ARE THESE PHOTOGRAPHS OF JOHN DILLINGER?

Facial Features Analysis Examines an Old Controversy

by Joelle Steele

If you've read my other articles on facial features analysis on this Web site, you probably already know that I am always interested in a controversy about whether or not some famous person really died. We have all heard the stories of Elvis sightings – he's living in a trailer park in Tempe, Arizona or was seen eating a donut at a truck stop in Salina, Kansas. Well here's an old controversy about notorious Depression-era bank robber John Herbert Dillinger, Jr.

Dillinger and his gang robbed a lot of banks and he was jailed and escaped twice. Perhaps that's where some people got the idea that he had also escaped death in front of the Biograph Theater in Chicago on the night of July 22, 1934. That's where he was pursued by Federal agent Melvin Purvis and was shot three times and killed. The controversy over whether or not he was killed seems to be based on a story that said his look-alike, petty criminal Jimmy Lawrence, was the one who was shot and killed that night. Supposedly the body's fingerprints didn't match those of Dillinger, the eyes were the wrong color, the body was too tall, etc.

However, the autopsy was performed the following day, and the report says that the body was 5'7" (exactly what Dillinger's mug shot says) and that the hair was brown and the mustache was dyed black. The report further states that the irises were brown and the sclera (the whites) were gray, but it also says that the pupils were dilated (reducing the amount of visible iris pigmentation) and the corneas were cloudy, so establishing exact eye color at this time would have been very difficult.

Adding to the story were the words of Dillinger's father who, on seeing the body, is said to have remarked "that's not my boy." And if that was not enough, another story says Dillinger was in some early form of a witness protection program under which he worked in California as a mechanic or machinist. The story gets far more detailed and complicated with all the reasons why the body couldn't possibly be Dillinger's, but I have found photos of the body on the coroner's table, and I enlarged some of them to examine the features. I have no idea what Jimmy Lawrence looked like, and I looked high and low for a photo or mugs hot of him and couldn't find one. But, it doesn't really matter, because the man on the slab is John Dillinger.

ABOVE: A mug shot of Dillinger (left) and the same profile view in death (right).

THE EARS

The ears are a little difficult to analyze if you aren't used to looking at ears. But, the helix (the outer rim of the shell of the ear) is a match, as are the interior conchal and tragion areas of the pinna (ear shell).

ABOVE: A mug shot of Dillinger (left) and the same view in death (right).

COMPARISON OF FEATURES

In all the above images you can clearly see that the hairline is an exact match, as is the slope of the forehead, the recessed chin, the protruding mouth, the small turned up nose, the position of the ear, etc. Even the part of the ear that is not bent and obscured by the sheet, is a match. With the exception of the dyed eyebrows and mustache, everything is a match.

In the front views it can be a little hard to see the similarities because his body was already a little bloated and the musculature was slackened when the photo was taken. But this is definitely Dillinger's face.

SUMMARY

If I had better photos, I could go into even greater detail about the comparison of facial features, but the ones that are the most important are the ears (which are exact matches) and those features that denote bone structure (as are clearly shown in profiles and in front views of the face). Dillinger was shot to death at the Biograph Theater in Chicago. No doubt about it.