Historically significant DS, signed “John Herbert Dillinger,” one page, 8.5 x 14, no date but circa 1924. Indiana Reformatory document headed "Statement of Inmate Upon Arrival at Institution," listing his crimes and sentences: "Assault and Battery with Intent to Rob, Conspiracy to Commit a Felony, 10 to 20, 2 to 14 years." The document makes note of further specifics of the crime, such as place ("Mooresville, Ind."), date ("Sept. 6, 1924"), his accomplice ("Edward Singleton"), and plea ("guilty"). It also lists his hometown, occupation ("Laborer & screw machine operator"), past crimes (a speeding ticket), and family information.
At the bottom is Dillinger's statement on the crime: "Edward Singleton (awaiting trial) and I planned together to rob a grocery man at Mooresville, Ind. on the night of September 6th, 1924 we hid behind a building about two blocks from his grocery which he always passed when he went to his home. When he came along I jumped out from behind the building and hit him twice on the head with a bolt which I had wrapped up in a handkerchief. He then turned and grabbed a revolver which I held in my hand. The gun was discharged when I jerked it away from him in my hand. The gun was discharged when I jerked it away from him the bullet entering the ground. We then ran. I was arrested as a suspect at my father's home the following day. At first I denied any connection with the crime, but later admitted my guilt. I am guilty as charged." In fine condition, with small archival reinforcements to splits at fold ends. An exceedingly rare and early Dillinger document, affiliated with his life of crime and boasting his rare, full signature.
In 1924, John Dillinger was convicted of assaulting a grocer during a holdup, and expected to receive a light sentence by pleading guilty—only to be slapped with a stiff 10-20 years upon sentencing. His accomplice, an ex-convict and distant cousin named Ed Singleton, was sentenced to just two years for his role in the robbery. During Dillinger's nine-year stint in the Indiana Correctional System, he met and befriended a number of hard-core criminals who would later become part of his gang: Harry Pierpont, John Hamilton, Homer Van Meter, Fat Charley Makley, Russell Clark, and Walter Dietrich.
Dillinger was released in May 1933, after a petition bearing the signatures of almost 200 residents from his adopted hometown of Mooresville, Indiana—including that of his grocer victim—was presented to the governor. Embittered with the criminal justice system for having served what he felt was an unjust term, Dillinger quickly resumed a life of crime with his prison friends, whom he helped escape in a spectacular and well-planned breakout. He and the gang embarked on a bank robbing spree, conducting a dozen separate heists between June 21, 1933, and June 30, 1934—to the tune of well over $300,000.
In 1934, when J. Edgar Hoover named Dillinger 'Public Enemy Number 1,' Indiana Governor Paul V. McNutt's secretary, Wayne Coy, observed: 'There does not seem to me to be any escape from the fact that the State of Indiana made John Dillinger the Public Enemy that he is today. The Indiana constitution provides that our penal code shall be reformative and not vindictive…Instead of reforming the prisoner, the penal institutions provided him with an education in crime.'
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