November 2022 - George Pallas

2022/11/272022/11/05

John Dillinger: A Famous Bandit’s Best Daring Escapes

Last week’s case covered Joseph Christopher. Between September and December 1980, eleven Black men and one boy died in Christopher’s racially motivated attacks. This week, I’m tackling one of my favorite subjects, the infamous depression-era gangster John Dillinger. Dillinger is perhaps America’s most famous bank robber. A proper telling of his saga would take more space than would fit in a single blog post. But he also possessed a talent for getting out of jails and tight spots. So, I will tell you about some of his spectacular escapes instead of the whole story.

The Advent of John Dillinger

The popular image of John Dillinger is a farm boy who became a criminal, but he grew up in the city. He was born in 1903 in Indianapolis, where his father (also John) owned a grocery store. Mollie Dillinger, his mother, passed away before Johnnie’s fourth birthday. Audrey Dillinger, his older sister, helped raise him until the elder Dillinger remarried in 1912. Young John showed a rebellious streak, so John senior decided to move to the rural community of Mooresville, southwest of Indianapolis.

One of Dillinger’s new pals in Mooresville was an ex-con named Ed Singleton. Together, the two planned to rob Frank Morgan, a local grocer, on Saturday, September 6, 1924. Writer Brian Burrough described the caper as “fueled by stupidity and alcohol,” and both men soon found themselves in jail. Following his father’s advice and the prosecutor’s suggestion, Dillinger entered a guilty plea, expecting leniency. He drew an eye-popping sentence of ten to twenty years instead. His partner hired a lawyer, pleaded not guilty, and served only two years.

Dillinger spent nine and a half years incarcerated, many of them in the Indiana State Penitentiary in Michigan City. His prison pals all happened to be hardened career criminals, and he learned a lot at the feet of these masters. Indiana paroled Dillinger in 1933, and he started forging his path as a bank robber.

John Dillinger at the Indiana State Penitentiary

Dillinger didn’t break out of the Penitentiary himself; he orchestrated the escape of the friends he left behind after his parole. Using stolen money, he procured guns and somehow got them into the hands of his convict buddies. On September 26, 1934, ten inmates used them to overpower guards and run. The escapees included Harry “Pete” Pierpont, Charles Makley, John “Red” Hamilton, and Russell “Boobie” Clark. All later became core members of the Dillinger gang.

Entrance to the grim Indiana State Penitentiary in Michigan City, Indiana

Dillinger, however, landed back in jail. Police in Dayton, Ohio, arrested him at a girlfriend’s apartment for robbing a bank in nearby Bluffton. They lodged him in the Allen County Jail in Lima. While his friends enjoyed their newfound freedom, Dillinger appeared to be on his way back to prison.

Allen County, Ohio Jail

Allen County Sheriff Jess Sarber ran the county jail. Kind, roly-poly, and competent, Sarber nevertheless had no previous law enforcement experience. He sold used cars before the Depression forced him out of business.

On Thursday, October 12, Dillinger played pinochle in the jail’s bullpen while Sheriff Sarber read the newspaper. At 6:25 in the evening, the jail’s outer door opened. Three men in suits announced they had come to extradite Dillinger to Indiana. Sarber asked for their credentials, and the first man, Pierpont, shot him in the chest. Dillinger escaped, but Sheriff Sarber died, a murder that would return to haunt Pierpont, Makley, and Clark.

Office of Dr. Charles Eye

By now, Dillinger was a bank robber with a reputation and a pack of lawmen on his trail. Based on a tip, Chicago police planned a raid at the office of dermatologist Dr. Charles Eye. At 7:25 p.m. on November 14, Dillinger drove up in his Essex Terraplane with his girlfriend, Billie Frechette, in the passenger seat.

Emerging from Dr. Eye’s office, Dillinger spotted several cars parked heading the wrong way. Telling Billie to hold on, he slammed the car into reverse and backed into busy Irving Park Boulevard. A short chase followed, but Dillinger eluded his pursuers.

John Dillinger’s Famous Escape at Crown Point

After spending Christmas 1933 in Florida, Dillinger’s gang headed west to Tucson, Arizona. Clark and Makley booked into the Hotel Congress downtown. Things went well until a fire in the hotel led suspicious firefighters to tip off the police. The entire gang soon found themselves under arrest.

