Dillinger, Chicago and Cecil

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I’ve owned a copy of Nash’s book on Dillinger’s supposed escape from death in 1934 almost since it was published in 1968, and the subject has fascinated me for thirty years now. I’ve found that writers on Dillinger fall into two camps: Those who completely ignore Nash’s claims, and those who bring him up just long enough to dismiss him as a crackpot.

I’m sad to see Unca Cecil being so shallow as to fall into the second category (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030801.html). While parts of Nash’s theory about how and why a ringer for Dillinger was set up to take the fall are contrived and absurd, the list of evidence that Dillinger wasn’t the stiff with the mighty stiffy is long enough to raise some serious questions.

Some of the more convincing details are the height (the corpse was notably shorter than Dillinger alive, and corpses tend to gan a half-inch to an inch on normal standing, living height), the weight (significantly higher than any recorded weight for D, and he had been on the run for several months, which would seem to create weight loss, not gain), the eye color (which is hard to explain away unless the autopsy was done in the dark), the fact that a number of very small scars were recorded in the autopsy but not the two most prominent and known ones on his upper lip and leg), that D’s missing canine tooth was not noted on the autopsy, and - most telling, IMHO - that the corpse had evidence of severe rheumatic fever damage to the heart, which would have made D’s very athletic life difficult or impossible. The secondary evidence of mismatched and missing fingerprints, lack of signs of the plastic surgery just weeks before, and the fact that D’s grave was exhumed and filled with scrap iron and concrete after he was initially buried - by persons unknown, but not the penniless family… well, even discounting time and hoopla, something weird was going on.

Keep in mind, too, that Dillinger was hardly an unknown records-wise: He was in the Navy and incarcerated several times, and there are complete physical records of him at each stage. The only anomalous one is the autopsy.

Finally, James Starr takes the claims eriously enough that JD’s grave is on his list to exhume and examine. The last time I communicated with him, he was waiting for an obstructive family member to pass into the great beyond and clear the way for his survey.

Cece, I think you blew this one off too light-handedly.

2

Oops - my connection to the SDMB server was flaky and two apparently unsuccessful posts appeared JUST LIKE MAGIC! after wandering around cyberspace for a while. Moderator: could you nuke the two prior posts on this topic, just to reduce the confusion factor?

3

So nuked.

Trust the software, it usually DOES post things, although it’s not always obvious at first.

4

Is Mr. Starr an important person out there in the world of gravediggers? Who is he? And why does he lend credence to this?

5

If possible, could you please supply the “complete physical records of him” from both the Navy and from his incarcerations prior to his demise?

6

US military personnel & medical records are classified for reason of personal privacy, & are never released except by personal request of the Serviceman, his family, or by Order Of The Court.

I challenge the legitimacy of these so-called “Navy Records”.
I call BS on the author you quote on this basis.
:dubious:

7

He spelled the name wrong. James Starrs is a professor of law and forensic science at George Washington University, and is indeed important in the world of gravediggers. That is to say, his claim to fame is directing historical exhumations:

http://www.forensics.duq.edu/advisory/members/starrs.html

It’s not particularly surprising that any historical figure whose death circumstances and identity are questioned would be on Starrs’ list. It’s what he does. There’s enough questions of this type that he’s not going to run out of research subjects.

8

I don’t have the book at hand to check (it’s been a matter of dispute between my sister and me for 25 years :rolleyes: ). However, Nash shows facsimiles of several physical records and I recall one of them being a Navy record. I could be wrong - it could be prison records. Nash does mention Naval records in the text, though.

9

Exactly when was the last time you communicated with him?

10

A couple of years ago… why?

I believe the family member was a younger sister or cousin, elderly but quite opposed to the exhumation.

Starrs (sorry for the typo) noted that the remains are probably crushed under the concrete fill and thus results might be skewed or incomplete. There should still be skeletal evidence (missing/non missing tooth, healed fractures, etc.) that could be conclusive one way or the other.

