Digging Up Dillinger

10: The Fillmore Report Part 7: The Imposter Selfie

In July 1959 and July 1963, two handwritten letters were received by the Indianapolis Star newspaper and Emil Wanatka Jr., respectively, by someone claiming to be Dillinger. Both letters were signed “John H. Dillinger.” Although I am not a handwriting expert, my analysis and observation of certain specific characteristics of the handwriting in the respective letters appear to show they were written by the same person. In addition, a single photograph was included with each letter. Both photographs appear to be the same man and consistent with what have been the chronological ages of Dillinger in 1959 (age 56) and 1963 (age 60). The man does have certain facial features, including the shapes of the eyes, nose, mouth and hairline that appear similar to Dillinger.

Duration:: 54m
Broadcast on:: 29 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Infamous Indi Presents The Digging of Dillinger Project Featuring the Texas Crime Travelers and Travis Thompson. I'm your host, Joe Malilla. In the annals of American crime, few figures loom as large as John Dillinger. A mastermind of bank heists, his name became synonymous with brazen robberies and daring escapes. All the questions on whether he escaped an FBI ambush and the whereabouts of his buried loot per severe. History offers one account, but there are whispers that tell us many more. Join us as we go digging up Dillinger. We are together again. Travis, me, the host, Stuart Fillmore, Todd Hiles. We're just winging it tonight apparently. Of course, Todd was in the middle of telling us a story. This case is enveloping us a lot, like everything we're doing, like we spend time together, we talk to each other, we text each other. But Todd was telling us a story about he's watching a movie on Turner Classic Channel. Is that what it is? Turner Classic. Turner Classic Movies. TMC. TMC. It's from the 1940s, long story short, but there was a murder and the victim had been already buried and the defendant wanted the body exhumed for the fact that the prove that that wasn't his bullet fired from his gun, the bullet still in the body. There was this long discussion with the lawyer and family that you don't dig up a body. Once a body's been prayed over and put in the ground, you don't pull it up. That's when I brought that up with you guys tonight. What was the attitudes back in the 30s and things like that? If this wasn't Dillinger, do we pull the body up or do we don't pull the body up? What did they think about back then? Was it art or sewer? Do you think that that doesn't hold true? Well, absolutely, probably could have been a predominant thought or belief at that time. I think maybe it probably still is today, honestly. We actually have precedent for an exhumation in the Dillinger case already because John Dillinger was exhumed in 1934, not long after he was buried. That was at the request of his own father. If there is an exhumation, a second exhumation of Dillinger, we're just following precedent. There's a couple of issues behind that that I'm not really sure ultimately what the reason, well, initially, there was an issue about whether the Dillinger's brain had been removed from the autopsy and that he had been buried without his brain and that the coroner's office in Cook County, Illinois, Chicago had kept the brain for some reason. Maybe to study it, whatever, and the father, John Wilson Dillinger, he was ready to go to court. He had a lawyer already. He was going to sue Cook County because he just didn't think it was right that they would keep his brain. I'm not sure exactly how it was resolved, but let me backtrack just a second. In this dispute about the brain, with the lawyer that he hired, Mr. Dillinger went through the necessary hoops at the time to get the exhumation, so he had the proper permission and authority to do it, but somehow Cook County convinced him that they had indeed taken some very small samples of the brain for toxicological testing, which is very routine in an autopsy situation and indeed the brain was with the body. I don't quite know how necessarily that was confirmed with the father, but the issue of the brain seemed to go away in the research I did, but the body is exhumed nonetheless, and for this purpose of putting this large amount of cement that I've heard or read described in various shapes and forms to over the coffin of Dillinger supposedly to stop or discourage grave robbers from digging his body up so that they could put the body on display. I think that was the father's greatest nightmare that that would happen. To my knowledge, when I was growing up, I've always heard the brain was still missing. The last person we knew that possibly could've had it was Michael Jackson. So again, there's something else that can be possible probable cause for us is that this brain is missing, so we could make the argument again that the brain is missing, that was never answered. So when they did dig him up, you're saying, or did they leave him in the coffin, do we know? No, I believe that he was removed, the body was actually taken out. Correct. Yeah. And that the grave was somehow prepared for this concrete vault that he was put in, that I don't know the exact structure or form that's somewhat mystic actually in this whole Dillinger legend. But nonetheless, there is a slab of concrete in some form or fashion that is over that coffin that is several feet thick. That's a grave. It's so crazy. Do you remember Stuart, when we were working with History Channel and doing with Paulima, Paulima had received, I think a phone call or a letter from a great-grandson of one of the caretakers at the mill, and they said before they put the concrete on, the FBI poured two vats of acid into the vault onto the body. Yes, that's right. So again, if that's the case, why on earth would the FBI need to do that? If this is the positively identified