Homer Van Meter

Homer Virgil Van Meter (December 3, 1905 – August 23, 1934) was an American criminal and bank robber active in the early 20th century, most notably as a criminal associate of John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson.

Biography

Early life Van Meter was born to Cary V. Van Meter and Julia Miller in 1905 (according to other sources December 3, 1906)

He was arrested for the first time as a teenager, for drunk and disorderly conduct. In Aurora, Illinois, on June 23, 1923, Van Meter was sentenced to 41 days in jail for larceny. On January 11, 1924, he was sentenced for motor vehicle theft and incarcerated in Southern Illinois Penitentiary. At the time of his admission, he had a tattoo reading "HOPE" on one forearm.

Van Meter was paroled in December 1924. Three months later, he teamed up with an old cellmate to rob the passengers of a train in Crown Point, Indiana. He was caught and convicted of the crime, and received a sentence of 10 to 21 years, to be served in the Indiana Reformatory.

Meeting John Dillinger While in the Indiana Reformatory, Van Meter met John Dillinger and Harry Pierpont. Whereas Van Meter befriended Dillinger, he and Pierpont openly despised each other, largely because of Van Meter's clowning antics and demeanor. On July 28, 1925, Van Meter's repeated joking and violation of the Indiana Reformatory rules earned him a transfer to the state prison at Michigan City. 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 FBI on April 3. Days earlier, Van Meter, Dillinger, and Dillinger's girlfriend Billie Frechette had narrowly escaped from police in St. Paul after a gunfight. Later, on April 23, while fleeing from Little Bohemia Lodge, Dillinger, Van Meter and Hamilton were involved in a gun battle in Hastings, Minnesota. Hamilton was mortally wounded 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, Illinois.

On May 3, 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 hiding in a woodland cabin near East Chicago, Indiana. On May 24, while driving a red panel truck, Van Meter and Dillinger were stopped by Detectives Martin O'Brien and Lloyd Mulvihill of the East Chicago Police Department. Van Meter gunned down both officers with his Tommy gun. On June 7, 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. During the robbery, Van Meter shot and killed South Bend police officer Howard Wagner, but was also shot in the head himself and wounded. The fourth man, never identified, has been suggested at times to be Pretty Boy Floyd, Johnny Chase, or Fatso Negri. It was the last confirmed raid for all of the confirmed and suspected participants. Brown was a former police chief who had been notorious for his willingness to take bribes from criminals. Van Meter had previously helped to fund Brown's bid to become sheriff. By this time Brown had been demoted and was under investigation for corruption and allegations that he had been an accomplice to the Barker–Karpis gang in the kidnappings of William Hamm and Edward Bremer. The FBI were interviewing captured former criminal associates.

The officers later claimed Van Meter ignored their command to stop and fled into a nearby alley, where he fired twice on the officers with a .380 caliber pistol. He was 28 years old. The body was found to be armed with a .380 caliber Colt automatic pistol. The number and severity of Van Meter's wounds were attributed to the use of the shotguns; although his friends and associates claimed he was carrying at least $10,000 on that day. That same year, the FBI announced that it believed Sawyer had set up Van Meter to get at his money, splitting the take with the four ranking officers who did the shooting. On the TV show, Van Meter was portrayed by actor Richard Crane.

In print The Stephen King short story "The Death of Jack Hamilton" (2001) is told from Van Meter's perspective and portrays an alternative history wherein he did not die in 1934 and lived long enough to recall John F. Kennedy's assassination.