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GREENCASTLE
OCTOBER 23, 1933
2:45 p.m.
This is the correct story told for the first time in best selling book Dillinger, The Hidden Truth, in which a more detailed account is told. It happened like this: A black studebaker pulls up next to the Central National Bank of Greencastle and double parks on Jackson Street. Four men get out of the car and walk towards the bank. Harry Copeland stops just outside the bank by the front door, while the other three men, John Dillinger, Harry Pierpont and Charley Makley enter the bank.
Harry Pierpont walks up to the fourth teller and asks Ward Mayhal for change for a twenty dollar bill. Mayhal is busy with paper work and without looking up, tells Pierpont to go to the next window. Pierpont takes one step back and pulls out a sawed off shotgun. Mayhal looks up to find himself looking straight down the barrel. While Makley surveys the lobby with a machinegun, Dillinger leaps over a marvel and breaks open the door leading to the tellers cape. He begins emptying the cash drawers while Pierpont orders Harry Wells to open the vault. Pierpont pulls a large white sack from his pocket and fills it up. The gang quietly walk out the door and escaped with over seventy four thousand dollars without firing a shot.
Note: This is just the short version of what happened at Greencastle as told by Gordon Sayers to the writer. Sayers was present during the robbery. Many Authors claim that Pierpont was armed with a machinegun, but Sayers states that he got a good look at the sawed off shotgun up close that Harry Pierpont stuck in his back and hauled him off to the vault. The robbery of the Central National bank of Greencastle was very successful. It was the biggest bank robbery of Dillinger's career with a haul of over seventy five thousand dollars. This was his first robbery with Harry Pierpont, the man who taught Dillinger the ropes in Michigan city. Below is a hand drawn diagram by 7ony Stewart of the actually robbery described by Gordon Sayers. The next picture is an outside view of the Greencastle bank. Contact 7ony Stewart at: Dillinger72234@aol.com for more detailed information.
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