body, Dillinger, why are we going to pour acid on it? What's up with all this acid back in the day? Can we just go to the CVS and pick up some acid? I had actually forgotten about that, Travis, but you're absolutely right. That's another thing that is just a mystery in this thing. If to my knowledge, I think he actually signed a statement and gave it over to the production company. And of course, that's not in the FBI file, correct? No, that's not in the FBI file. Now it is in the file they did document this controversy about the brain. And there was a lot of reporting about that at the time, because for our audience just to remind you at the time, John Dillinger was a big deal. He was a big media sensation. And so this was heavily covered this issue about the brain because let's face it, it's somewhat gory and even back then, I think people were still drawn to that kind of thing. So it was sensational, you know, wow, where is Dillinger's brain? And again, it's not clear from my reading how ultimately it was resolved. But Cook County said, no, we did take very small test specimens that's routine and autopsies. And I guess maybe that he, the old man was satisfied with that. I don't know. Obviously, what grandma always said when the vault, no one knows who to pay for it. I mean. That's another thing too, yes. So, so, right, Travis, not to interrupt, but again, you know, and you had brought up the fact that interrupt anyway, that I'll just go ahead though, that he couldn't, he couldn't pay for the transport to bring John back from Chicago. No, he couldn't pay for the body to be involved, which was involved in that with only $50. And he had to take a collection up of the church, and that church still stands in Morzil. Right. So if we, you know, I don't know what concrete would have cost back in those days. But if it's, if it's anything comparable to now and relative to now, then that would have been probably chunk of money to pour, I don't know how many yards of concrete down this, the end of this grade. Exactly. So how do you, how do you suddenly afford that? And when this happened, what I understand from what Granville was telling me was two FBI agents were there when this happened. So I mean, they, they were still coming over and getting involved and stuff well after they fed, they killed him. Yeah. So, so why is that? And I do know they absolutely were still doing, I guess, I guess you could call it surveillance, but they were watching the gray side. Yeah. Because there's documented reports about the people they had seen visiting the grave, and that might be a logical thing that they were looking for, thinking that one of the gang members might come to just pay their respect. They could, you know, a fugitive would show up. Exactly. So, I mean, that's not necessarily an unreasonable thing. So that could be an explanation for that. So in my mind, let's just assume, I mean, it's funny because we, we call this digging up Dillinger, and we're talking about this together, about digging them up. But there's a chance that is just acid garbage left in that, that would be no DNA possible in that grave. That's what we're saying that someone came forward and swore under essentially a contract to say like, this is what I was told is that they came and poured acid on the body. Now, when there'd be acid scarring to the concrete, if we were able to get in there, if there was nothing left, would there be acid scarring under the concrete vault? I don't know. I don't know. And a lot of it would depend on... Let's go to CVS and grab some acid. Grab. Listen, I got some concrete too. We can just do some tests. It would depend on the amount of acid and what type it was as to how much damage would be done, obviously. Yeah. I think he said there were like loyal drums filled with acid that was poured into it. I think that's what he was said. Wow. That's a scene right out of Breaking Bad. I was going to say that is Breaking Bad 101 when they got rid of one of the drug dealers at the very start in the bathtub scene. I tell you what, if that's true, that is wild if that really did happen. But there's another, here's another question. Like we're just assuming, like, oh, his body's in there in concrete, but now we're talking about it. Oh, yeah. Remember that there's this little story that also plays in the factor that no one knows. Yeah. So it makes... Yeah, when I was there in the meeting with Crown Hill, they had no record of who put the concrete there who paid for it, where it came from, nothing. That's just so weird. That's so questionable. Because that would have been a big deal. That would... Maybe it was John. That was a unique thing. Maybe it was John Dillinger. He had the money, he could have done it. And again, it kind of goes into maybe John was working at the FBI to, like, cover this up because he wanted to get away. Yeah. And for the listeners who don't know the story, my great-grandfather was approached by a traveling circus to buy John's body to take it on the road trip and display it. And he turned it, obviously, he turned him down. But after that, that's when the concrete and all this stuff started happening. Yeah. And again, the story is, is that the father was scared to death, that someone was going to dig him up and start putting his body on display. Not necessarily an unreasonable thought, given the sensation that Dillinger was. But whoever would have done that would have instantly been a fugitive because even then it would have been just illegal to go dig up a body. And then now, I think probably we're going to know where you are because you're promoting this body. So, I understand that that might have been the father's fear, but I'm not sure how reasonable that is. It makes for a great story to explain why the concrete was done, but, you know, I just can't help in the back of my mind wonder, is that just a good cover story for something because, ultimately, somebody does not want anybody