INDIANAPOLIS — A missing prison form signed by the notorious Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger showed up at an auction, bid at $16,000. Now state officials want it back.
The document was pulled from a May 1 Internet auction after Robert Edwards Auctions of Watchung, N.J., received a phone call from state prison officials.
Dillinger, declared public enemy No. 1 for a string of bank robberies across the Midwest, was shot and killed in 1934 by federal agents in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater.
A decade earlier, he entered the Indiana Reformatory at Pendleton after a botched robbery and signed a typewritten personal information form that later disappeared from state files.
The form says Dillinger attended Sunday School for 12 years, got an 8th grade education and left home at age 16. His occupation when the crime was committed is listed as "idle." Under associates, the form stated, "Bad."
The document is valuable because only about a dozen documents signed by Dillinger are known to exist, said Robert Lifson, president of Robert Edwards Auctions.
Robert Schagrin, the president of Gotta Have It! Collectibles of New York City, which owns the item, told The Indianapolis Star it will not be sold while he considers the state's claim. He said the 80-year-old document may be public domain.