Dillinger gang organized in Hamilton in 1933

While local and state police and 200 national guardsmen continued searching Northern Indiana for 10 prison escapees Sunday, Oct. 1, 1933, six men and their female companions quietly settled into a house in Hamilton. Harry Copeland, a parolee from Michigan City State Prison in Indiana, arranged the rendezvous in the 1000 block of South Second Street.

The others were Harry Pierpont, Charles Makley, Ed Shouse, John (Red) Hamilton and Russell Clark. They had been half of the "10 desperate convicts," who, according to the Associated Press, "obtained arms, marched diagonally across the whole prison grounds and out the front door without meeting opposition from guards." A prison clerk was shot during the breakout, and a sheriff was held as a hostage for three days.

The dramatic Michigan City flight allegedly had been financed and planned by John Herbert Dillinger, who had been released from the state prison six months earlier.

During the next 14 months he would be depicted as a combination of Robin Hood and Jesse James, victimizing banks and police stations. His bold robberies during the Depression years of 1933 and 1934 would earn him status as a folk hero, not a criminal to be feared.

He would be branded "Public Enemy No. 1" through the public relations efforts of a young J. Edgar Hoover, who would establish the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on the basis of its ability to capture or kill Dillinger and other desperadoes of the era.

The 30-year-old Dillinger wasn't in Hamilton Oct. 1, 1933, to greet the six men who would become the legendary Dillinger Gang. The Hoosier native was back in jail.

Dillinger -- born June 22, 1903, on a farm near Indianapolis -- had been released from Michigan City Prison May 22, 1933, after serving eight years and eight months. His original sentence had been for the attempted robbery Sept. 6, 1924, of a grocer in Mooresville, Ind., where he had gown up. His prison time was extended for escape attempts and other violations.

In four months of freedom, Dillinger was involved in five bank robberies, netting more than $54,000. They included banks in New Carlisle, northeast of Dayton, Ohio; Indianapolis, Daleville and Montpelier in Indiana; and Bluffton, Ohio.

Monday, Sept. 23, 1933 -- three days before the 10-man Michigan City escape -- Dillinger had been captured while visiting a girl friend in Dayton. He was carrying $2,604 in new currency when apprehended.

Allen County deputies transported Dillinger to the county jail in Lima to face charges in the Aug. 14 Bluffton robbery, which netted less than $3,000.

Meanwhile, on South Second Street in Hamilton -- just south of St. Joseph Catholic Church and Notre Dame Academy -- members of the newly-formed gang contrived a plot to free Dillinger. But securing some money took priority for the group, headed by Harry Pierpont, who had interested and tutored Dillinger in bank robbery while both were Indiana inmates.

Tuesday, Oct. 3, five or six of the gang drove about 80 miles north to rob the First National Bank at St. Marys, Ohio. They got more than $11,000, but within a few hours Charles Makley -- a former St. Marys resident -- was identified as one of five men involved in the robbery.

Makley's presence attracted the attention of Captain Matt Leach, head of the Indiana State Police, who was directing the search for the Michigan City escapees. Leach extended his investigation into Ohio, and eventually to Hamilton.

As they counted the take in their Hamilton sanctuary that night, Pierpont and cohorts realized that the crisp new bills could attract attention as they tried to spend them. That risk was avoided when a thoughtful female accomplice, using domestic skills, aged the currency by a combination of baking and ironing the bills. Another complication forced postponement of their plan to spring Dillinger. The gang, to its surprise, erroneously was credited with trying to rob three banks in Butler County in one day.

Friday, Oct. 6, 1933, two men robbed a bank in Trenton, tried to holdup another in Seven Mile and were involved in a traffic accident on their way to rob a third one in Oxford.

Circumstantial evidence -- reported in newspapers throughout the area -- linked Dillinger with Lee Masters and Neil Schaneil, two men involved in the local spree. Police told reporters that Masters and Schaneil had left Dayton hurriedly after Dillinger's arrest there, implying the three bank robbers had been connected.

Search for Dillinger centered in Hamilton

Thursday morning, Oct. 12, 1933, Harry Pierpont directed a well-rehearsed group on a risky 110-mile trip from Hamilton to Lima. Besides Pierpont, the entourage included Harry Copeland, Charles Makley, Ed Shouse, John (Red) Hamilton and Russell Clark.

Their purpose was to release John Dillinger from the Allen County jail. Pierpont and associates planned to pose as Indiana agents who had been assigned to bring Dillinger back to that state as a parole violator. But their scheme went awry. Sheriff Jess L. Sarber of Allen County -- apparently wary of the visitors -- was killed by a bullet, believed to have been fired from Pierpont's gun.

Dillinger and his liberators -- instantly the objects of a massive Midwest manhunt -- returned to their Hamilton hideout, believing their presence a secret.

But a tip, believed from a Lima source, reportedly reached Captain Leach that the Dillinger gang could be in Hamilton. By 5 a.m. Monday, Oct. 16, 1933, about 100 police from two states -- armed with machine-guns and tear gas -- arrived to search for Dillinger and the gang. Leach and a detachment of Indiana State Police were among those participating.

At 7 a.m., they started searching houses, garages and other buildings in the 1000 block of South Second Street. They found nothing except a stolen car that the desperadoes may have used.

"Hundreds of persons residing in the (Second Ward) neighborhood witnessed searching of the houses," the Journal-News explained. "They were awed by the score of automobiles loaded down with police and enough artillery to supply a small troop of soldiers."