to know what's in that grave? No. But it also makes a good story as 90 years later, Travis tells us that there's people that still leave stuff at the grave side. Yes, definitely. Yeah. Women like to visit his grave and give articles of their undergarments there. So, in love letters, is that like an art? Is that like a newspaper article written about someone's undergarments? No, they leave their ball and panties and love letters and, you know, chocolates and money and, you know, all kinds of little trinkets that show their love for him. There's a long-held Dillinger, notice how I went, long-held Dillinger secret, or I guess a legendary legend that we'll go into another time because I have a very funny story about this. Yeah. Well, we're going to spend a whole episode on that. I can't believe we're going to do that, but yeah, we are going to spend a whole episode. There's that big, yes. It's that important episode that we're going to do. It's a big deal. And then we'll figure it out if it runs in the family, Travis. Whoa. We'll have to, we'll have to actually, anyway. So here's the deal, right, all this stuff about the grave, it actually leads perfectly into the next stage of the Fillmore Report, which is one of my favorite things I've ever heard in my entire life about a mystery and its letters in 1959 and 1963 that were sent to the local Indianapolis newspaper, the Indianapolis Star with somebody taking a selfie, essentially, or a mugshot of himself claiming that he was John Dillinger. Stewart, this was, this is incredible. This, this, to me, just I love how you put it at the end of the report, we've done the fingerprints, we've done like the normal, and then you got this just random thing that happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, to me, you know, so in the, in 1959, 1963, this guy that sends this selfie in, it's a selfie for the day, there used to be these little booths where you could go in and pay a quarter and it would, you know, you'd sit in front of a camera and it would spit out, I think, for like, you know, portrait-type photos of you or maybe a photo booth. Yeah, a photo booth and almost like a passport-type photo. So that's what these look like to me, especially in one of them, you can almost see the curtains that they use in those things. And what was interesting to me was when the guy, when you first look at him, to me, they look way older than Dillinger would have necessarily been at that time. This guy to me looks like he's in his 70s. I think back in those days, maybe people aged a little quicker than they do now. Yeah, there's a whole like TikTok, actually like a whole rabbit hole, you can go down on TikTok about how in the 80s and 90s, everybody looked older than they do now. Exactly. So, you know, that could be part of it, you know, I don't know. And so when I first look at the pictures, I think to myself, I just don't think that's Dillinger, you know, because actually in the 59 photo, the earlier one, he looks older to me than he does in the 63 photo. But nonetheless, I started stitching various parts of Dillinger's face against the parts of the indie star guy's face and comparing them and putting them right next to each other. And lo and behold, what I started finding was is, man, these things match up. When you really start looking close at the details of the facial characteristics and you look side by side, it was amazing to me how these things matched up with almost no, you know, you have to adjust somewhat for the sizing because, you know, the photos and the cells are a little different. But when you actually match things up, it's amazing how close things were. And again, you see the shapes of the ears there in that one, just the overall kind of shape of the face with this guy. Yeah, it's eerie. It gives me chills to look at this and see, oh my God, like this one on the bottom right. Yeah. And I mean, both of them, both of them. I mean, it's like, because the unknown male, you could tell that the color mismatch on the 59 and 63, you could tell the difference between which one was taken when. So you, you know, when you're stitching, you're obviously using the young Dillinger. But it gives me, it gives me the chills to when I look at it because I see you could like, like the one on the right looks like you, you're literally looking at John. It does. It really does. That, that looks like, you know, the right side is the young guy and the right side left side is the older guy and, but it's the same guy. You can tell it's the same guy and it is, it is uncanny how much they look alike. And then there's a similar one too, when you take the top half of the 59 guy with the bottom half of the 34 Dillinger. And again, that looks like Dillinger to me, you know, so, so then I, you know, I started comparing other things that the eyebrows, the eyebrows are very, very similar. The shapes of the eyes are very similar. The hairline is similar. You see that kind of unique Dillinger hairline with the guy. So you know, it just didn't jump out at me when you look at the pictures, you know, independently, but man, when you really started drilling down and comparing the, the individual facial characteristics, I was blown away by it. I just, I couldn't believe it. So you know, who knows it, okay, let's speculate for a second that Dillinger did get away and that this is, that this is Dillinger, you know, did he have a hard life? Was he out just doing manual labor? You know, maybe drinking hard, you know, well, he has the, he has the nose, right? Don't, isn't there a drinker's nose kind of that kind of guy here kind of has a drinker's nose going and we know too that as people age that actually the, the nose continues to grow somewhat because the nose is mainly cartilage and for some reason, I don't know maybe some of our medical listeners can explain it. But I think noses and ears tend to keep growing as we get older. So so the nose that that is one there