The Top 5 Most Notorious Outlaws (12 page)

But that quiet came to an abrupt end on the last day of March. The manager of the apartment building where they’d been staying had grown suspicious and contacted the FBI, leading two FBI agents and a local cop to the apartment to check out the tip. Billie answered the knock on the door and coolly explained that “Mr. Hellman” was out at the moment. They wanted to speak to her instead, and she bought time by asking them to wait outside while she got dressed. This bought time for Dillinger to assemble his submachine gun. In the meantime, Van Meter had arrived at the apartment building, and, sensing something amiss, he stayed downstairs with his weapon drawn. Dillinger opened fire on the agents, who, having to deal with Van Meter firing on them from below, allowed Dillinger and Billie to sneak out the back. It was another narrow escape for Dillinger and another embarrassment for the FBI.

Although he had gotten away yet again, Dillinger had been hit in the leg by one of his bullets as it ricocheted off something during the gunfight. He got treatment from a doctor (who would later be imprisoned for helping him) and recuperated in an apartment Eddie Green arranged for him. J. Edgar Hoover, furious not only that Dillinger had again slipped away but that he had opened fire on two of his agents, made the outlaw the agency’s top priority and put Melvin Purvis in charge of the effort. Purvis was given nearly 50 men, and together they scoured St. Paul and eventually tracked down and arrested Green’s wife Bessie as she picked up some of Dillinger’s things in the apartment. Though Dillinger was long gone, her arrest and questioning turned up important leads that would eventually bear fruit.

Hoover

On April 3, federal agents made their first major hit against the gang when they ambushed and killed Eddie Green.  After that, the rest of the gang dispersed. Baby Face Nelson returned to Reno, where he came to the aid of two old friends, Bill Graham and Jim McKay.  Graham and McKay were on trial for federal mail fraud, so Nelson kidnapped and killed the chief witness against them, Roy Fritch, tossing his dead and mutilated body down a mine shaft.

Meanwhile, in a risky move, Dillinger headed home to Mooresville for what would turn out to be one last visit with his father and family. Though he arrived at night and took other precautions, he stayed for several days, and many in town knew of his presence but chose not to share the information with authorities. During the stay, Dillinger posed for a picture that would become one of the most famous shots of the outlaw, holding his wooden gun with one hand and a submachine gun in the other as he stood in the backyard of his father’s house. Why the Dillinger house wasn’t already being monitored isn’t exactly clear, but once again Dillinger’s timing was uncanny. Shortly after he departed town, the houses of his father, sister, and brother were all raided by police. Of course, the news that Dillinger had dared to openly visit his family for a few days only added to his legend.

Dillinger with the wooden gun and submachine gun

Dillinger had eluded authorities, but the net was tightening. A week later, Dillinger and his girlfriend were in Chicago, and, as was standard procedure, Billie made inquiries about a temporary hideout for the couple. She was in a bar meeting one of Dillinger’s underworld contacts while he waited safely in the car when someone tipped off the FBI, and a group of agents quickly arrived and arrested Billie. It was a breakthrough for the FBI, but also an embarrassment, since Dillinger had been there for the taking but once again slipped away.

By mid-April, the various members of the gang had come back to the Midwest. Baby Face Nelson and his wife Helen were hiding out in a cabin in Iron County, Wisconsin, and according to legend he pouted because Dillinger was Public Enemy Number One instead of him.  To make matters worse, Hoover was offering a reward of $20,000 dollars for Dillinger’s death, but only half that for Nelson.  

Despite the heat and close calls, by the middle of that month Dillinger and Nelson felt it was safe enough to get back together and begin to plan some jobs.  Accompanied by their wives and girlfriends, they checked into the isolated Little Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin at the recommendation of Louis Piquett, who assured them it was a quiet, out of site location where Dillinger could nurse his injured arm in peace.  The innkeeper, Emil Wanatka, welcomed the men as friends of a good customer, but he did not know who he was dealing with until later Friday night.  That night, during a poker game, he noticed that his guests were all wearing side arms under the coats.  

Little Bohemia Lodge

Wanatka mentioned this situation to his wife but decided to take a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude to his guest’s identities.  His wife, however, was intrigued by their glamorous and dangerous customers.  The next day, she took their four year old son to a birthday party where she confided to her brother-in-law, Henry Voss, that she was nervous about having them there.  He in turn informed the FBI, who sent their best team of agents, led by Purvis and Sam Cowley.

Upon arriving in Wisconsin, the more than 35 agents learned that the gang looked like they were preparing to move out.  Concerned about losing their prey, they moved in quickly and without requesting back up from local law enforcement.  This proved to be a mistake.  First, two of the cars they were riding in broke down, forcing the agents to ride on the running boards of the remaining cars the rest of the way to the lodge.  Then, unknown to them, they had come on one of the restaurant’s few crowded nights, when the owner offered a popular dollar special.  Seeing a 1933 Chevy coupe leaving, the agents ordered the occupants to halt.  When they didn’t, they thought they had their men and sprayed the car with bullets, killing innocent customer Eugene Boisneau and wounding John Hoffman and John Morris.  Morris and Hoffman would later explain that they never heard the order because they had the car radio on.

