He wanted his brave agents to vis appeared an unlikely hero, and remain faceless so he would get credit It was a sign of things to come. the newspapers sometimes called him for their achievements. So it was that Working twelve-hour days every day “Little Mel.” They also dubbed him Hoover maneuvered behind the scenes of the week, Hoover received promo- “Nervous Purvis”—especially after he tions for his industry. He lobbied for, admitted that the cigar shook in his and obtained, the job of assistant chief mouth that fateful night when he lit of the Bureau of Investigation, and, it to signal agents that he had identi- in 1924, became director, charged by fied Dillinger. Purvis would later write, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone with the candor of a man of integrity: with implementing a laundry list of ethical reforms. After minor name The romantic newspaper writers have, on occasion, pictured me in their changes, it became the Federal Bureau deathless prose as a combination of of Investigation in 1935. Meanwhile, Wild Bill Hickok, Nick Carter and Hoover sought to improve efficiency Frank Merriwell. Nothing could be and obtain laws permitting agents to farther from the truth; I am not a gun make arrests and carry guns, as well as fighter; I am not a wily sleuth; and I am not a Fearless Frank. To tell the making the slaying of a special agent a truth, I was thoroughly frightened federal offense. And he allowed Charles every time it fell to my lot to carry a Appel—an accountant as well as a doc- gun on a foray of any kind. ument examiner—to found the Bu- There were men who served with reau’s now-famous crime laboratory, me who never knew the emotion of fear. They belonged to the glory com- beginning with a borrowed microscope pany of history, those joyous daredevils (Gentry 1991, 124–148). who, from time immemorial, have In 1927, a handsome young law- been vainly waiting for a commander Figure 1. Melvin Purvis autographed photo (to close yer named Clyde Tolson caught to order a charge on the gateways of friend James McLeod) courtesy of McLeod’s daughter Hoover’s eye, and in just two years he hell. I admire them, but my nervous Florrie Ervin; copy photo by Joe Nickell. system is not built that way. I never led would become in rapid succession an a raid without apprehension, and only agent, a staff supervisor, special agent the knowledge that there was a job to keep Purvis from the next target, in charge of the Buffalo office, and fi- there to do kept me functioning in the George “Baby Face” Nelson (real name nally assistant director! Thus began a death-haunted sectors where bullets friendship—some say a romantic liai- were flying. Lester Gillis). When Nelson shot agent Sam Cowley (after Nelson turned a car son—that lasted until Hoover’s death. Purvis added, “A sense of responsibility chase into a trap), a scheming Hoover Neither married, and the two dined to- is often an effective substitute for cour- ordered Purvis to stay at the hospital gether, spent weekends together, took age” (Purvis 1936, 246–247). vacations together, albeit while keeping with Cowley while urgently scrambling So, as he and other agents moved in separate residences; Hoover lived with less experienced agents to pursue Nel- on Dillinger, on the sidewalk outside his mother until her death in 1938. son. When, as Cowley lay dying, Purvis the theater, Purvis would later admit, Hoover’s sexual orientation has been vowed to a Chicago American reporter “I was very nervous; it must have been a made an issue due to his public crusade that he would get Nelson, Hoover had squeaky voice that called out, ‘Stick ’em against homosexuals—his professed had enough (Purvis 2005, 259–260).
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