A Hamilton woman "is believed to have engineered their escape," the newspaper related months later. "It was her cunning, authorities believe, that allowed the gang to escape the law dragnet by only a matter of minutes," the newspaper said.

After the fruitless Hamilton search, the posse shifted its manhunt to camps (summer houses) along the Great Miami River near Ross. A farmer recalled renting one of the buildings to five men who matched descriptions of the five escapees. But again the trail was cold.

After fleeing Hamilton, Dillinger and accomplices were credited with robbing the Peru, Ind., police station of weapons and ammunition Oct. 20, 1933.

Later, Sheriff John C. Schumacher appealed to Butler County commissioners to provide more firepower and protection to his deputies. Schumacher said until reinforcements arrived, local officers, armed only with pistols. shotguns and night sticks, would have been mismatched in a shoot-out with Dillinger's gang.

In addition to pistols, the fugitives are believed to have possessed 18 steel vests, 12 machine-guns and about 10,000 rounds of ammunition while holed up in Hamilton.

According to later disclosures by an Allen County prosecutor, not all had been harmony during the gang's Hamilton stay. While here, Harry Pierpont accused Ed Shouse of making love to his girl friend. Ernst Botkin, the prosecutor, said some gang members also believed Shouse would "squeal" if captured and pressured by police. Pierpont had pointed a gun at Shouse's head. Russell Clark interceded, calmed Pierpont and saved Shouse's life.

Shouse and Harry Copeland were expelled from the gang in November 1933. Shouse was kicked out because he also had tried to steal a Dillinger girl friend. He was arrested a month later. Copeland was considered a liability because of his heavy drinking. He was arrested when he was involved in a drunken brawl in a Chicago tavern.

Dillinger capture linked to Hamilton clues

Less than 15 weeks after evading a dragnet in Hamilton, John Dillinger and three accomplices were captured in Tucson, Arizona. Local reports said the cooperation of Hamilton police and postal officials led to the Jan. 25, 1934, arrest of Dillinger, Harry Pierpont, Charles Makley and Russell Clark.

Federal authorities -- with the aid of Police Chief John C. Calhoun and Postmaster Walter Brunning -- intercepted Dillinger's letters to a Hamilton woman. She had been credited with guiding their local escape Oct. 16, 1933. His correspondence to the Hamilton woman had been cautiously mailed in Phoenix, 110 miles from his Tucson hideout. Finally, one letter mentioned Dillinger's location in Tucson.

Ohio and Indiana competed for extradition rights for the legendary bank robber. In a compromise, Ohio got members of the gang while Indiana returned its native son to the Lake County jail in Crown Point, Ind.

Dillinger was scheduled to be tried there for the shooting death of a policeman during a Jan. 15, 1934, bank robbery in East Chicago, Ind., a crime which may not have involved Dillinger. Some criminal historians believe he wasn't in the area that day. They assert that Dillinger could have been indicted because of his prominence and popularity.

During his 1933-34 criminal career, he had been credited by witnesses, police and the press with numerous bank robberies from Pennsylvania to the Dakotas, the majority of which had been copy-cat jobs.

Evidence indicates that in 14 months (May 1933-July 1934), Dillinger could have robbed 10 banks at most, although only eight are confirmed. The total loot was about $245,000.

Dillinger's popularity is explained by the nature of his crime and the tenor of the times -- the Great Depression. During that era, people were losing savings as banks failed. Others lost property when surviving banks foreclosed. Dillinger was considered a folk hero, taking money from the hated banks, not from people.

Despite extra security at Crown Point, Dillinger used a fake gun carved from wood to escape March 3, 1934. The search logically extended to Hamilton and Butler County, where six members of his gang had organized the previous October before springing him from the Allen County jail in Lima.

There is no evidence that Dillinger -- or members of his new gang -- came here after his breakout at Crown Point in Northwest Indiana.

June 22, 1934, on his 31st birthday, federal agents labeled Dillinger as "Public Enemy No. 1," the first to rate at the top of the "most wanted" list. The government also posted a $10,000 reward for Dillinger, dead or alive.

The Indiana native's luck ran out Sunday night, July 22, 1934, when federal agents shot him as he left the Biograph Theater in Chicago. Popular legend -- doubted by some crime experts -- is that Dillinger was betrayed by Anna Sage, better known as "the woman in red."

His death shifted the spotlight from this area. "Hamilton and Butler County authorities had kept an attentive ear for tips after Dillinger's escape from Crown Point," the Journal-News explained. During more than four months of freedom, "hardly a week passed that authorities did not hear of some rumor of the presence of Dillinger or a member of his gang in this vicinity," the newspaper recalled..

But the July 22, 1934, shooting outside the Chicago theater didn't end the Dillinger saga. Some crime buffs and writers insist that it was a stand-in, James Lawrence, not Dillinger, who was killed that night. Skeptics later noted that FBI wanted posters said Dillinger had gray eyes, but they were listed as brown in the autopsy, which disappeared for about 50 years.

Dillinger's leadership of the gang also has been doubted. Some believe Pierpont directed it, and that the Dillinger legend was created by lawmen, especially Captain Matt Leach of the Indiana State Police. It was an attempt to promote jealousy and dissension, that could have led a member of the group to bolt and talk to police.

Most of the gang formed in Hamilton met violent deaths. Hamilton is believed to have been mortally wounded in a 1934 shoot-out at the Little Bohemia Resort in Wisconsin. Makley was killed while trying to escape from the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. Harry Pierpont died in the Ohio electric chair. Clark, also imprisoned in Columbus, died of cancer a few months after his parole in 1970.