John Dillinger

May 10 marks the start of John Dillinger’s notorious crime spree in 1933.

After serving eight and a half years in prison, John Dillinger was paroled. He embarked on a string of bank robberies and violent exploits across the Midwest, quickly becoming one of America’s most notorious outlaws.

John Dillinger was behind bars in the Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana in early 1934. His jailers boasted that their facility was escape-proof. Dillinger whiled away his time carving a piece of wood used as a shelf in his cell.

He turned it into a replica of a small handgun, painting it with shoe polish. He bluffed his captors and managed to escape.

Dillinger’s wooden prison escape pistol sold at auction for $19,120 in 2010.

Dillinger’s gang was responsible for 10 deaths, three jail breaks and more than 20 bank robberies. At 31 he became America’s Public Enemy No. 1.

Dillinger stole Sheriff Lillian Holley’s new Ford V8 and used it in a crime spree across the Midwest. He returned to Chicago in July 1934 and sought refuge in a brothel owned by Ana Cumpănaș. On July 22, 1934, cops closed in on the Biograph Theater. Dillinger drew a gun while attempting to flee and was shot down.

Rumors persist that the man killed that night was a double. Dillinger’s descendants claim that they doubt it’s really his body that’s buried.

There is no doubt Dillinger was the man killed outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater. The bullet that killed him entered the back of his neck and exited under his right eye.