# Think Tank > History >  Did John Dillinger survive? 4 reasons the conspiracy theory may be true

## Swordsmyth

An unthinkable thing is about to happen.
In  June, descendants of the famous gangster John Dillinger filed a request  with the Indiana Department of Health to have the folk heros body  exhumed from his resting place in Indianapolis Crown Point Cemetery.
The  Indianapolis Star reported a few days ago that the health department  granted that request. No date for exhumation has been announced, and  since Dillinger was buried under heaps of concrete to reportedly protect  him from corpse snatchers, his resurfacing could take a while.
When  I first heard the news, I hoped it had something to do with a  conspiracy theory thats floated through the American consciousness for  85 years: that the man buried in that tomb isnt actually John  Dillinger.
And on Thursday, it came out that my wish had been granted.


Carol and Michael Thompson, Dillingers niece and  nephew, wrote in an affidavit submitted to the department of health that  they arent sure their uncle is the man FBI agents filled with bullets  outside the Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934.
The  FBI stands by its story, because of course it does. And sure, the  possibility that Dillinger lived past his supposed execution is remote.
But it isnt impossible. Here are a few reasons why.
*The evidence*In the affidavit, the Thompsons go as far as saying they have evidence Dillinger isnt the man resting in the grave.
They  cite autopsy results that prove the person buried in Crown Point didnt  match Dillinger in several key ways. He had different-colored eyes,  mismatched fingerprints, and a disparate set of teeth.
The  autopsy report itself vanished for 50 years until it was discovered  jammed inside a random paper bag at the Cook County Medical Examiners  office in 1984.
It is my belief and opinion that  it is critical to learn whether Dillinger lived beyond his reported date  of death of July 22, 1934, Michael Thompson wrote in the affidavit  obtained by the Indianapolis Star. If he was not killed on that date, I  am interested in discovering what happened to him, where he lived,  whether he had children, and whether any such children or grandchildren  are living today.


*The plastic surgeon*July 22 was a big night for Melvis Purvis.
He  helmed a team of federal and local agents who crouched in the shadows  outside the Biograph, waiting for the man they hunted for months to walk  into the hot summer night.
A woman named Anna Sage told Purvis that Dillinger was inside watching a showing of Manhattan Melodrama.
The FBI's official story goes like this: Dillinger appeared and the agents gave chase, trapping him in a nearby alley.
Dillinger  attempted to draw his own gun, but it was too late. Agents shot him  dead and watched as he fell into the street. Onlookers rushed to dip  their handkerchiefs and skirt hems in his blood, hoping to escape with a  macabre souvenir.
However, press reports from the next day contained a quote from Purvis that added a weird pall of mystery to the whole thing.
The plastic surgeon did a good job, Purvis told United Press International. But I knew Dillinger the minute I saw him.
Purvis was commenting on a well-known story that Dillinger had sought out plastic surgery to elude capture.
According to the History Channel   which is making a documentary about this whole exhumation process   Dillinger paid underworld surgeons $5,000 to perform facial  reconstruction on him.
They allegedly sliced off some moles, filled his cleft chin and burned off his fingerprints with chemicals.
But,  according to an account published in the Evansville Press on July 23,  1934, morgue attendants and local police who examined the body didnt  see any difference in his appearance.
Reportedly, Dillinger didnt either. In the wake of the painful procedures, he lashed out at his sketchy surgeons.
Hell, I dont look any different than I did! he allegedly said after staring in a mirror.
If  both Dillinger and local police didnt see a difference in his  appearance, why did Purvis? Did the rudimentary black-market surgery  work better than initially thought? Was Purvis just adding a little  noir-ish twist to the story?
Or did the man outside the Biograph look different for an even simpler reason: because he was a different man?


*Jay Robert Nash*Prolific true crime author Jay Robert Nash has written multiple books claiming that John Dillinger lived well past the supposed day of his death.
In 2009, when the Dillinger biopic Public Enemies came out, legendary film critic Roger Ebert turned his column over to Nash.
The  move allowed Nash to lay out his theory in lurid, captivating, insane  detail. Giving it proper due would cause this column to stretch to a  length that would make Ayn Rand blush, so here are the key bullet  points.

