Homer Van Meter - Biography - Crime Wave

Crime Wave

Afterwards, Van Meter affected a reformation sufficient to allow the parole board to release him on May 19, 1933, one week after Dillinger had made parole. On August 18 of the same year, Van Meter aligned himself with Baby Face Nelson and Tommy Carroll to rob a bank in Grand Haven, Michigan. They got away with $30,000. On October 23, the trio along with John Paul Chase and Charles "Chuck" Fisher robbed a bank in Brainerd, Minnesota, escaping with $32,000. When Illinois published its list of "public enemies" at the end of 1933, Van Meter ranked 18th.

Dillinger broke out of prison in Crown Point, Indiana on March 3, 1934. Dillinger and John "Red" Hamilton, would later join the gang. On March 6, 1934, Dillinger, Nelson, Van Meter, Carroll, Eddie Green and Red Hamilton robbed the Security National Bank & Trust Company in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, during which police officer Hale Keith was severely wounded by Nelson. The gang escaped with $49,500 to their hideout in St. Paul, Minnesota. One week later, on March 13, the men robbed the First National Bank in Mason City, Iowa, for $52,000. On April 12, Dillinger and Van Meter robbed a police station in Warsaw, Indiana, stealing firearms and bulletproof vests.

Because of this level of criminal activity, Van Meter and the gang became the subject of an intense FBI manhunt. Eddie Green was ambushed and killed by the F.B.I. on April 3, 1934. Both Van Meter and Dillinger shot it out with police pursuers on March 31 in St. Paul and April 23 with John Hamilton, in Hastings, Minnesota, but escaped both times. Hamilton was mortally wounded in the latter encounter, however, and died four days later at the house of Volney Davis. Dillinger, Van Meter and members of the Barker Gang buried him in a gravel pit near Oswego.

On May 3, 1934, Van Meter, Dillinger and Carroll robbed the First National Bank in Fostoria, Ohio, during which Van Meter shot and wounded local police chief Frank Culp. The three spent most of May 1934 hiding in a woodland cabin near East Chicago, Indiana. On May 24, while driving a red panel truck through East Chicago, Van Meter and Dillinger were stopped by police detectives Martin O'Brien and Lloyd Mulvihill. Van Meter gunned down both officers with his Tommy gun. On June 7, 1934, Tommy Carroll was killed in a gunfight in Waterloo, Iowa.

A few days later, in an attempt to conceal their identities, both Dillinger and Van Meter underwent plastic surgery at the hands of Wilhelm Loeser in the apartment of Jimmy Probasco, a bar owner connected to the Chicago Outfit. Loeser operated on Van Meter on June 3. Unsatisfied with the results and, not coincidentally, with the pain of the operation, Van Meter attempted to kill Loeser on the spot.

On June 30, Van Meter, Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and an unidentified fourth man robbed the Merchants National Bank in South Bend, Indiana, where Van Meter, serving as lookout, shot and killed patrolman Howard Wagner during the robbery. The fourth man, never identified, has been suggested at times to be Pretty Boy Floyd, Johnny Chase, or Fatso Negri. Whoever it was, it was the last confirmed raid for all of the confirmed and suspected participants.

On July 22, 1934, FBI agents led by Melvin Purvis and Samuel P. Cowley gunned down John Dillinger in front of the Biograph Theater in Chicago. That night, Van Meter and his girlfriend Marie Comforti fled to St. Paul.