A missing brain? The bizarre burial of John Dillinger

Saturday will mark 81 years since notorious Hoosier bank robber John Dillinger was buried. To mark both the occasion and this week's opening of the John Dillinger Museum in Crown Point, Ind., here is the story of the death and the burial, as told through Indianapolis Star newspaper accounts at that time.

Down goes Dillinger

"Is it true, are you really sure there is no mistake?" the gangster's father asked The Star's representative who carried the news of the slaying to him.

"Well, well, John is dead," he sobbed as he became reconciled to his son's fate. 'At last it has happened — the thing I have prayed and prayed would not happen."

Almost immediately the farmer father said, "I want the body brought here."

Bringing the body home:

MOORESVILLE, Ind. — The father made arrangement with E.F. Harvey, local undertaker, to leave early tomorrow for Chicago and attend the inquest and claim the body.

Accompanying him will be Everett L. Moore, publisher of the Mooresville Times, whom Dillinger’s father asked to “do all you can” to see that any money on the son’s person be turned over to the family for funeral expenses.

That’s it? Bad news for Dillinger Sr.:

A blood-stained handkerchief, pocket watch and $7.70 — possessions taken from the clothing of John Dillinger — were turned over to his father this morning by federal agents in Chicago.

A columnist passes judgment on the bank-robbing phenom:

Like other conspicuous bandits, Dillinger was rather stupid, and decidedly conceited, a small brain with a big opinion of himself. —Arthur Brisbane

More on Dillinger's brain:

Categorically denying reports from Chicago that John Dillinger’s body had been ruthlessly mutilated by coroner’s physicians for experimental and display purposes, E.F. Harvey, Mooresville mortician, who brought the body from Chicago, last night asserted the body had not been mutilated more than “necessary.”

"A complete autopsy had been made," he said. "This, of course, necessitated examination of the brain and throat, the chest and viscera. But the incisions all have been repaired neatly and the body is in as good condition as any body upon which a 'post' has been performed."

Mr. Harvey offered to show that no unnecessary mutilations had been made. "I have been asked," he said, "whether the brain has been removed. As to that I do not know. The skull cap and scalp have been replaced and will not be opened for idle curiosity."

A brief backgrounder on the brain controversy:

McCready, (the Chicago mortician) who embalmed the body, criticized the work of the (Cook County) coroner's physician who mutilated the body and denounced it as "unusual pathology."

McCready said the tongue and leaders in the throat had been removed and long slits made down the front and back.

And, separately:

It was said on high authority that the brain had been removed for laboratory analysis and that many other 'unnecessary' post mortem operations had been made.

An extremely long (and somewhat moralistic) lead sentence:

CHICAGO — A combination ambulance-hearse will leave here at 11 o’clock tomorrow morning for Mooresville, Ind., carrying the mutilated and bullet-scarred body of John Dillinger back to the farm to which he was paroled 14 months ago to help his father but which he left for a short life of crime that didn’t pay.

Dillinger as 'swash-buckling yokel,' a separate report on the ride home:

The bronzed father of a swash-buckling yokel sat stoically beside the driver of the hearse wondering how he would pay the funeral expenses of the slain desperado, from whose loot of thousands he never accepted one cent.

Integrity in the face of adversity, or missed opportunity:

The father revealed that he had refused an offer of $5,000 made by a Wild West show for use of his son’s body for exhibition purposes three days.

The stoic father breaks down in Chicago:

It was Dillinger’s (Sr.) first trip here since 1893, when he atttended the World’s Fair.

Tears filled his eyes as he picked up a Chicago newspaper which featured a picture of John on a slab in the morgue. “My son,” he kept repeating. “They gave him no chance at all. Surely they could have taken him alive.”

Coroner’s red tape tries patience of hearse driver:

As Dillinger Sr. dealt with the coroner in Chicago over a permitting issue that would allow him to claim his son’s body and take it to Indiana, this:

C.W. Libal, hearse driver, waited to take possession of the body. Finally he exclaimed: “I can’t wait around here all this time. I’m going to drive off.”

“You do that,” said Deputy Coroner Jacob Schewel, “and I’ll just dump the body out in the sun. It’s your body, and you’ll wait for it.”

Hearse parts! Artifacts! Grab 'em!

The hearse was stormed by a curious crowd which had awaited its arrival (at a mortuary in Chicago, where it was taken from the county morgue for embalming before transport to Indiana). Police quickly intervened and prevented the mob from tearing parts away as mementoes, then took the ambulance to a garage for safe keeping.

Hey! You're not bringing that thug in here!

Meanwhile officials of staid Crown Hill Cemetery received calls throughout the day from indignant persons who objected to the burial ofthe outlaw in the same cemetery with their relatives and with the bodies of internationally famed persons.

The cemetery owners hastily consulted attorneys to see if their position was secure, and Hugh McK. Landon, president of the cemetery, announced later that since Mr. Dillinger had purchased and paid for the family lot for burial purposes, there was no way of preventing him from interring his son in the plot.

Opportunities seized:

1) CHICAGO — Moe Oppenheim runs a beer tavern a few doors from the Biograph theater where John Dillinger was shot down. There were curious crowds around the place night and day. Moe was a good businessman. In his window he placed two signs. “Dillinger had his last drink here,” said one. “Come in and see the famous chair where he sat,” said another. Moe had reverently draped the chair in black crepe. Police heard about it and told him he would have to remove the signs. Moe went to the office of the corporation counsel and his business ethics were upheld.

2) The post office in Mooresville did a heavy business from visitors who wanted to mail postcards back home form the home town of John Dillinger.

3) John Dillinger's revolver and other belongings found on his person ... will serve as a 'crime does not pay' exhibit in Washington. Justice Department officials said today the layout would be placed in the department's crime museum.

What the corpse wore:

The body was dressed in a gray herringbone suit, gray four-in-hand tie with small dots, and white shirt.

Over-the-top funeral coverage:

At the grave site in Crown Hill Cemetery, the Star’s melodramatic Mary Bostwick secured a spot next to the casket. Then she poured it on, prose-wise. (Though in fairness to Bostwick, all accounts of the service refer to a severe electrical storm).

Blinding flashes of lightning and deafening fusillades of thunder, like the flashes and roars of his own automatic pistols and machine guns with which he blazed his way to the name of “Public Enemy No. 1,” were John Dillinger’s requiem at Crown Hill cemetery yesterday afternoon. ...

They were massed around the grave so closely that it seemed as if the earth at the edges of it would crumble, and that some of the spectators would have the macabre experience of falling headlong into the grave itself, though nothing of the sort happened.

Tears rolled down the face of the dead man’s father, John Dillinger Sr. He was a shabby and touching figure as he stood at the gravesite, holding his old brown felt hat against the breast of his drenched shirt. He peered down into the open grave in an unbelieving sort of way.

And finally, some self-promotion by your local newspaper:

John Dillinger’s relatives, like millions of other Americans, eagerly scan newspaper accounts of the famous desperado. A “guard” of relatives at the Hancock home in Maywood read the complete story of the bringing of Dillinger’s body from Chicago to Maywood in The Star during the early hours of yesterday morning.

Gathered in an imposing group at the entrance to the yard of the Hancock home, the relatives apparently had exhausted their supply of topics after a night of vigil.

(Then the morning's newspaper was delivered.)

A thump was heard. One of the Dillinger family was up with the sound. “It’s The Star. I read it every morning.”

The paper was placed on the ground. Relatives packed themselves into a tight huddle. With the aid of a flashlight, headlines and sentences about the man who lay in a nearby room were read.

Contact Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter @WillRHiggins.