John Herbert Dillinger: A Brief Biography

Salvatore Lucania was born on November 24, 1897 in Sicily, Italy; almost ten years later, he began a new life of crime and prosperity in New York City’s lower east side. Upon arrival, he could not speak english; he bullied the other kids into paying him for protection and participated in drug dealing. One day, Lucania was abducted, beaten, stabbed, and left for dead; miraculously, he survived. This rather fortunate recovery led him to become known as Lucky Luciano (“Lucky Luciano Biography.com.” Edited by Biography.com, The Biography.Com website, A&E Television Networks, 17 June 2015, www.biography.com/people/lucky-luciano -9388350). In 1916, he became the leader of the Five Points Gang and continued to make a name for himself. During these early years, Luciano was in and out of jail-- mostly for getting caught dealing drugs.

The Obituary states that John Wayne Gacy was born on March 17th, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois and he spent most of his youth in a small house with his mother, two sisters, and a violent alcoholic father. As John grew up, his long downward spiral towards alcohol abuse, drug habits, and the death of over 30 teenage boys began to rise after his first arrest and sentence of 10 years for sodomizing a young man and the divorce of his first wife in 1968. After serving only 18 months of his 10 years sentence, John was settled back into his old surroundings in Chicago, which where John made a name for himself as the local party clown “Pogo”. Soon after the gratified “Pogo The Clown” made headlines as “The Killer Clown of

When we think of the mafia and gangs, one name comes to mind, Al Capone. Al Capone, also known as Scarface, was an infamous mafia leader who was active in Chicago during the Prohibition era. Having committed numerous criminal deeds and being the man behind countless murders, Capone was finally arrested for tax evasion . Now, you might ask, “How was he able to commit all these violent deeds without being imprisoned?” Well, we first have to go to the beginning of Capone’s life.

During the period of prohibition, from 1920 to 1933, the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol was made illegal, through the Volstead act of 1919, leading to the first and only time an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed. Throughout this time in American history gangsters were common and were constantly increasing in every city but one in particular stood out from all the others making a significant impact on American history. Scarface, Alphonse Capone or more commonly known as Al Capone; who was the most infamous gangster, taking advantage of the era of Prohibition, ran an organized crime association in Chicago during the 1920s. He was responsible for over 500 murders; he had 700 men under his control and earned $60 million a year for bootlegging. Capone, who was glamorised in media and shown as charitable to the helpless was also controlling and violent and became an iconic figure of the successful American gangster who insisted he was just ‘supplying the public demand’.

Jimmy Hoffa was a very powerful leader and president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehouseman, and Helpers of America, whose mysterious disappearance, suspected of being Mafia connected, on July 30, 1975 has never been solved. Hoffa was a major figure in the Supermob, the go-betweens of the upper world and the mafia world. As the Teamster president, Jimmy had two very important voters: his members and the gangsters that helped him move up the ladder to union success. Hoffa served his gangster associates by writing them into Teamster union power and Teamster union pension-fund cash. In his Supermob role, Hoffa did more to expand the affluence of the gangs and knit them into the fabric of American life

Al Capone, who was born in New York in 1899, was one of the most prominent gangsters in America in the 1920s. He was the son of Italian immigrants, and after leaving school at a young age, became a small-time criminal. Known as ‘Scarface,’ he had links to the leader of the Five Points Gang, Johnny Torrio, and moved to Chicago in 1920, where he gradually rose through the ranks as a partner in saloons, gambling and brothels. They moved their operations to Illinois after an offer to work with Jim Colosimo, a central figure in Chicago’s brothel business. Gang rivalry heated up after a dispute between Torrio and Colosimo over whether to begin in the bootlegging business, and in 1920, Colosimo was murdered allegedly by Al Capone. After this, Torrio’s criminal empire expanded massively throughout Chicago, before leaving in 1925 and handing over operations to Capone. After taking over, Capone expanded operations even further, and was able to control Chicago’s Mayor, ‘Big Bill’ Thompson and fix his elections. A local newspaper from the time reported

On June 22nd 1903 John Herbert Dillinger was born to John and Mollie Dillinger . His parents ran and owned a grocery store in Indianapolis, Indiana, and at the age of three his mother died . John Dillinger’s father described his son as a “restless and aggressive” child . Beginning from a young age, the dark side of Dillinger became evident, as he created and led a gang called ‘The Dirty Dozen’ . The worst criminal act the ‘Dirty Dozen’ participated in consisted of stealing coal from the nearby railroad . As Dillinger grew older, so did the intensity of his crimes. In his teenage years Dillinger stole a car to impress a girl, and when caught he fled to the navy. According to John he was “discharged” from the navy, but records say he