Dillinger at the Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana. Sheriff Lillian Holley is at left. In the center, is prosecutor Robert Estill, who hoped to send Dillinger to Indiana's electric chair. This photo of Estill cozying up to the famous gangster derailed his ambition to become Indiana governor (Getty Images) — Dillinger at the Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana. Sheriff Lillian Holley is at left. In the center, is prosecutor Robert Estill, who hoped to send Dillinger to Indiana’s electric chair. This photo of Estill cozying up to the famous gangster derailed his ambition to become Indiana governor (Getty Images)

Makley, Clark, and Pierpont went to Ohio to stand trial for the murder of Sheriff Sarber in Lima. Dillinger went to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana. There he faced a murder charge related to the death of a policeman killed during a robbery in East Chicago. Lake County Sheriff Lillian Holley claimed her jail was “escape proof.” It wasn’t. Dillinger escaped using a pistol he managed to acquire. He claimed he used a fake gun made of wood; jailers contended it was real. Whatever the truth, Dillinger bolted.

The Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana, immediately after Dillinger's escape. The building at left is the courthouse. A walkway between buildings is visible in the center of the picture (Chicago Tribune) — The Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana, immediately after Dillinger’s escape. The building at left is the courthouse. A walkway between buildings is visible in the center of the picture (Chicago Tribune)

Lincoln Court Apartments

In March 1934, Dillinger and Billie, posing as Mr. and Mrs. Carl Hellman, moved into Apartment 303 of the Lincoln Court Apartments in St. Paul, Minnesota. Soon after the pair moved in, the suspicious landlady tipped off the Bureau of Investigation (precursor to the FBI). Two agents staked out the apartment. On March 31, they recognized and traded shots with Dillinger associate Homer Van Meter.

Hearing the shooting, Dillinger let loose a machine gun volley through the door and ran down the stairs and out the back door. One of the agents’ bullets hit him in the left calf, but Dillinger escaped again.

John Dillinger and the Battle of Little Bohemia

Dillinger and his new gang planned a quiet weekend holiday for April 20-22, 1934. They chose a remote lodge in the North Woods of Wisconsin called Little Bohemia. On Sunday morning, the nervous owner’s wife smuggled a message to the BI field office in Chicago. By evening, a posse of federal agents led by Hugh Clegg and Melvin Purvis gathered outside the lodge.

Three men came out of the lodge while agents prepared their raid. The men got into a car and started to drive off. Agents shouted for them to stop, but the car’s radio drowned out the order. The assembled lawmen opened fire, killing one of the men and wounding the others. The men all worked at a nearby Civilian Conservation Corps camp. None knew John Dillinger.

Little Bohemia Lodge after the Bureau of Investigation raid (Wikimedia Commons)

The gunfire alerted the gangsters, and they fanned out from Little Bohemia. Dillinger fled from Little Bohemia’s unguarded back side, hidden by a ridge separating the lodge from Little Star Lake.

During his getaway, Lester “Baby Face Nelson” Gillis shot and killed BI agent W. Carter Baum and wounded another agent and a local officer.

Epilogue

Dillinger’s luck finally ran out on the night of July 22, 1934. Dillinger and two women went to the movies. The three picked the Biograph Theatre on Lincoln Avenue, showing Manhattan Melodrama starring Clark Gable. Tipped off by one of his companions, the so-called “Woman in Red,” BI agents and East Chicago police gunned down the outlaw as he exited the theater.

A crowd gathers outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre after Bureau of Investigation agents killed John Dillinger in what amounted to an assassination — A crowd gathers outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre after Bureau of Investigation agents killed John Dillinger in what amounted to an assassination

Several excellent books chronicle the John Dillinger story. The best is Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough. The Dillinger Days by John Toland and Dillinger: The Untold Story by Russell Girardin and William J. Helmer are also excellent.

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2022/11/202022/11/05

Joseph Christopher: Killer Incites Big Panic in New York

Last week, we met the Lethal Lovers, a pair of nurse’s aides who killed five women in a Michigan nursing home. This week’s case involves murderous attacks around Buffalo, New York, and New York City. Over four months in 1980, Joseph Christopher terrorized those two cities with unprovoked attacks on Black men and boys.

Joseph Christopher

Joseph Christopher’s childhood in Buffalo appeared normal enough. His father was a maintenance worker in the city’s sanitation department, and his mother worked as a registered nurse. From an early age, Nicholas Christopher, Joseph’s father, an avid outdoorsman, taught his son how to shoot and handle weapons.

Joseph enrolled in the automotive mechanics program at Burgard Vocational High School in 1971. He did well in his classes but kept to himself and dropped out in early 1974. Joseph worked a series of odd jobs until one employer fired him for sleeping on the job. Now unemployed, he returned home to live with his parents.

Artist's sketches of the so-called .22 Caliber Killer — Artist’s sketches of the so-called .22 Caliber Killer

Christopher had paranoid schizophrenia. His mental health started slipping in 1978. Two years later, he tried to check himself into the Buffalo Psychiatric Center in September 1980. The staff told him he wasn’t dangerous to himself and others, so they couldn’t admit him. The staff recommended counseling therapy instead.