The FBI, still a fledgling organization back in those  days, brimmed with mistake-prone amateurs. Perhaps they shot the wrong  man and had no choice but to cover it up. After all, they had already  shot three men they mistook for members of Dillingers gang during a  botched raid at the Little Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin.Purvis  perpetuated the lie to keep his job. According to Nash, J. Edgar Hoover  was all over Purvis to finally to capture the suave criminal. After all,  he was making authorities look awful, and the public loved him for it.  Making a big deal out killing Dillinger, only to turn around later and  take it all back, would have been too much to handle.Dillinger  aided in the faking of his own death, and laughed in the background at  Crown Point cemetery as he watched men dig his own grave.Dillinger  fled west to live out the rest of his life on a Native American  reservation with a new wife. Nash claims he has a picture of the two,  taken in Oregon in 1948.
Nashs greatest claim, though? That, years after 1934, he met John Dillinger.
Or at least it was a man he believed _could have been_ Dillinger. The meeting took place in Puente, California. Nash and the man stood in a dark room and had a brief conversation.
I  do not know for certain that the man I talked to was John Dillinger or  not, he wrote in Eberts column. If that was the case, however, it was  not my obligation to inform anyone about it, for, according to the FBI,  John Herbert Dillinger had been dead since July 22, 1934.
The world bought Hoover's story and it is welcome to it. I told my story, and the world is welcome to that, too.

More at: https://www.courierpress.com/story/o...ry/1895302001/

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## Anti Globalist

Well he certainly isn't alive today.  He'd be 116 years old.

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## Swordsmyth

> Well he certainly isn't alive today.  He'd be 116 years old.


It's not likely but it is possible.

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## Swordsmyth

Indiana officials have approved a new permit relatives of 1930s  gangster John Dillinger had sought to exhume his Indianapolis gravesite.The permit approved Thursday by the Indiana State Department of Health calls for the remains to be exhumed on Dec. 31.
Dillinger's nephew, Michael C. Thompson, applied for the permit last month after he and another relative obtained an earlier permit calling for a Sept. 16 exhumation.
That  exhumation did not occur after Crown Hill Cemetery officials objected  to the exhumation. Thompson is suing the cemetery, seeking a court order  to gain access to the grave.
Thompson has said he has evidence  Dillinger's body may not be buried there, and he may not have been the  man FBI agents fatally shot outside a Chicago theater in on July 22,  1934.
The FBI said in a statement in August that it was a "myth" that its agents didn't kill Dillinger.

https://news.yahoo.com/indiana-appro...194805205.html

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## oyarde

What if there are no remains there ?

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## Danke

> What if there are no remains there ?


That remains to be seen.

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## tebowlives

There are reports that Hitler and Dillinger lived together in Brazil. That is absurd. Dillinger died. Hitler then acquired Dillingers corpse and is having sex with it as we speak. I guess you can't break old habits.

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## Swordsmyth

A judge on Wednesday ruled that the family of notorious Indiana bank robber John Dillinger will not be allowed to exhume the 85-year-old corpse from its resting place – for now.Dillinger's nephew Michael C. Thompson filed a lawsuit in August after a public back-and-forth between the family and the cemetery, which had opposed digging up the body. 
In  his ruling Wednesday, Marion County Superior Court Judge Timothy Oakes  said the parties' main question was whether the exhumation could occur  without cemetery approval, as laid out under Indiana Statute 23-14-57-1.
"Court  finds that the statutory requirements for this section of the statute  are clear in that disinterment requires the cemetery owner to give  consent before disinterment may occur," Oakes' ruling says, according to  online court records, "and the statute does not require that the  cemetery have a valid, rational, or meaningful reason."


Thompson received a permit in  June from the Indiana State Department of Health to complete the  exhumation sometime before Sept. 16 but ran into roadblocks after news  reports drew attention to the plans. 
The family's plans to exhume  the body and complete DNA testing to determine its identity were to be  depicted in a documentary distributed by the History Channel, which has since backed out of the project.
Oakes  dismissed the case without prejudice, leaving room for Thompson's  attorney, Andrea Simmons, to file an amended complaint under another  section of the statute. 
"We  feel like Mr. Thompson should not be prohibited from seeking a  disinterment to learn the identity just because his uncle happens to be  infamous," Simmons said before the ruling. "If his was anonymous, if no  one had ever heard the name, we wouldn't be here today." 

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/family-wont-a...180042666.html

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## oyarde

The cemetery will not allow exhumation . Under current Indiana law they cannot be overidden . They do not even have to provided any reasoning for denial . They have nothing to gain and a lot to lose if he is not there so naturally the boneyard lawyer will advise denial.

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