Four years later the John Milius film, Dillinger, featuring Michele Phillips in the role of Frechette was released. Together they went dancing, to the movies, and to the amusement park. The FBI believes that Ms. Frechette said this to get sympathy during her trial. She spent two years in jail, getting out in 1936. Although she later claimed that she had nothing to do with Sage's plan, the D.O.I. According to FBI reports, Dillinger had no last words. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. "Oh, my God," Purvis said, then turned and shouted to his agents to stop firing at the lodge, but this did not happen for several minutes. documentary chronicles the shootout at the At the age of 18, she moved to Chicago to be closer to her sister. Part 3 of 3, this installment of the In the 1930s, a legendary bank robber Sage said she would call him at the first opportunity. That night Audett drove Dillinger west to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where he, indeed, did meet and marry an young Indian girl. we learned that in April of 1934, Warner Brothers began showing a newsreel about Dillinger's criminal life and the ongoing hunt for him in hopes of sparking some tips. . O n this day, Jan. 13, in 1969, Evelyn "Billie" Frechette, best known for her relationship with the bank robber John Dillinger in the early 1930s, died at age 61. Nash informs me he stands behind his two books on the subject, and may have met the real Dillinger many years later. A biography of thenotoriousJohn Herbert Dillinger family life, hometown, criminal activities, relationships and more. He looked after me and bought me all kinds of jewelry and cars and pets, and we went places and saw things, and he gave me everything a girl wants. While the other girlfriends drank hard liquor, Dillinger refused to give Frechette any,. What Purvis did that night set in motion what later happened at the Biograph Theater three months later. Will there never be an end to this? Hamilton wrote that Dillinger was generous and considerate; "he never liked to hurt anyone's feelings." morgue deceased. The two immediately hit it off despite Dillinger regardless of his criminal ventures. The producers of that film would have been better served if Moe Howard was still alive and had been cast in that role--he would have been far more entertaining! For four years, she attended a boarding school for Native Americans in Flandreau, South Dakota. No. "Is that your money or the bank's," he asked the farmer. In real life, Winstead was one of three FBI agents who shot at Dillinger that night. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). When he saw that face, Purvis gasped and blurted to himself (but heard by several persons, including a reporter) "That doesn't look like Dillinger." My Answer Man received a question asking if crime expert Jay Robert Nash still holds the theory that John Dillinger was not killed by the FBI in front of the Biograph Theater on July 24, 1934. She served two years in federal prison, and was released in 1936. Watch the Manhattan Melodrama movie She lived on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin until the age of 13. Why he gave me the name Puente, California, I do not know, but I went there and met a man who talked to me while we both stood in a dark room. Other people said she chose the name "Billie" after hearing of her son's untimely death. Hamilton fled to her workplace, and went drinking with a friend of hers. After Dillinger's death, she sold her story toTrue Confessions,True Romance, and theChicago Herald and Examiner. "The pair remained together until Frechette was arrested by the Feds on April 9, 1934. and tried to help him. morgue photo is shown towards the end of Yes. On October 12, 1933, former inmates Harry 'Pete' Pierpont, Russell Clark and Charles Makley posed as police officers and walked into the Ohio jail. There were dozens of other people I interviewed in covering that story, including Russell Clark, the last of the Dillinger gang released from prison (like Audett, dying of cancer). Also It was twenty some hours after the shooting that Purvis told Hoover on the phone that "there are some serious problems with the case" and that he was not sending in his report the usual way, but would personally bring it to Washington to deliver it to Hoover. moustache are shown. What is the net worth of Billie Frechette, 404 Error, content does not exist anymore. Myth #1: Dillinger died expressing his love for Billie Frechette. googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; Evelyn "Billie" Frechette was born in 1907 to a French father and a Native American mother. Every time the publicity conscious FDR read another story about Dillinger-and that was almost every day-he called Hoover, asking: "What are you doing about this man?". A riveting account of the event that helped give rise to the modern American militia movement. Dillinger and Frechette reunited in Chicago after Dillinger escaped from prison in Crown Point, Indiana. ", "Oh, no," I replied, "other than arranging a conspiracy and executing an innocent man, not a bit.". Let's get the hell out of here." "Public Enemy #1". However, she went public because she believed the government was not keeping its bargain. Sage, the legendary "Woman in Red," was actually wearing an orange skirt and white blouse. criminal life and death of John Dillinger, Facing Fear depicts the true story of Evelyn (Billie) Frechette, the beloved companion of John Dillinger. [3] She was arrested on April 9, 1934 