Joseph Christopher Begins Killing

Two weeks after the psychiatric clinic brushed him off, Joseph Christopher began killing. On September 22, 1980, he killed three Black men and one boy over 36 hours. He used a sawed-off Ruger 10/22 .22 rifle in the attacks, which he hid in a brown paper bag. The weapon earned him the epithet of the “.22 Caliber Killer.”

Joseph Christopher mugshot (Erie Count Sheriff's Department) — Joseph Christopher mugshot (Erie Count Sheriff’s Department)

His subsequent two murders occurred on October 8 and 9, when he bludgeoned two men to death and cut out their hearts. Both men drove taxis; Christopher stuffed their mutilated bodies in their vehicles’ trunks.

On October 10, Christopher struck again. In a Buffalo hospital, he attacked another Black man, 37-year-old Collin Cole. Cole described his attacker as a White man matching the .22 Caliber Killer’s description. He said the attacker snarled a racial slur before trying to strangle him. The timely arrival of a nurse saved Cole’s life. Despite severe damage to his throat, Cole survived.

Six men were dead, but the murders remained unsolved.

Joseph Christopher Keeps Attacking

In November 1980, Christopher enlisted in the United States Army, stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. Granted Christmas leave in mid-December, he headed to Manhattan. On December 22, Joseph attacked six men in twelve hours, killing four. The media dubbed him the “Midtown Slasher” since he stabbed all six men with a knife.

Joseph Christopher under arrest (Buffalo News)

Christopher returned to Buffalo, where he again utilized a knife to attack five Black men between December 29 and January 1, 1981. Two of the men died.

Joseph Christopher Arrested and Convicted

Back on base in Georgia, Christopher attacked a fellow soldier, a Black man, with a paring knife on January 18. The soldier survived, and Christopher found himself in the fort’s stockade. He attempted suicide by cutting himself with a razor during his confinement. After he told a psychiatrist he “had to” kill Blacks, police searched his Buffalo home. The search uncovered evidence linking him to three murders.

Extradited to Buffalo, Christopher pleaded not guilty. He refused assistance from the lawyer his mother hired and represented himself. The jury convicted him, and he received a 60-year sentence. An appeals court overturned the conviction because the judge barred testimony about Christopher’s ability to stand trial.

At a retrial in 1985, the jury again found him guilty on multiple charges. This time, the judge sentenced him to life.

Epilogue

Joseph Christopher died in prison at age 37 on March 1, 1993, from a rare form of male breast cancer. During his imprisonment at the Attica Correctional Facility, he claimed he committed 13 killings.

Attica Correctional Facility, Attica, New York (Wikipedia/Jayu)

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2022/11/132022/11/02

Lethal Lovers: Sensational Case of Love and Murder

Last week’s case covered the case of Robert Bardo, the obsessive fan who stalked and killed promising young actress Rebecca Schaeffer. This week, we look at the crimes of Gwendolyn Graham and Catherine Wood, dubbed by the press as “The Lethal Lovers.” In 1988, this deadly pair murdered five elderly women in a Michigan nursing home.

Lethal Lovers

Gwendolyn Graham came to Michigan from Texas, while Cathy Wood, a native of Washington state, grew up in Comstock, Michigan. The pair met at the Alpine Manor nursing home in Walker, a suburb of Grand Rapids. At Alpine Manor, Graham worked as a nurse’s aide for the recently divorced Wood. The two soon became friends, and in 1986, they also became lovers.

In January 1987, Graham entered the room of a woman with Alzheimer’s and smothered her with a washcloth. Wood acted as the lookout. Wood later described the murders as part of a “love bond.” Each believed the secret of the murder bound the Lethal Lovers together; neither could leave the other.

The "Lethal Lovers," Gwendolyn Graham (L) and Cathy Wood (R) under arrest — The “Lethal Lovers,” Gwendolyn Graham (L) and Cathy Wood (R) under arrest

Over the next several months, four more residents of Alpine Manor between the ages of 65 and 97 died. None of the deaths appeared to be anything but natural, so authorities didn’t conduct any autopsies.

Lethal Lovers Unmasked

Despite the so-called “love bond,” the Lethal Lovers broke up. Graham began dating another female nurse’s aide and soon moved with her to Texas.

Gwendolyn Graham mugshot (Kent County, MI Sheriff's Department) — Gwendolyn Graham mugshot (Kent County, MI Sheriff’s Department)

Sometime in 1988, Wood told her ex-husband about the murders, and he contacted the police. Walker Police Department detectives conducted extensive interviews with Wood. Over time, she revealed details of the five murders.

Cathy Wood mugshot (Kent County, MI Sheriff's Department) — Cathy Wood mugshot (Kent County, MI Sheriff’s Department)

When the case went to trial, Graham faced five counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. Wood negotiated a plea bargain and testified against Graham at trial. She testified Graham dominated their relationship and planned and carried out the murders. She also said Graham took souvenirs from the victims, although police didn’t uncover any evidence to support the claim. Graham’s new girlfriend also testified that Gwendolyn confessed to five killings.