is is the nose is a little bit off with the guys, but that could be accounted for as just through, through aging. But yeah, again, it's, it's uncanny really when you, when you compare the two. And there's almost again, there's just very, very little sizing manipulation here. Yeah, yeah, you did a great job. I'm sorry. Travis, go ahead. Sorry. Now, isn't this the same individual from California? So I, I think so, Travis, the, the quick answer to that, I haven't actually looked at that letter in a while. I think he does reference California, because if it is, we have a letter from this individual, though, sent to my grandmother, the Johnny Carson show was going to have this guy and my grandmother on Johnny Carson show and for her to tell the world, this is my brother. And my dad, I mean, my grandfather tried to convince my grandmother to do this, but also I'm like thinking now, otherwise I got older and in law enforcement. If she said it was him, he's going to jail. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. I mean, you know, the FBI is definitely going to come in and make sure he goes, go to the jail. Also, I'd like to know what happened to this guy. Did he have children and can we do DNA testing on the children? Oh, that's a great idea, Travis. We thought of that earlier. Jordan and I were talking on the phone this week and we actually thought that would be a good idea. Just grab a vein real quick. We'll throw some blood in the mail and we're just going to hit 23 and me. I, I kind of am sure I'm joking around, but I think that's a good idea to have that discussion about maybe you and your dad doing 23 of me and seeing if there's other cousins that we don't know about yet. Anyway, pause. I'll pause. Stuart, you, you respond to that. And yes, he would go to jail. You're saying? Well, my thought is, is that he may or may not go to jail, but who might go to jail would be Jager Hoover and some of the agents that that positively identified him. And now he's popping up, you know, in California. So yeah, somebody, somebody's going to be going to jail. I will say we have the envelope that was sent in. And if it was licked, we might go to get DNA off of it. Absolutely. From, from, from a stamp because a stamp would have been licked. Yes. The, the, the back flap of that envelope would have been licked. And I know, I know from a similar case in, or a similar situation in the Jack the Ripper case years ago, they, they were able to extract a DNA profile from envelopes like that that were, were it had been licked. So this, a couple of ideas, this is, this is something that we want to continue to look into as, as a podcast. We have ideas on how to investigate this a little bit further, whether we go to the Indianapolis star and we ask to see if they have anything, obviously Travis has a few artifacts that we can use to possibly do some research on. But what, what do we know about it other than this basic story of this was sent in to the Indianapolis star with a letter that said, I'm John Dillinger and I got away. And what I find interesting is it was not just sent once, it would be different if it was sent once, but this dude sent it twice. That means, that means that nobody else followed up on this lead. And, and also the Indianapolis star still had this. So they must have ran story. So I want to kind of look into the research of the newspaper to see if we go in the archives in the newspaper to find, you know, did they run this as a story? I think they did, right Stuart? They did. And I tell you what would be to me even more interesting and, and we might be able to do an even better comparison is if we could, if they might still have those original photographs, because you know, I doubt this guy, you know, probably what he sent in was the actual photograph, you know. Yeah. Did the guy ever go over and get the actual letters and photographs ever? If they did, that's not documented in the file. Because I've actually been through every single page of the existing Dillinger file. How many, how many pages does that start? Oh, I don't know. It's thousands. Yeah. It's a couple of thousands. Well, which, which is a testament that I really don't have a life, but I have been through it. And, and no, there's really, there's nothing, well, there's nothing about this, this, this, this, this guy. If any of our listeners recognizes photo operas, is this your relative? You know, Travis, I know you're saying that somewhat tongue, tongue and cheek, but, but actually, yes, this, this could be the power of having a big audience out there is that, you know, someone may see that and go, holy can only that's my grandfather. That's my great grandfather. And then, you know, we'd love to run that, that down. So yeah, please, if you recognize the guy, reach out to us, because I might be related to you when I would like to walk you to the family, because, you know, like I said, this guy's at least over age 55 that's in the picture. And you know, so somebody, somebody that's lived 55 years has encountered people and more than likely has a family. So somebody would know who this guy is. That would be the greatest start to this ever, because I mean, if we want to, if we, we just want to backtrack a little bit and just put it a little bow on it, because we have one more thing we have handwriting coming up to handwriting class handwriting 101 class with Stuart Fillmore on the digging of Dillinger podcast, we, we, if we bring it back just a little bit and we say, okay, not only do we have this picture of this, of this guy who could be the imposter, but also we've, we've talked about the ears, you know, could you look at this and see the ears difference, Stuart? I mean, could you tell in these pictures? Well, there's one, I mean, there's one, there's one close up where I stitched and unfortunately, um, I'll pull it, say, you know, the, the angle that they're facing the camera is very, very similar, but there's