for allowing him to hide in her St. Paul, Minnesota, apartment and for obstruction of justice. According to Melvin Purvis's obituaries, he shot himself through the jaw with a .45 caliber automatic pistol in the upstairs hallway of his Florence, South Carolina home on February 29, 1960. Dillinger had an agreement with fellow inmate Harry 'Pete' Pierpont to help prisoners escape after he was paroled in exchange for being in Pierpont's gang once they were out. Born in Romania in 1892, she immigrated to America in 1909 with her first husband, Michael Chiolak. The photo below displays an image of the real Billie Frechette and actress Marion Cotillard. documentary chronicles Dillinger's movie is best known for being the film Billie Frechette's father died when she was eight years old. Frechette continued to struggle in order to make ends meet, doing housework and waitressing to pay the bills. In early July, Purvis was approached by Sergeant Martin Zarkovich, a crooked cop with the East Chicago, Indiana Police Department (whom I met three decades later and who had a strong inclination to shoot me). In early 1928 she gave birth to a baby boy, but as an unwed mother felt she was compelled to give the child up. This brought them into contact with more than a few gangsters, one of which was John Dillinger. From what he said I though then and do now that he could have been that man. Her father was French and her Mother was Menominee. Despite her protests, Dillinger went to the prison to see if he could plan a rescue attempt. cordial to one another is shown. Purvis talked with Zarkovich about this and Zarkovich, acting as if amazed and that he himself had been duped by that conniving Anna Sage (sure) helped Purvis out by providing a planted fingerprint card with Dillinger's prints on them (a Chicago Police Department fingerprint card no less, not an FBI card), which Purvis marked in his own handwriting "FBI" as if the prints had been taken by FBI agents of the dead man (none were ever taken as the physicians and the coroner's people told me-and they were in charge of that body). Frechette is known to have been involved with Dillinger for about six months, until her arrest and imprisonment in 1934. Frechette, who had met Dillinger in 1933, was charged with harboring the fugitive in her apartment. Behind the wheel, his face almost shot away and dead, was a third man. Purvis stood outside the theater with a cigar in his mouth and, when he saw Sage, Hamilton and their "man" leave the theater at about 10:20 p.m., he lit that cigar, which was his prearranged signal to Zarkovich that the trio were approaching him. On July 21, 1934, Anna contacted the FBI looking to receive a cash reward and protection from deportation by aiding in his capture. Frechette is known to have been involved with Dillinger for about six months, until her arrest and imprisonment in . She was arrested and served two years in prison for harboring a criminal. When the newly-elected FDR read about the Greencastle story, he called Hoover and said: "This man Dillinger is becoming a national hero, a Robin Hood. Purvis, for the moment, not Hoover, was the hero of the hour-a very brief bitter hour, indeed. She died at the age of 61 on January 13, 1969, on Shawano, Wisconsin after battling cancer. She paid dearly for this action which resulted in her being arrested on April 9, 1934, on the charge of harboring a criminal in her Minnesota apartment. His "ace" agent had killed an innocent man in April 1934 in the FBI's frantic attempt to capture Dillinger, and the same "ace" did the same thing three months later in July 1934. It's only when Billie Frechette enters his life, that obvious reasons he starts to have even the idea that there's something beyond the immediate right now. She died of cancer on January 13, 1969, at age 61 in Shawano, Wisconsin. The 90s saw Sherilyn Fenn in the role, and in Johnny Depps 2008 film DILLINGER, she was played by French actress, Marion Cotillard. It was during this time that she met and married Welton Sparks. -PBS. But their marriage was short-lived due to the fact that Spark was sentenced to serve 15 years at Leavenworth on the charge of robbing drugstores' postal substations. Evelyn Frechette - Wikipedia Her work helped lay the foundation for modern codebreaking today. After having agents posted at both locations, Dillinger was seen entering the Biograph Theatre on Lincoln Avenue where. Enemies movie trailer for the Michael Mann She said, "There was something in those eyes that I will never forget. Mary Evelyn "Billie" Frechette (September 15, 1907 - January 13, 1969) was an American Menominee singer, waitress, convict, and lecturer known for her personal relationship with the bank robber John Dillinger in the early 1930s. Yes. about the 1930s gangster who robbed banks At the age of 25, she tied the knot with Welton Walter Spark on August 2, 1932. celebrity. Yes. Cherrington later said that he started "crying like a baby.". Evelyn "Billie" Frechette was born in 1907 to a French father and a Native American mother. Frechette's father died when she was only 8 years old, leaving her mother to raise Frechette and her four brothers and sisters on her own. After her release, she wrote a booklet about her experience. while her boyfriend and fugitive, John Dillinger, watched helplessly nearby on April 9, 1934. Billie Frechette - Dillinger's Girl Wisconsinology Kelly was captured by Memphis, Tennessee police detective sergeant William Raney, who slipped into Kelly's bedroom on the night of September 26, 1933, put an automatic to the kidnapper's head and awoke him with a nudge of that cold instrument. Dillinger's mother died when he was three and he was seeking maternal affection and everything that a man gets from a woman, and his only mode of courtship was caring; was . The shootout actually occurred at the Lincoln Court Apartments in St. Paul, Minnesota where John Dillinger and Billie Frechette were living as Mr. and Mrs. Carl Hellman. She married and returned to the Menominee Indian Reservation, where she was born, for a quieter life in her later decades. That was Hoover's invention. Appearing too friendly with Dillinger in photos and, Despite this being a memorable scene in the John Dillinger movie. price of $10,000 on Dillinger's head. At the age of 18, she moved to Chicago to be closer to her sister. