Red Hamilton - Escaped, Michigan City Prison
John Hamilton was known as "Red" because of his dark red hair. He and John Dillinger were close friends, in and out of prison. We learn more background on Hamilton, and the crime for which he was serving twenty-five years at the Indiana state prison in Michigan City, from Dillinger: The Untold Story (by G. Russell Girardin, William J. Helmer, Rick Mattix):
Although generally reputed as one of the most dangerous of the Dillinger gang, he was a quiet type of man who won the liking of all with whom he associated. Hamilton originally had been a Canadian carpenter who, for robbing a gasoline filling station in St. Joseph County, Indiana, received a sentence of twenty-five years.
By September of 1933, Hamilton had served two years of his sentence.
Media Credits
Photo ("mugshot"), courtesy Indiana Department of Corrections.
Quoted passage from Dillinger: The Untold Story (by G. Russell Girardin, William J. Helmer, Rick Mattix), pages 25-26.
