Why was john dillinger booked in Dayton Ohio?

Answer 1

John Dillinger drove into Dayton the first time in May 1933 behind the wheel of a battered Model A Ford, shortly after his release from the Indiana State Prison. A former prison buddy, Jimmy Jenkins, had spoken often to Dillinger of his sister Mary Longnacker, who lived in Dayton. Anxious to meet the beauty, the bank robber drove down West First Street yelling at passers-by inquiring after Longnacker. She was out of town. Dillinger rented a room and waited for her, passing himself off as the young woman's brother. That first trip of a few short days was followed by more visits to Dayton. Dillinger would arrange trysts with Longnacker again in June, several times in July, then again in early August. During that visit, Dillinger revealed to his lady friend that "business" was getting better. He had discarded the Ford coupe and acquired a Hudson Terraplane, then one of the fastest cars on the market. By summer's end, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency had learned of Dillinger's Dayton connection and knew he was paying for the woman's divorce. "Dillinger calls upon this woman regularly and, no doubt, can be apprehended at Dayton, Ohio," a divisional manager for the detective agency wrote to Dayton Police Inspector C.E. Yendes. Dayton detectives acted on the tip. Longnacker's landlady, Lucille Striker, allowed them to search her tenant's room, where they found an incriminating letter from Dillinger. Striker told police that Longnacker often received mail from the gangster. She agreed to steam open the correspondence before handing them over to Longnacker, then share the contents with police. Within days, a letter did arrive. Dillinger had promised to visit soon. The 30-year-old gangster was already a fugitive wanted in connection with multiple bank hold-ups in Ohio, including the robbery of the Citizens National Bank in Bluffton. The manhunt was heating up. In between bank robberies across Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, Dillinger took Longnacker on a 10-day trip to the World's Fair in Chicago. Sept. 22, 1933 Dillinger slipped into Longnacker's room in a high-class boarding house at 324 W. First St. in Dayton with the familiarity of someone who had visited often. The fugitive carried a .45 automatic in his pocket, with a smaller gun hidden up his sleeve. His wallet bulged with more than $2,700. Dayton police, acting on a tip from the FBI, had staked out the boarding house for seven weeks in hopes of catching the bank robber. Detectives had given up their round-the-clock vigil that very afternoon. Though the street around the boarding house had been empty when Dillinger silently let himself in after midnight, his entrance didn't go unnoticed. Striker had seen him pull up and quickly alerted police. Just after 1 a.m., she knocked on Longnacker's door and asked to speak with her tenant. When Longnacker obliged, Dayton police detectives Russell Pfauhl and Charlie Gross forced their way past her. An unsuspecting Dillinger had been showing his girlfriend photos of their World's Fair trip. The photos scattered as Dillinger realized the trap. Dillinger's hand hovered close to his gun, detectives told reporters. They jammed a sawed-off shotgun and a Tommy gun into the fugitive's face and he froze. Dayton prisoner No. 10587 was taken to the city's old Ford Street jail. "To forestall any escape by the breakout artist, officers watched him constantly, cradling submachine guns in their arms," according to newspaper reports. As for Dillinger's girlfriend, she too was arrested that night, but was soon released. Requests for a photo and copies of Dillinger's fingerprints came in from police departments in California, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky and around Ohio. "Dillinger has been participially identified as the leader of gunmen who robbed banks in Muncie, Ind., Indianapolis, Montpelier, Ind., New Carlisle, Bedford and Farrell, PA," Dayton authorities declared at the time. "Authorities of each of these cities had requested the suspect be turned over to them for trial." The fight among law enforcement officials across three states for possession of Dillinger - a suspect in at least six robberies - was ended by Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Robert C. Patterson, who ruled the gangster would be turned over to Allen County. Dillinger got an armed escort out of Dayton on June 28, 1933, to Lima, where he would stand trial for the Bluffton bank robbery. About two weeks later, on Thursday, Oct. 12, Allen County Sheriff Jeff Saber was mortally wounded by a member of Dillinger's gang during a successful jail break. Law enforcement documents indicate no other further visits to Dayton by the man J. Edgar Hoover had declared Public Enemy No. 1.