11

Significant change in height? According to Cecil’s column, it was a quarter of an inch. I’m 5’ 11 1/2", but do you think my state ID card lists the half inch? A quarter of an inch is too small a difference to appear on the records. And the weight? Come on, don’t tell me you’ve never had a “fat day”. And given that the guy was on the run and going to extreme lengths to alter his appearance, it’s quite possible that he deliberately put on a few pounds. According to Cecil, the fingerprints matched, and did Dillinger ever have extensive-enough medical checkups to rule ou rheumatic fever?

Finally, of course, Dillinger definitely wasn’t “the stiff with the mighty stiffy”, as you can read in Cecil’s column.

12

Uh, your entire reply boils down to “Cecil said it, I believe it, that settles it.” A bit fundy, even for this cloistered group of TMs. While I take Cecil’s pronouncements as definitive a vast amount of the time, I have caught him, how say, shorting the measure in a few areas I have interest or expertise in. This is one. I’m not saying that our beloved Unca is wrong or that I’m right, only that he blew off the issue without referencing the most important points.

If you haven’t read Nash’s book, you wouldn’t be aware that Unca Cece skipped over a number of salient details. The height and weight variations are the very least and most arguable points. That the corpse measured a quarter inch shorter than any height recorded for the living Dillinger is interesting, but not necessarily relevant.

The details Nash lists are significant enough and curious enough to leave the question open. Eye color does not change in 24 hours, even in 100 degree temperatures (and even without AC, the body was not subjected to that level of temperature for any length of time). Pale blue-gray eyes are not going to be mistaken for brown except in the dark - I’ve checked with experienced pathologists on this point.

As for the heart damage, it is well-documented in the autopsy and consistent with childhood rheumatic fever. None of JD’s other records indicate any heart or fitness problem, which would have been evident even with a stethoscope check and would have largely prevented the highly athletic sports, service and crime efforts JD was known to perform.

Even Cecil points out the weirdness about how he was set up and slaughtered, with the pistol he supposedly was reaching for a late substitution, manufactured almost two years after his death (IIRC).

Bottom line is that Dillinger was the first gangbuster (heh, heh) case for the nascent FBI, and they became as interested in protecting the myth as anyone. They still display the anomalous pistol and other artifacts proudly.

It may well be that Dillinger was the corpse, and an examination of the remains would settle it. But short of that, the available evidence gives substantial weight to Nash’s theory of a lookalike patsy set up in JD’s place.

13

None of Nash’s theories hold up. At least three sets of postmortem fingerprints were taken by the FBI and Chicago police and, despite obvious acid scarring, enough similarities were present in the dead man’s whorls to conclusively identify him as Dillinger. Nash used two main sources for Dillinger’s height and weight: (1) Dillinger’s Navy record, which was 11 years old in 1934; and (2) FBI Identification Order #1217, issued in March 1934 but basing Dillinger’s description on his 10 year old description from his incarceration at the Pendleton, IN State Reformatory. Illinois and Indiana wanted posters of the period, on the other hand, often used Dillinger’s height and weight as recorded at the time of his then recent arrests at Dayton and Tucson, which tally rather closely with that of the dead man. Moreover, Dillinger wouldn’t have been any more apt to lose weight as gain it during his time “on the run.” After all, he wasn’t jogging from the law! Many fugitives, in fact, have altered their appearance by gaining weight. As to eye discoloration, check with pathologists again, as that can result from a fatal head wound, certainly consistent with Dillinger’s. A rheumatic heart condition would not necessarily have precluded an active or even athletic lifestyle for Dillinger. I’ve known people with the same condition who’ve been both active and athletic. In point of fact, Dr. Patrick Weeks, who was Dillinger’s physician at the Michigan City, IN State Pen, stated for a fact in 1938 that Dillinger had suffered from a “dieseased heart” while in prison.