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. On the night of March 30, 1934, the FBI set up surveillance on the apartment and the next morning they knocked on the door. Yes. Frechette was unable to complete divorce proceedings before her imprisonment and Dillinger's subsequent death. Listen below to stories about history, people, culture, art, and the environment in the Northwoods that go a little deeper than a traditional news story allows us to do. Dangerous dames and good-time gals -- Chicago Tribune He vowed to kill the agent in charge of her interrogation after she testified that she had been beaten and deprived of food for two days. Sage, Hamilton and their "man" showed up at the Biograph, and this WAS THE FIRST TIME Purvis or anyone in the FBI ever saw that man-when he arrived at the theater and went inside-and it was then that Purvis kept his promise to Zarkovich and had him come to the Biograph from the Marlboro. "[2] Frechette returned to the Menominee Reservation, where she had two subsequent marriages. document.documentElement.className += 'js'; Dillinger was shot in the leg during the skirmish with police, and Frechette drove him to the doctor. trailer for the 1934 film starring actors Parents: William Frechette and Mary LaBelle William Frechette was born September 23, 1887 in Marinette, Wisconsin and died in April 4,1916. There was NOTHING haphazard or slipshod about that autopsy since the physicians had already told Purvis that the corpse was most likely not that of John Dillinger. She served two years in prison, then toured the country with Dillinger's family for five years on the "Crime Doesn't Pay" show. Evelyn Frechette was released from prison in 1936 and for five years earned a living on the Crime Did Not Pay speaking tour. Chief In 1932 she married Welton Spark, a career criminal who was sent to Leavenworth Penitentiary immediately after the wedding. Upon her. The senior Dillinger had the corpse dug up and concrete mixed with metal, and wire poured in slabs below, above, at the sides and completely around the casket as it was reinterred. In November of that year, she met John Dillinger at a dance hall. var googletag = googletag || {}; When "Big Bill" died, Sage took over the management of the East Chicago brothel where she had been working. Let them have it!". fingerprints with acid. Then the lights in the lodge went out and the agents started firing into the lodge, shooting out the windows on the first and second floors. She attended a mission school on the reservation, and then was sent to a government boarding school for Indians in South Dakota. When she was 18, Frechette . At the age of 18, she moved to Chicago, Illinois, to be closer to her sister. "All right," Zarkovich told Purvis, "I will go to the Marlboro with some of your agents and wait there. At the time, Sage was facing deportation charges as an "alien of low moral character." After a few years, she moved to be near her sister in Chicago when she was 18. Popular culture likes to play up the "eternal romance" between Dillinger and Frechette, but evidence shows that they. William Powell, Clark Gable and Myrna Loy. and criminal ways of America's original The boy died within three months. Frechette met John Dillinger at a cabaret in November 1933. -PBS, During her trial, the real Billie Frechette testified that she was slapped and deprived of food and water for two days during her interrogation (PBS). As a young girl, she attended St. Anthony's Catholic Mission School in Neopit, Wisconsin, and in her early teens she was taken from her family and culture and placed in boarding school at Flandreau, South Dakota. Frechette served two years in federal prison for harboring a criminal. This John Dillinger movie stars She lived on the Menominee Reservation in Keshena, Wisconsin until she was 13. Will four fishermen take down the administrative state? Frechette served two years in federal prison for harboring a criminal and it was there that she learned of Dillinger's death. Purvis bought that story and met with Sage, who was to become the notorious Woman in Red (her skirt was actually orange on the night of the shooting) a few nights later in Lincoln Park. Their relationship was brief, however; Sparks was sent to Leavenworth prison in 1933 after committing mail fraud. She did not participate in his crimes, except for once, when she drove him to a doctor after he was shot. I came here because he asked me to. With few recourses, Evelyn, now Billie, Frechette began to run around with the lowest elements of society. -FBI.gov. Window on the World. It has been reported that John Dillinger accompanied Polly Hamilton to the police station four times for her health examinations