one where I did a close up where the ears, yeah, seem to be pretty close, pretty close. I mean, the, I'm trying to see the ridges on the inside, right? Mm hmm. And we, you know, old age, does your ear, inner ear change, like you can look at it? Look at it in context too, of where the eyebrows and the very edge of the eyes are, um, you know, all that, relatively speaking, looks, is spot on, you know, you get old and sagging in your face. You can tell the guys sagging a little bit there. You can see that and, and, you know, uh, but, but overall, the shape and the relative, uh, distance between things is, is, is exact. No dimples. Let me ask you Travis, do you think this is something that, uh, your uncle would have done? Milled in a picture in this years later? Oh, yeah. I mean, if he got away and depending on what kind of life he's living, we don't know what kind of medical conditions he was in at this time, if it was really him. I mean, if he was really maybe facing like death or something like this, he might have finally reached out to try to get ahold of the family. Um, I can see him due to one to kind of stick it to the FBI and Hoover. Yeah. Like, hey, I got away all these years. You still never found me. Yeah. Um, and this kind of his last hurrah before whatever hap, because I mean, just looking at those photos, I don't think he's maybe in the greatest health. Wasn't there always a story that when he was wanted, he was in a restaurant and some police officers came in and later he called the police station that was Matt Leach, Matt Leach. Um, yeah, John watched him eat, um, a pie and then called him and said, how that pie tastes. Yep. He's like, I could be definitely something in his, his repertoire that years later, he would send this photograph in and better. Definitely. And you know what else he did, um, early on after he had kind of started his, uh, bank robbing career in 1933 that there was still something going on called the Chicago World's Fair and he went with a, a girlfriend and, uh, ask a cop actually to take a picture with he and the girlfriend. So, uh, he, he loved doing those kind of little brazen things and just kind of, you know, having a little inside joke, uh, you know, at the, at the cops expense. So, yeah, I mean, that, that does, it kind of fits with the personality. It really does. There's a, there's a scene in the movie, uh, public enemies with Johnny Depp where he walks into a police station since we're talking about this kind of like brazen attitude. Was that true? Uh, Stewart did not that, not that I'm aware of, um, now it's a Hollywood thing. Yeah. I think, I think that was Hollywood eyes, but it's, I think it was done to show the, what we're talking about here, where he, he taunts Matt Leach, you know, he gets the cop to take the picture at the World's Fair with the girlfriend, uh, so that, that was just kind of his personality. What, you know, whether it was just as a prank or just just being a rascal, who knows, uh, you know, but he did it nonetheless. Yeah. He didn't shy from the public at all. I mean, during this time, I mean, when we were talking about him being brazen and being out there in the public, he was going to Chicago Cubs, Cubs games. So, I mean, he didn't hide it. People didn't recognize him. Yeah. Yeah. He looked like a regular Joe. I mean, in the, in the, in one of the TikTok videos out there is public enemies. It's, it's Johnny Depp in the movie theater and they're saying, if you see disc with this gang, look to your left, look to your right. Everybody. Yep. Like that's like, he didn't get recognized even then in the movie. But like, I'm, you know, I'm saying the point is, you know, it'd be, it'd be easy to blend in back then, be a little harder today and remember the FBI was surveilling the farmhouse when he showed up in April 34 and they didn't do anything when they were literally right across the street. No. Yeah. I, I'm assuming they didn't, they, you know, they didn't know he was there. Yeah. He's not on the property. He did. Well, he did. We know that he snuck on the property and we pretty much know the, the path that he did. But, you know, they, they, they just didn't know he was there. Yeah. It's just, you know, and he was there for three days. So it's hard to say how effective their surveillance was or how good they were at it. Would somebody try to make this up? Would someone send their picture in and say, I'm John Dillinger, making it up? Absolutely. I mean, you know, we, we have, this is documented. People claim to be people that they aren't. It's, you know, happened in almost probably any famous case that there's somebody that's claimed to be Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid, you know, several others that were, were people want to be famous and, you know, if I take the identity of a famous person that is dead and, you know, it's even more glamorous or more sensational to say, Hey, you know, I'm alive. I made it. Do they claim that, you know, people claim to be John or famous people, they claim to be related to him. Yes. So in fact, a famous case of where someone claimed to be a famous person that I think we didn't really go into this, but in the discussion about the ears that the, the daughter of the Russian czar that was killed in 1917, a lady a few years later surfaced. I think in Paris claiming to be Anastasia, the daughter of, of Nicholas the czar of Russia. And I think many people believed her for several years. And I think ultimately one of the ways that they found out that's not hers, they, someone studied the ears of this woman and those of, of the known pictures of Anastasia. And it turns out this lady was, was an imposter. So not only have people, you know, fakes being famous people like that, but they've done it through this identification of the ears. You heard it Joe on this podcast. Yeah. Would you say I said, you heard it first here, the imposter and again, the ears do not