Nan Wanatka's brother, George La Porte, heard the first shots at the lodge from where he was standing about a mile away. The firing was so intense he was convinced there had to be a lot of wounded and dead, so he and a friend went to the nearby CCC camp for medical supplies and an ambulance and raced to the lodge.
About a quarter of a mile from the entrance road to the lodge, La Porte later told police, a tall man stepped onto the roadway and tried to flag him down, but La Porte didn't stop. With friends and family at the lodge, he had more pressing needs.
The tall man was Homer Van Meter. Dillinger and Hamilton were standing just off the road.
Across the street from where La Porte saw the tall man was a large house owned by Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Mitchell, an elderly couple, who were inside talking to their hired hand. Their employees' truck was parked outside. When Mrs. Mitchell responded to a knock at the door moments later, Hamilton said he was lost and asked for a drink of water. He then calmly walked across the room and pulled the phone fron the wall. Dillinger and Van Meter also entered. According to later accounts, Dillinger told the couple they meant them no harm. When Mrs. Mitchell asked if he was John Dillinger, Dillinger smiled and said "You couldn't have guess better." He reportedly again assured them they would not be harmed. He said they just needed a car, and told them all to come outside while they started the truck. When Mr. Mitchell argued this wife was just getting over the flu, one of the outlaws allegedly got a blanket from a chair and told her to wrap it around herself, and that they wouldn't be outside for long.
When the truck wouldn't start, however, Van Meter asked about a Ford coupe he noticed parked at a cottage a short distance away. Mr. Mitchell said it belonged to his neighbor, a carpenter. One of the gang members went to the house and began shouting that Mrs. Mitchell was sick and needed a doctor. They needed transportation to get her there. When the neighbor, wearing slippers and bathrobe came to the door, he was grabbed and forced into the car to drive the gang away. They turned onto a seldom used country road and headed toward St. Paul and safety. St. Paul, Minn., was at the time said to be one the most corrupt cities in America. Wanted men, for a pocketful of money to local officials, could stay in the city without fear of arrest. The only rule was that the wanted men agreed not to commit any crimes while in the city.
Only moments after the three drove off, Tommy Carroll burst from the bushes onto the roadway just a short distance from the Mitchell's house. Wet, cold and confused, he had been trying to catch up to the others, but realized now he was lost and had to escape on his own. He made his way north along the main road looking for a car. He walked all the way to Manitowish Waters, a mile beyond Little Bohemia, before finally seeing a Packard outside the Northern Lights Resort. Almost caught by the owner, he drove off and headed toward Mercer. At a fork he turned right onto a narrow road. It would take him until nearly morning before he realized he was on a dead-end logging road.
Nelson, meanwhile, the only one of the five to escape south, followed the lake shore a short distance before turning into the safety of the thick woods. But it wasn't long before he was hopelessly lost in the dark, and it was sheer luck that he stumbled onto a small resort run by the elderly Mr. and Mrs. G.W. Lang. He forced them into their car and ordered them south onto Highway 51 - straight toward the temporary FBI headquaters that had been set up at the Voss lodge. The Vosses, also relatives of Nan Wanatka, was where her brother George La Porte was waiting when he heard the first shots from the Little Bohemia.
About a half mile from the Voss lodge, however, the headlights in the Lang car went out. Nelson spotted a well lit house in the distance and ordered the Langs to drive him there. It was the home of Alvin Koerner, the man who ran the local phone exchange and the man who had taken the initial calls about the shootings at the Little Bohemia. The calls, the first from the wounded CCC worker and then one from Wanatka himself, had made Koerner so nervous that he kept running from one window to the next to look outside. When he saw a car pull into his driveway without lights he feared it was one of the outlaws and immediately called the FBI at the Voss lodge to report it. Moments later Nelson and the Langs entered the house.
At the same time as Nelson was deciding what to do with his three captives, George La Porte was nearing Koerner's house. He had arrived at the Little Bohemia just as Wanatka and his two bartenders were exiting the lodge in their shirtsleeves and with their hands up, as directed by the FBI. The agents told them to get to safety and La Porte offered to drive them to Koerner's for warm clothing and then drive Wanatka back to his lodge.
As the four men entered Koerner's house, one of the bartenders saw Nelson and, remembering him as the friendly and generous customer, smiled and waved. "Hi Jimmy!"
Nelson turned his .45 onto the man. "Never mind that bullshit. Just line up against the wall with the rest of them." Wanatka turned to Nelson. "Jimmy. You don't need that gun. These are friends of mine."
"Well you gonna have some dead friends if I don't get some help," said Nelson. Taking Koerner and Wanatka as hostages and warning the others, the three men left the house. Wanatka got behind the wheel of La Porte's car. Koerner got in back and Nelson got into the passenger seat. In the back seat was La Porte's friend, who had accompanied him to the Little Bohemia lodge. Also in the back, on the floor, was La Porte's fully loaded hunting rifle.
Wanatka later told investigators that Nelson kept jabbing his gun into Wanatka's side. When he asked, "Why put the gun in my ribs, Jimmy? I'm not armed," Nelson simply told him to shut up and start the car. Wanatka stepped on the starter, but nothing happened. He tried it again. Nothing. "You haven't got the God damned switch on," Nelson screamed and jabbed the gun in his ribs again. Wanatka turned on the switch. He tried to start it again, but this time the car choked. Nelson was enraged. "I thought I was dead," Wanatka told investigators. Just then a car pulled into the driveway, its headlights flooding the interior of the La Porte car. In the car were two FBI agents, J.C. Newman and W. Carter Baum, and the local sherriff.
It was nearly 11 p.m. and Nelson was rapidly losing control of the situation - but he had a fully loaded .45. |
