The Top 5 Most Notorious Outlaws by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors [Editors, Charles River]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Historical, Nonfiction, Retail, True Crime
Amazon: B00E5R8CWM
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2013-07-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3: The Inmate

The Navy gave Dillinger shelter from the police after he concocted a story about being from St. Louis, but he didn’t fit in there any better than he had on the farm. He made it successfully through basic training, but shortly after being transferred to a ship in Boston in October, he failed to return from shore leave and was declared AWOL. He returned on his own, only to be fined and put in solitary confinement for 10 days, but the punishment didn’t correct his behavior. He got in trouble shortly thereafter and was again put in solitary. In December he left for good after being dishonorably discharged from the Navy. Dillinger returned to Mooresville, claiming the Navy had discharged him for a heart murmur.

Back at home, Dillinger fell in love with another local farm girl, Beryl Ethel Hovious, and in April 1924 the young couple was married. Though his wife characterized him as charming and well-mannered in later interviews, it became clear early on that the newly married Dillinger wasn’t quite cut out for the quiet life. He began frequenting local pool halls, both in Mooresville and in the nearby town of Martinsville, where he seems to have first developed friendships with the kind of shady comrades who would shape the next phase of his life.

Chief amongst these was a man in his young thirties named Edward Singleton. The two men decided to engineer a modest stickup, choosing an elderly local grocer, Frank Morgan, as their target. It is impossible to ignore the coincidence that Dillinger’s first victim was a man who very much resembled his own father. Moreover, Dillinger knew the man and frequently shopped in his store.

As it turned out, the first hold-up committed by America’s most famous bank robber was an utter fiasco. During the stickup, Dillinger struck Morgan over the head with a pipe, and when the old man attempted to call for help, Dillinger pulled a gun on him. The gun went off accidentally, and Dillinger and his accomplice fled with $50.

Clearly new to this line of work, Dillinger mistakenly implicated himself by asking around town about the grocer’s well-being even before the botched hold-up had been reported. Not surprisingly, the police soon tracked the young man down and arrested him. At the advice of his father, Dillinger made a full confession and threw himself at the mercy of the court, while Singleton, on the other hand, pled innocent and hired a lawyer. Dillinger’s strategy backfired; the judge decided to make an example of him and sentenced him to 10-20 years at the Indiana State Reformatory at Pendleton.

As a result, Dillinger spent most of his 20s in prison, and it was there that he became the man who would briefly but spectacularly terrorize the Midwest. 80 years later, biographers and historians still disagree as to exactly when and how Johnnie Dillinger transformed from a troubled young adult into the brazenly suave Public Enemy Number 1. Some have argued that Dillinger

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