match. No, I can emphatically say the ears do not match. I've tried to figure out a reasonable way that that could have happened. Maybe through the autopsy, but basically the way that the scalp is cut open during an autopsy really don't affect the ears that much. They kind of work around that could have been, and you know, is really the only plausible thing I can find to explain why the ears don't match. And when you say the ears don't match, you're talking about the body and the morgue and pictures of Dillinger. Correct. Yes. Not the guy that sent this into the newspaper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I got up. We got up on that, but you know, I can see a little resemblance of him and my great-grandfather. I mean, just a little bit of family resemblance there of how they aged, even a little bit of Hubert, how Hubert looked when he was pictures I had seen of him over, so I can see some family resemblance there. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Did you send, did you send me a picture of your great-grandfather? Um... I have one. Because I think that's something to hold up to the candle here, like, hey, you kind of age this, you know, you're similar to your father, like your great-grandfather and your great-uncle, you know, would they have looked similar in their old age? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, my great-grandfather's face was a little sunken in, but again, during the Great Depression, food wasn't that great. Medical wasn't great. The guy, what the-this guy, claiming to be John, could have had a better life of living, but just some of the, I don't know, just wrinkles in just the way he looks, kind of resembles John Sr. I'm gonna see if I can pull up the John Sr. picture. I'm pretty sure I got it here. Let's see if I can do it real quick. So the other thing is, we're-do we know, like, the address or where this came from steward at all, like, the letter that was sent to the Indianapolis Star, do we know anything about who sent or where it came from? So again, I'm just not remembering at the moment the specifics about that. I think Travis, I think, is right. I do remember something, Stump Connection about California, but I just don't remember specifically about it. I'm getting the picture here. We're gonna share it with everybody. If you're watching it on YouTube, here you go. I just actually kind of did it, checked it myself, and it is an interesting resemblance. Yes. Okay, let's see if that looks- I can't share it right at the moment, but you guys see it right? There you go. Yeah, and by the way, that is Travis' grandmother right there. Yep, that is my grandmother, Francis. So, do you guys think, based on the picture, I mean, we were looking at it and I can't really pull it upside this aside, but, like, does that, does the old guy from 1950s and '60s look like the great- What, yeah, we'll keep our listeners, we'll tease them for next episode, I'll do a comparison and stitch those together, and we'll get it side by side with that. Stuart, if you can definitely find a good close-up picture of my grandfather. I already got one. Just the way how, you know, the age of him, my grandfather, and this guy held their eyebrows droop a little bit to the age, that's what resembled, that's what stood out to me is resembling him. Okay. Yeah, no, we'll definitely do that. And let me ask you this question, why would this guy send the letter to the Indianapolis paper? And why wouldn't he mail it to the Chicago paper, or mail it to the Chicago field office of the FBI, or mail it to Hoover them himself in Washington, D.C.? Why do you pick that particular newspaper? Couldn't tell you. I mean- Maybe they'll make that hometown connection. Yeah, right. Because again, I mean, he did grow up in Marshall, but he's originally from Indianapolis, and that would have been- Yeah, but that was- The indie star would have been the top newspaper to do it in. Maybe because he thought those are the only people that really care anymore, but I see your point, Todd, like, if you know, you're going to get Hoover arrested, and he sent it to the FBI or- Yeah, whatever the motive might be, you would think he would want to get to the biggest audience possible, so it's a good point, Todd. But if he would have just sent it to the FBI, say he would have just sent it to the FBI and FBI only, not to my grandmother, not to the news, the world would have never known about this. No, they would have just thrown it in the trash. This is a crank. And for all we know, he might have sent it there. Yeah. Very true. What living relatives did he have in that year, besides your grandmother? I'm trying to think, my grandmother Doris, her sister, and I'm trying to think when he repasked. Actually, hold on, I will tell you- But you said that they did receive a letter from a person from California? It was to my grandmother, Francis, yes, to try- What year was that? I'm thinking that was in the '60s or the '70s. I mean, whenever Johnny Carson was on air. Well, that was a long time, so that- It would have been in the earlier years of when Johnny Carson was. I mean, my father still lived at home, so it had have been early. Todd, let me throw this in, we didn't mention this earlier, but this might, we'll get your input on this. So this guy sent the letters not just to the indie star, but he also sent them to a guy named Emil Winotka, Jr. and maybe he may pronounce that "amal", but it's EMIL Winotka, Jr. And who that is, that's the son of the owner of the Little Bohemia Lodge, where the Dillinger gang had had the famous shootout, where the whole gang got away after being surrounded, FBI kills a civilian. Why would this guy have sent this to Winotka, again, I don't know, it's an interesting question. And Todd Hubert, his brother, died in 1974, so he would have been alive. So he would have had three of his siblings still alive that he could have mailed letters to. Yes. But he didn't