The search for John Dillinger
and his desperadoes centered yesterday in the lake resort country
around Warsaw, Indiana, and about Chicago, with indications that
the outlaws had separated and gone in opposite directions after
Saturday's raid on the Merchants National Bank of South Bend.
In the Saturday raid the outlaws killed a policeman and escaped
with $29,890 loot.
An attack by two members of the gang on a physician at North Webster,
near Warsaw, Indiana, early yesterday morning after he had been
forced to treat one of the bandits for gunshot wounds, led armed
squads to the wooded lake country in Kosciusko County, Indiana,
about 130 miles southeast of Chicago. Because the sedan in which
the killers fled from South Bend was abandoned late Saturday at
Goodland, Ind., 100 miles southwest of South Bend and about 100
miles southeast of Chicago, the authorities believed that Dillinger
and some of his companions may have returned to their old hideouts
in Chicago.
Special Squad on Duty
All roads leading into Chicago from the south were patrolled and
known Dillinger haunts on the north side of the city were watched
by the heavily armed special Dillinger force under Supervising
Capt. John Stege.
Ordinarily most of Capt. Stege's 40 picked men on the Dillinger
detail take Sunday off, but they were on the job Saturday night
and throughout yesterday in search of America's No. 1 public enemy.
The attack on the North Webster physician, Dr. Leslie A. Laird,
occurred at about 2 o'clock yesterday morning, but the information
was not communicated to the authorities until an hour later because
the physician was left unconsious from blows on the head and his
telephone lines had been cut.
Dr. Laird said he was asleep in his home on the main street of
the small town, when a man awoke him shouting for a doctor at
the front door.
Narrative of Physician
The doctor's story follows:
"I went to the door and the man said a friend of his was
waiting at my office, a block down the street, and wanted me to
dress a cut on his arm. He said they had been in an auto accident.
"I got dressed and went with the man. I saw that his companion
had been shot twice in the left arm, below the elbow. They forced
me to treat the wounds as a precaution against tetanus, and after
I had dressed them the man who was not injured asked for some
cocaine.
"I told him I didn't have any cocaine and that is the last
thing I remember until about an hour later, when I came to and
found that I had a gash on the back of my head and a bruise on
my forehead. Apparently they struck me with the butts of their
guns.
"I tried to telephone the sheriff but couldn't get the operator.
The phone was dead, so I went to the restaurant across the street."
Fails to Recognize Men
The physician said he was certain that neither of the men was
Dillinger, whom, he said, he would recognize from photos.
"The larger fellow was about five feet nine inches sandy
haired, and of light complexion," said Dr. Laird. The other,
whose wounds I dressed, was nearly of the same height, but of
slighter build and darker complexion. He weighed around 140.
"Both appeared to be 25 or 30 years old. Whether either one
of these men was 'Baby Face' Nelson, who they say was with Dillinger,
I couldn't say, for I wouldn't recognize his pictures, but I am
sure that neither was Dillinger."
Dr. Laird notified Sheriff Harley Person of Kosciusko county,
who went to the office and found that the bandits had ransacked
it, apparently searching for narcotics, and had taken a supply
of bandages and medical equipment with them. Fingerprint experts
at South Bend were summoned by Sheriff Person.
No one could be found who had seen the bandits leave North Webster,
but authorities pointed out that the territory would be an ideal
hiding place. It would also be on a direct line to Ohio, where
Dillinger and his outlaws are supposed to have remained in seclusion
for more than a month before the ruthless raid in South Bend Saturday,
in which they wounded four men besides killing the policeman.
North Webster, which is about 15 miles southeast of South Bend
and 15 miles northeast of Warsaw, is on state highway No. 6, which
was known in Prohibition days as "rum runners road."
Across the state line in Ohio is Lima, scene of one of that gang's
most daring exploits, the murder of Sheriff Jess Sarber and freeing
of Dillinger in return for his services in aiding 10 convicts
to escape from the Indiana penitentiary on September 26, 1933.
After Dillinger been delivered from the Lima jail the gang swept
down on the police station at Warsaw, bound two policemen, and
escaped with machine guns and bulletproof vests, with which they
have been carrying on their depredations throughout the middle
west since.
Only four men, two of whom were said to be wounded, were seen
to leave the bullet riddled car found at Goodland, which led the
authorities to believe that the gang had split up before reaching
there.
It was considered possible that the two men who slugged Dr. Laird
had separated from the others soon after leaving South Bend, since
witnesses were not agreed as to the number who participated in
the bank raid. Two machine gunners and the leader, identified
as Dillinger, who carried an automatic pistol, were in the bank
and either two or three men waited in the automobile outside.
Deny Doubt Over Leader
The four men who left the car at Goodland seized another machine
and headed west toward the Illinois line. It was believed probable
that their destination was Chicago, where Dillinger has obtained
sanctuary before, in the flats of underworld women and friendly
gangsters.
Detective Harry Henderson, who claimed to have wounded one of
the bandits as they fled, and Charles Coen, vice president of
the South Bend bank identified the leader of the raiders as Dillinger.
Doubt remained in the minds of authorities yesterday that he really
was Dillinger, because of the fashion in which the robbery was
executed, the ruthless spraying of machine guns bullets, and the
successful getaway, despite an immediate warning to state highway
policemen throughout Indiana to guard all the roads.
The automobile in which the bandits made their escape bore Ohio
license plates which were on the car used in the Fostoria Ohio
bank robbery in May when Chief of Police Frank Culp was killed.
Chicago Daily Tribune Monday July 2, 1934 front page
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