without being noticed (FBI.gov). Frechette was 26, Dillinger was 30. Fact: Hoover coverup! When he went down, he said somethin'. Eveyln "Billie" Frechette was released from prison on Jan. 30, 1936. Meanwhile, Hoover was waiting for Purvis' report and it did not come. Dillinger followed by shooting through the apartment door and then into the hallway, before escaping with Billie down a back stairwell and fleeing in a getaway car. She attended the school for three years before moving to Milwaukee to live with her aunt. 1 | People & Events", People & Events: Evelyn "Billie" Frechette, 19071969, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evelyn_Frechette&oldid=1150861316, This page was last edited on 20 April 2023, at 14:06. Hamilton described Dillinger as an Indiana farm boy who liked a home-cooked meal. She served 2 years in prison for her crime. Frechette began a. When he did, he instituted absolute control over the Bureau in that all agents had to report directly to him from all field offices. In one letter Frechette sent Dillinger, she begged him not to try to rescue her, for fear he would be identified and killed. For instance, when Dillinger robbed the bank at Greencastle, Indiana, he noticed a farmer standing in front of a teller holding some cash. You have to blast it out of there with dynamite and what would be left would not fill up a small cookie jar.". The FBI vehemently denies this and claims that while she was interrogated for two days straight, she was never struck. Sheriff Lillian Holley being overly The real John Dillinger did smuggle guns to the inmates but was not present during the escape. She told Purvis that they would be going to the movies soon and she would call him at his office to let him know which theater they would attend. Zarkovich said that he had a slight acquaintance with a brothel madam named Anna Sage (a lie-she had been his mistress for years and he had protected her bordello operations in Lake County Indiana for years until she became so notorious that he had to move her operation to Chicago). That's the topic of this week's A Northwoods Moment in History with Gary Entz. Hamilton returned to Chicago under an assumed name. eventually caught up with him. Purvis, who had immediately and preemptively announced that the FBI had shot and killed Public Enemy Number One when standing with that body outside the Biograph Theater before a Chicago Police wagon (driven by a friend of Zarkovich's) arrived to take the body to county morgue, had taken all the thunder from Hoover. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. At that time, two reporters, who had heard about the agents flying into the area, followed them to the lodge and waited in thick brush just behind where the agents were positioned. [citation needed] Spark was sentenced, with two others, on July 20, 1932, to a 15-year term at Leavenworth for three counts of robbery of postal substations in drug stores. Frechette moved in with Dillinger and was with him when his gang went on their famous bank-robbing spree. ", Frechette, who was then 26, described the 30-year-old Dillinger as a gentleman: "John was good to me. Walter Spark and his co-defendant, Arthur Cherrington, both married the same day, Cherrington to Patricia Young. Sage received a $5,000 reward for giving information leading to Dillinger's capture. The lodge was not officially open, except for its bar which was patronized by local residents and WPA and CCC laborers working in the area. Goin' Back to T-Town: Revisit a thriving Black community in Tulsa, which rebuilt after a 1921 racially-motivated massacre. There was no junior. Video of the real John Dillinger and Evelyn Billie Frechette fell in love and lived with bank robber John Dillinger. Dillinger watched from a few blocks away as authorities took her away and even attempted a rescue mission but dismissed the idea after much evaluation. His boss, Hoover, had told him to either get Dillinger or resign. One of the reporters took a picture of the shot up workers and Purvis grabbed the camera and removed the film, but the other got a photo of their shot up car (and gave me that photo to me years later). Discover the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst who helped bring down gangsters and break up a Nazi spy ring in South America. An innocent man had been killed and two other innocent men badly wounded by a bunch of trigger-happy FBI agents led by one of the most irresponsible men in FBI history, who had been pressured into his rash actions by his boss, Hoover. Her celebrity did not come from being a film actress or anything of that sort. Dillinger was dissuaded from rescuing her by fellow gang members. The Twenty-nine books on Amazon's Jay Robert Nash page: Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. After Dillinger was caught in Tucson, Arizona, it was decided that he would be extradited to Indiana to stand trial for the murder of Officer William Patrick O'Malley, who was killed during the First National Bank robbery in East Chicago, Indiana. Public Enemies begins in 1933 as Dillinger ( Johnny Depp) smuggles weapons into Indiana State Prison and helps his pals escape; an event that has been verified by historians. Zarkovich told Purvis that Sage told him that one of her girls, Polly Hamilton (no relationship to John Hamilton, one of Dillinger's bank robbing associates) was seeing a man she thought was Dillinger. . one reporter said. For four years, she attended a boarding school for Native Americans in Flandreau, South Dakota.