choose to do that. He does choose to sent one to my grandmother. Your grandmother and not Hubert, that we don't, that we know of. That we know of, yes. And then, I just, to me, if those letters existed, that would be a big indication of like, importance. He always talked about how important his family was versus some guy in Little Bohemia. He sent a letter to Johnny Carson. So Johnny Carson got it, Watnika got it, Stark got it, and my grandmother got one. Which makes sense, which makes sense, because my memory of those days when you had those photo booths, I think there were four pictures that came out in this little strip, and you could cut each one of them. It was either four or five, but I think it was four. So that actually makes sense. And also the thought, though, to continue on our TikTok stuff, there were comments that people come, that rumors that John was seen with the sister after he was killed, right? Just random theories. Why would he send it to people who already knew he was alive? Why would you send it to your sisters, they already know I'm alive. I only have four photos from this photo booth. I got to make my decisions pretty good. Right. Well, maybe he broke contact for a very long time from the family. I mean, you can think, grandma, was only 12 when he supposedly died, you know. Allegedly. Allegedly died, and the only people that visited after that was Billy Versett, you know, Hubert hanging around. Would he had only notified the older members of the family like his brother and then broke contact? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I think there's a lot of significance to go behind him sending them where he sent the letters. Because like you said, like from an imposter perspective, imposter of an imposter, right? Like he's pretending to be a guy who got away, I just am interested, I'd love to learn, I try to dive down into why that person sent those letters to those four locations. Again, although the resemblance, you know, when you really stitch those and compare those facial characteristics together is compelling, my thought is this is a lot. This is most likely, you know, an imposter on this thing. Yeah. Again, just like the fingerprints where you have the two fingerprints, you know, two fingers of the dead guy and the known Dylan's your fingerprints on at least one of the fingers is absolute match, then you have another set of fingers where there's, I couldn't find anything that match. Just like that, in this situation, we have the guy's signature that he sent it in. Damn, if it's not very similar to Dylan's your signature, and then when you drill down into some of the specific handwriting characteristics, that Dylan's your had a very unique way of writing a five and a two, and if those don't absolutely match is uncanny. So again, it's just these things just, you know, when is it a coincidence too far, you know, you know, when you say in this thing? And you know, and I'm thinking here Stuart too, when the escape from Alcatraz, the brothers, didn't a letter show up at the FBI authored by one of them and the FBI held that for like years. They did. Yeah. They got sure did. So again, Dylan's your could have wrote throughout the 40s and the 50s. Yep. To the FBI and the FBI. Yes. Well, let's face it. I mean, this would have been ruined for J. Edgar Hoover if it had been revealed that Dillinger was alive because they had staked their professional career or he had staked his professional career on it, you know, by so emphatically saying we got him the fingerprints proved it. It's our science, our, you know, our methods, our techniques, we always get our man. And so he built that whole propaganda, public relations, you know, brand on Dillinger. And so it would have been ruinous. So yeah, if this all, you know, again, to speculate, but if this, if there was an imposter, you got away, Dillinger's taunting them or sending them letters, you can bet your bottom dollar that they're not going to reveal that. I pulled up the letters, the signature in the handwriting. Yeah. So, okay. So if you see the on the right, you see the 25 there, I know in looking at some Dillinger wrote a lot of letters home when he was in the penitentiary for nine years. And in looking at those, I found that Dillinger wrote a very interesting five. And that is that, that top line of a five that goes, goes horizontally across, he, there was an exaggerated length to that top line, top bar, whatever you call it, making a five. And in the unknown guy in the 63 or 60 59 63 guy, the letter writer, we see that same characteristic of that long stroke on that upper line of the five. And then the, if you look at the twos, a very, very similar shape of the twos and how they're formed. See, I'm not a handwriting expert and that doesn't look very similar to me. Okay. So, you know, let me, let me clarify too. I'm not either. I'm not either. Oh. And I'll, I'll even tell you that about a case where I was, was, had done some, some of my own handwriting analysis and I thought that I had it dead on and I interviewed somebody and really, you know, accused her of a lot of things and being a liar and so forth. And she denied that, no, that's, it looks like she said, oh, it looks like my handwriting, but it's not. And it turns out it wasn't her handwriting. So it is, it's not an exact science at all, you know, fingerprints are way more exact than, than handwriting handwriting is very, very subjective. And all we can do is just point out some similar characteristics. And, but like I said, that five is, is unique and, and Dillinger definitely did that. Interesting too. Uh, when we get into talking about the map, you see that same characteristic on the map that we dug up that, uh, of the, of the making this unique, uh, shape of a five. I still, I still can't believe that those sentences are strung together, the map that we dug up, I went to, I went, I'm telling people about this. Obviously it's part of my