At that moment, gang member Pat Reilly pulled up with his girlfriend, Pat Cherrington.  Seeing the agents, they managed to escape in the confusion.  Likewise, Dillinger, Van Meter, Carroll and Hamilton went out the back door, which the FBI officers had failed to secure.  After moving through the woods on foot, the four split up, stole a couple of cars and drove off into the night, leaving Nelson to face the cops alone.

This predicament didn’t seem to bother Baby Face. Coming out of his cabin shooting, he exchanged fire with several agents before making his way into the lodge.  There he made his way out the back door, just as his partners had, but he took off in the opposite direction.  When he finally made his way out of the dense woods, he was about a mile from the lodge and at the home of a couple named Lange, whom he kidnapped and ordered to drive him away.  When Mr. Lange didn’t drive fast enough to suit him, Nelson ordered him to pull over so that he could drive.  Whether Lange meant to or not, he pulled up in front of the home of local switchboard operator Alvin Koerner, who had already heard about what was going on and called authorities to tell them that he had one of the gangsters in his front yard.  

Just as Koerner hung up, Nelson burst through the door and ordered Koerner to freeze.  Moments later, the innkeeper Wanatka and two other men arrived at the house to check on Koerner.  Nelson also took them hostage.  Unbeknownst to him, however, a fourth man had remained hidden in the back seat of their car.  Nelson ordered Wanatka and Koerner into the car, not noticing the fourth man in the back seat.  Wanatka took the wheel and prepared to drive off, but before he could put the car in gear, two federal agents and a local constable arrived.  Not realizing what they were getting themselves into, they let Baby Face get the drop on them.  He ordered them from their car but then opened fire, killing Agent Carter Baum and wounding Agent Jay Newman and Constable Carl Christensen.  

With the agents out of the way, Nelson jumped into their car and sped off, but even now he wasn’t in the clear. Before he could get far a tire blew out and the car became stuck in the mud.  Unable to get to the tire to change it, Nelson took off on foot through the woods and came upon the cabin of a Native American family, whom he stayed with for several days before stealing their car and driving off.  

Much to Nelson’s dismay, Helen and two other women were captured by the FBI at the lodge.  Though they questioned all three extensively, they could find no evidence of any serious wrongdoing on anyone’s part.  After charging them with harboring fugitives from the law, the police released them on parole, probably hoping that the women would lead them back to the fugitives.

In total, the incident at Little Bohemia left one agent and one innocent citizen dead, two agents and two citizens wounded, and the Dillinger gang unscathed.  Needless to say, the public was not happy.  Some were calling for Hoover to resign, while others insisted the agent Purvis, who headed up the fiasco, be fired.  To deflect criticism from himself and his team, Hoover emphasized to the public the sacrifice of the brave, heroic Agent Baum, who had given his life protecting theirs, and reassured everyone that he would not rest until Baum’s killer was brought to justice.

The gang had slipped by the FBI at Little Bohemia in several groups and that was how they escaped. Dillinger, Hamilton and Van Meter stole a car from another nearby lodge and made their way back to St. Paul. They circled around the town and came in from the south, thinking that would be safer, but local police recognized the reported license plate and gave pursuit. A gunfight broke out and Hamilton was mortally wounded, but Dillinger and Van Meter escaped to Aurora, Illinois.

Dillinger was out of sight for much of the next two months. He and Van Meter engaged in a relatively small heist on May 2 just outside of Toledo which netted $17,000, more than enough to tide them over for a while. For weeks they lived in an abandoned shack outside of East Chicago, and then they lived in their truck, sleeping on a mattress in the back by night and driving the backroads by day.

It was on those Indiana back roads that they made their second noteworthy public appearance in May. In an incident on May 24 about which there are wildly conflicting reports, their truck was approached by two plainclothes East Chicago detectives. With Dillinger at the wheel, Van Meter opened fire at the men and killed them both. Subsequent accounts suggest the two detectives may have been set up by a fellow officer, Martin Zarkovich. Zarkovich, who had repeatedly fallen under suspicion for corruption, had also been seen at the Crown Point prison while Dillinger was there. The theory goes that he had some involvement in Dillinger’s breakout and wanted the detectives, who knew about ongoing bribing of the East Chicago force, eliminated.

Regardless, Dillinger and Van Meter knew they had to get off the roads after that, and they eventually settled down for most of the month of June in a seedy apartment on the far North Side owned by an associate of Dillinger’s lawyer. There they came up with a plan to disappear even more completely. Dillinger had for a while entertained the notion of disguising himself through plastic surgery. He finally prevailed upon his lawyer to hook him up with a couple of doctors of questionable character who agreed for a fee of $5,000 to conduct the surgery, first for him, then for Van Meter. The operation wasn’t exactly a success. Their crude methods of anesthesia nearly killed Dillinger, and even after a long bloody operation, the outlaw was still mostly recognizable despite the removal of several moles, a building up of the nose, and a filling in of his chin dimple. And despite the issues with Dillinger’s operation, Van Meter went ahead with his own operation. The two men also had their fingerprints removed.