Alpine Manor nursing home at the time of the "Lethal Lovers" murders — Alpine Manor nursing home at the time of the “Lethal Lovers” murders

Based on Wood’s and the new girlfriend’s testimony, a jury convicted Graham of all counts on November 3, 1989. The court gave her five life sentences with no possibility of parole. Cathy Wood pled guilty to one count of second-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. She received a sentence of 20 years on each count.

Epilogue

Gwendolyn Graham resides (2022) in the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Cathy Wood served her sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Florida. She made eight unsuccessful bids for parole before receiving her release in January 2020.

Several of the victims’ families sued the owners of Alpine Manor for hiring “dangerous and unbalanced employees.” Alpine Manor went out of business, but the facility now houses Sanctuary at Saint Mary’s nursing home.

You can read more about the Lethal Lovers case in Lowell Cauffiel’s 1992 book Forever and Five Days. Cauffiel disputes Wood’s version of the crimes and presents evidence Wood planned the first murder.

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2022/11/062022/11/01

Robert Bardo: Lifetime in Prison for Evil Killer

In last week’s blog, I told you about Wyatt Earp and the infamous Gunfight at the OK Corral. This week’s case is the case of Robert Bardo. In a sad and pointless crime, Bardo stalked and killed Rebecca Schaeffer, a young and promising actress, in 1989.

Robert Bardo

Robert Bardo was a military brat, the seventh child of a noncommissioned Air Force officer, and a Japanese mother. Young Robert did not enjoy a happy childhood, as the family often moved before they settled in Tucson, Arizona. Also, an older sibling abused Robert. At one point, Bardo threatened suicide, landing him in a foster home.

Mental illness ran in Bardo’s family. Doctors diagnosed Robert himself with bipolar disorder. At age fifteen, he spent a month in an institution for treatment for his emotional problems. Whatever the treatment, it didn’t help much. Bardo dropped out of high school in the ninth grade and worked as a janitor for a fast-food restaurant chain.

Three times between early 1988 and mid-1989, Robert found himself arrested for domestic violence and disorderly conduct. Neighbors complained about his strange and threatening behavior toward them.

Robert Bardo, Stalker

In 1986, Bardo began stalking actress Rebecca Schaeffer. At the time, Schaeffer starred with Pam Dawber in the hit CBS television series My Sister Sam. Bardo wrote many letters to Schaeffer and tried to gain access to the set where Warner Brothers filmed the show. He paid a Tucson detective agency $250 to obtain Schaeffer’s home address, which the agency obtained through Department of Motor Vehicles records.

Rebecca Schaeffer (L) with actress Pam Dawber (R)

On July 18, 1989, Bardo confronted Schaeffer at her West Hollywood apartment. He was angry she appeared in a sex scene in the film, Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills. In his eyes, this caused her to “lose her innocence” and become “another Hollywood whore.” But he didn’t say this when he encountered Schaeffer. Instead, he claimed to be a huge fan.

Rebecca Schafer, circa 1985. (Getty Images)

Robert Bardo Kills Rebecca Schaeffer

After his encounter with Schaeffer, Bardo went to a diner to eat breakfast. About an hour later, after eating, he returned to Schaeffer’s apartment and rang the bell. Bardo shot her in the chest when she opened the door, killing her.

The entrance to Rebecca Schaeffer's apartment. Robert Bardo shot and killed her when she answered the door. — The entrance to Rebecca Schaeffer’s apartment. Robert Bardo shot and killed her when she answered the door.

Police arrested Bardo in Tucson, where they found him wandering in traffic.

Marcia Clark prosecuted Bardo’s case for the State of California. (Clark later became famous as the lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder trial). Bardo’s attorneys conceded he shot Schaeffer but argued he was mentally ill.

Juries don’t often accept an insanity defense, and they didn’t buy it in this case. The jurors found Bardo guilty of first-degree murder. The judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Epilogue

Before stalking Schaeffer, Bardo stalked youth peace activist Samantha Smith until she died in a 1985 plane crash.

After Schaeffer’s murder, the U.S. Congress passed the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits state Departments of Motor Vehicles from disclosing home addresses. California also enacted the nation’s first anti-stalking law.

When he shot Shaeffer, Bardo carried a red paperback copy of Catcher in the Rye, the same book Mark Chapman brought with him when he murdered John Lennon. He tossed the book onto the roof of a building as he made his escape. Bardo claimed it was a coincidence and not an attempt to emulate Chapman. But Chapman later revealed Bardo sent him letters asking about living in prison.

Robert Bardo resides (2022) in the Avenal State Prison in Avenal, California, about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.