job. I travel around the state and do things. And long story short, I told somebody about this, I was like, Hey, we're going to, we're going to look this up. And they're like, she's like, yeah, I don't believe you. I was like, you don't believe me. You don't believe you don't believe that I have a map. And she goes, no, not, not in the slightest. I think you're totally lying. I was like, okay. Okay. That's, that's awesome. I mean, that's what, that's what Hollywood thought. I mean, it would face that was absolutely Hollywood's reaction. And the, and the numbers in, in there, I'm excited to, to look at too, because it, you know, the map analysis is going to be big for us. Um, okay, real quick, I'm going to stop, I'm going to stop sharing the, the, the film work report. So there's one more thing in the film or report and we can kind of cover it on the beginning in the next episode. It's an alfini letter, unless you want to do it now real quick. Do you want to just hit the last point? We got seven minutes. Okay. Um, why don't let's hold this one over. Okay. So, uh, because, you know, to me, this, this is a real mystery too. I, I don't, I don't, I don't have a definitive answer for what this, this means, but we could set it up and describe who, who this guy was and what this letter is. Um, and we'll let the listeners decide. That's, yeah. We'll just, we'll just leave it to the next time. But it is, it is, man, it's, it's just one, another one of these things that you, when you add this all together, it just makes you wonder, man, what, what's going on here? Let's, let's solve this damn things definitively we, and we have the science and technology to do it. How we as amateurs kind of have the, and I'm, I'm, me, I'm an amateur. You guys are not amateurs. You guys are professional investigators, literally private investigators. Uh, what I'm saying is let's, let's just wrap up, uh, what we talked about real quick for everybody. We went over the, the grave a lot more than I anticipated this today. And then we also went into this imposter theory and then a little bit of the handwriting. Um, what this leaves us is more question. It's like exactly. Yes. I'm stump steward. That's where you end up. It's about the time that I get ready to say, you know what, it is Villinger, the FBI got their man and then I'll say, yeah, but what about those ears or, you know, what about when you look at those letters, what about those letters? What about that guy when you look at the, you know, the shapes of his eyes and the shapes of his ears and all that when you start looking at that stuff, then I start going, man, you know, it's, it puts these questions in my mind that I said, if, if I were the case agent, I would not want these questions lingering. I would want this stuff answered. There's, there's meat on that bone there is a lot of meat on that bone. We have a lot of, uh, we have other, uh, other avenues as well. We call it digging up, Villinger, but like, like we just saw tonight, there, there are multiple lanes that we could go down to help prove that's him or not. Some are more definitive. I, I even think like maybe digging him up isn't the first move or like the number one thing on our list versus maybe, you know, running into someone who's like, Oh, this was my grandmother's handkerchief who got the blood at the, you know what I'm saying? Like, no, yes, if, if we could find a, uh, a known sample of Dillinger's DNA, which we don't have, so we don't have that, but if, if we could get a known sample of the, of, uh, a profile of the, of John Dillinger's DNA, we have something that we could compare it to that almost certainly would solve this without ever doing an examination. This is where we will definitely need to rely on our viewers, our followers. If you have any evidence, any letter, anything that you think would help this case reach out to us, because we would, we really want it. We really need the help. We've been working on this for years and we're kind of just turning the wheel here and there's stuff out there. I know there's got to be stuff out there because when grandma passed stuff down after she passed away, we are still uncovering new clues in all of our Dillinger artifacts that we have. I would like to find that Johnny Carson letter. Yeah. I can't imagine that people would throw that out, like Johnny Carson's team would be like, yeah, get rid of this, like, because it's kind of evidence. I don't know. Well, they probably didn't take it seriously. They probably, like I said, when you first look at the, at the picture of the guy, you just think, this is an old man that doesn't look like Dillinger, you know, and, and just throw it in the trash, but that's, that's just, you know, it's a thought about what, what could have recently happened. We're going to continue looking into all the avenues on how we do this. We love that you listen, yeah, comment, like, share, subscribe, please, please tell other people about this and keep sharing the stories. Part of this community and what brings us all together is that somebody knows some, somebody has somebody who knew something or something happened to them related to John Dillinger, especially here in the Hoosier state, like, it's crazy how many people are like, Oh, my grandmother said she saw him when she was doing this, like, you know, the, I think, I think that connects us all. And I think we got to continue that too. And also let's just solve this thing too. Like I just wonder if we were in a bit, let's, let's figure this out. You guys have been great, Travis, Stewart, Todd, you're going to be off a couple episodes here coming up, but we love you guys and, and, and thanks everybody for listening and keep digging. The digging of Dillinger podcast is produced by Joe Mololo and Grace Hodge, the music produced by Eddie Bandis. Follow us on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. Until next time, keep digging. [MUSIC] [ Silence ]