John Wayne Gacy Jr. was a man of rare form. He grew up in Chicago, Illinois, raised by his mother and father. John and his mother were very close. However, his dad was not a good person. His dad would frequently drink and would beat him. His mother knew that this kind of activity went on but she never did anything because she herself was afraid of her husband and what he was capable of during his rages under the influence of alcohol.John Wayne Gacy Jr. was a brilliant man by the score of his IQ test, but you wouldn’t

Stunned by the harsh sentence, Dillinger became a tortured, bitter man in prison” (“Famous Cases,” n.d). On May 10, 1933, after serving eight-and-a-half years of his sentence, he was released on parole, where his life quickly continued to revolve around trouble. Dillinger and his gang committed several robberies, murders, and jailbreaks, causing Dillinger to be known for evoking the Gangster Era that ended on July 22, 1934, the night he was pronounced dead at Alexian Brothers Hospital after being shot three times by police officers in the alley by the Biograph Theater (“Famous Cases,” n.d).

The 1920s was a “time of great criminal activity, with prohibition laws in America and the world in an economic depression” (Nash, 1). Organized criminals such as American mobsters thrived during this time. Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger were the most well-known of the gangsters at the time, many of the common people looked to these criminals as “heroes”. There were a tremendous amount of people who turned to criminal activity; mostly because jobs were scarce and

The 1920s was a very eventful time period for the US crime scene. With the emergences of major crime bosses like Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Charles Luciano, and others there was much to be done in the crime world. Charles “Lucky” Luciano (born as Salvatore Lucania) would become a key player in the reshaping and modernization of the mafia and the crime world. Young Luciano would show signs of pursuing a criminal career. His parents and family however disapproved of their son’s action and career path and essentially exiled him, respecting his family’s wishes he would later change his name from Salvatore Lucania to Charles Luciano. He also by the age of 10 he involved extortion, and thievery. Upon his arrest for the distribution of drugs in 1915, the police would offered to release him if he would tell them what he knew about the mob, Luciano however refused to talk due to the Sicilian code of silence, this action would vastly considered pivotal in fast tracking his career in

Imagine, a time when law enforcement agents could only watch a criminal walk away. A time when they were unable to return fire in a gunfight. A time when no means for tracking criminals existed. A time when a state line stood as impassible as a great wall for law enforcement. There was a time, when men created legends with their criminal exploits, by name of John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson. They stood unopposed, taking what they wished on a whim. In 1924, a young man, years short of 30, was put in charge of an agency with no bite. By the end of his life, J. Edgar Hoover was the most powerful man in America, at the head of one of the most powerful organizations in America. He held more power than the very presidents of

John Joseph Gotti, Jr. was born on October 27, 1940. He was the fifth child of eleven children. His parents were John J. Gotti Sr. and Fannie Gotti. John Gotti's father was believed to be a hardworking immigrant from the Neapolitan section of Italy, though Gotti would later describe his father as a New Jersey native who has never set foot in Italy and never worked a day in his life to provide for the family. The Gotti family grew up in the slums of the South Bronx. Although Gotti denies it, his father worked hard to move them out of the poor neighborhoods. John J. Gotti Sr., after much perseverance, later moved his family to the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood. However, after living in Sheepshead Bay for about a year, the Gotti

John Elgin Johnson made his first appearance into a DCJIS database on November 23, 1935 in Rapid City, South Dakota. He was arrested for larceny at the age of 16, but instead of being put in jail, the judge granted him probation. This was simply a starting platform for John Elgin Johnson “The Criminal” to blossom. Three months prior to John Johnson’s first arrest once again he was seen wearing silver cuffs in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Febuaray 2, 1936. On this occasion he was charged with breaking and entering and sentenced to 18 months to two years in jail, but he only actually ended up serving 11 months.

Luciano’s interest in crime started at the age of 4. He was born by the name of Salvatore Lucania in Sicily, Italy 1897 (Lucky Luciano). He was born in a peaceful city yet lived a life as a criminal. Luciano migrated to America in 1906. Luciano did not know how to read nor write English (Lucky Luciano). Moreover his unwillingness to learn and lack of education probably led to his life of crime. In 1907, Luciano was logged for his first arrest for shoplifting. During the same year, Luciano began a racketing business he offered small jewish children protection. One kid refused to pay so Luciano beat him up the kid (Meyer Lansky) stood his ground and gained respect from Luciano (Sifakis). Meyer and Luciano became best friends after that (Sifakis). It seemed like Luciano could be easily impressed.