Searching for John Dillinger’s Buried Treasure

JOSH GATES: Infamous bank robber John Dillinger is rumored to have stashed cash and savings bonds on his father’s farm in Mooresville, Indiana.
Now, a search team being led by ex-FBI Agent Stewart Filmore is on the case.
You think there might be something significant hidden here at the farm?
Yes, we do.
We do, yes.
I think the best source is legend from the Dillinger family themselves.
Mike Thompson is Dillinger’s nephew, and Travis is his great-nephew.
Really?
I’m the closest living relative, other than my sister, that can say John’s father is our grandfather.
Wow.
You’re not going to rob me, are you?
Not yet. JOSH GATES: OK.
[LAUGHTER] This was a family story, that there was money hidden here at the farm?
MIKE THOMPSON: Yeah, there was always stories amongst the family that there’s definitely could have been money hid.
JOSH GATES: With generations of family reports that loot was buried on the farm, the team begins to search the property.
Stewart’s shovel smashed a buried mason jar.
What they found inside may rewrite the story of Public Enemy Number One.
Are you kidding me?
A 1934 Shell road map.
JOSH GATES: This was inside this jar?
STEWART FILMORE: Inside the jar.
And do we know anything about the jar?
STEWART FILMORE: It’s also from the same time period.
It was manufactured between 1923 and 1933.
And you dug this up where?
Just a few feet from here on the property.
JOSH GATES: This is so crazy to me.
Be prepared to look back in history.
You ready?
Oh, look at this.
STEWART FILMORE: Yep.
It’s marked up.
STEWART FILMORE: It is.
This really has an excellent chance of being an authentic part of this Dillinger story.
This is really, really cool.
It’s an untold story.
JOSH GATES: And especially with the stories that money was buried on this farm, that may mean that there’s more here to find.
That’s actually the next stage of our investigation is to scan with GPR, ground penetrating radar, metal detect it, and really do a thorough search.
I’m ready to work.
Let’s go.
Everybody, pick up the shovel.
Come on.
We gear up to scour the old Dillinger property.
With a ton of ground to cover, we divide and conquer.
[BEEPING] Mike and I work our way along the edge of the property while Stewart, Shane, and Travis search in what used to be the Dillinger Orchard.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Got a good hit here.
MIKE THOMPSON: There it is.
It’s a wrench. JOSH GATES: Oh, a wrench.
MIKE THOMPSON: We got a wrench.
Found a wrench.
JOSH GATES: We’re one bolt away from a home improvement project right now.
Man, it looks pretty old to me.
This is about where the barn was.
JOSH GATES: OK.
It could have been granddad’s tool.
JOSH GATES: That would make sense.
MIKE THOMPSON: Yeah.
JOSH GATES: Well, we’re finding stuff.
It’s a start.
[MUSIC PLAYING] To kick this search into high gear, Shane is bringing out the big guns, ground penetrating radar.
They’re radio waves.
They generate from the box.
They go down.
Once they hit an object, it bounces back up and displays on our screen.
We’re looking for evidence of ground that’s been churned up where something might have been buried.
And so here in Indiana, in this kind of soil, you’re typically able to see down about how far?
Four to six feet.
JOSH GATES: Four to six feet.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Stewart and his team continue to search with metal detectors, working their way into a gully the bulky radar can’t reach while I run tracks on the flat ground.
[MUSIC PLAYING] – Oh wow. – Whoa, whoa.
Big hit.
Look at that.
Even I can tell that that is an anomaly.
We’re looking at right about two feet down.
We got something over here.
The ginger beard club is on fire today.
I think there’s a good chance, by the way, that Mike and I might be related.
Does anybody else see that?
The signature is strong.
So we dig it right away.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Something there.
OK, let’s see what we got here.
It is a giant rock.
OK.
[MUSIC PLAYING] We flag more anomalies with the radar.
Hit something.
Huge rock.
And unearth more buried boulders.
Is what that is.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Can you guys just dig a hole big enough for me and just lay me down in it? Is that possible?
SHANE: Sure.
Appreciate that.
Meanwhile, in the ravine.
All right, what do we got here?
TRAVIS THOMPSON: Oh.
Is that a B?
STEWART FILMORE: That is a B. Look at that.
Oh yeah.
Stewart for Josh, come in.
Go for Josh.
Josh, can you come down to the gully?
We found something really exciting.
You’ve got to see it.
We’ve got an intact mason jar.
OK, I’m coming down.
I’ll be right back. OK, I’m coming.
I’m on my way.
[MUSIC PLAYING] STEWART FILMORE: Josh, you got to see this.
Look. – Oh, look at that.
It’s the exact same kind.
It’s the exact same one.
Look.
[MUSIC PLAYING] JOSH GATES: Well, that’s incredible.
STEWART FILMORE: We want to be as delicate as we can to pull this out.
So we’re going to dig around it very, very carefully and brush as we go and remove this dirt.
[MUSIC PLAYING] TRAVIS THOMPSON: We got another jar.
STEWART FILMORE: And there’s another jar beside it.
It looks to be substantially intact as well.
JOSH GATES: Look, right here.
We got a lid on this.
STEWART FILMORE: Oh, wow.
TRAVIS THOMPSON: Oh, baby.
STEWART FILMORE: Oh, wow.
JOSH GATES: The team has uncovered a cache of Ball jars from the Dillinger era, mere feet from where the mysterious map was discovered.
[MUSIC PLAYING] It looks clear underneath.
STEWART FILMORE: Yeah, come on.
Like pulling a fish out of the water.
Come on, you got it.
You got it.
There it is.
Look at that.
STEWART FILMORE: It’s intact.
JOSH GATES: That’s just awesome.
Isn’t that great?
STEWART FILMORE: It’s awesome.
That is the same color as the map jar.
That’s amazing.
STEWART FILMORE: Yeah, yeah.
OK, so I’m going to hand this to you very carefully.
TRAVIS THOMPSON: That jar could have been down there at least 87 years.
JOSH GATES: Do you see anything in there?
STEWART FILMORE: No, but there’s a lot of compacted dirt still in there. – Right.
But it doesn’t look like anything significant’s in there? – No, no.
JOSH GATES: We got another one next to it here that’s a lot looser.
TRAVIS THOMPSON: Smaller.
JOSH GATES: Yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Intact.
With the lid on.
There’s a little bit of debris in the bottom.
It almost looked like two pieces of metal.
Oh.
STEWART FILMORE: I can’t believe you can turn that.
Yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING] STEWART FILMORE: Yeah.
JOSH GATES: The fact that it’s in this kind of condition is just absolutely remarkable.
Let’s see what else is in this hole.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Beneath the first three jars, we find shattered glass and compelling evidence that something was hidden inside.
Cloth here.
Oh wow.
Look at this.
Is it inside a jar?
Yes.
Yes, it was in glass.
So this is the bottom of a jar.
This was potentially in a jar.
Like stuffed down in a jar?
Uh-huh.
STEWART FILMORE: There’s metal right beneath it.
Oh, hold on. Got metal.
Metal, metal, metal.
We got a coin, I think.
STEWART FILMORE: That’s it.
Right there.
That’s unbelievable.
STEWART FILMORE: No, it’s not a coin it’s too wide to be a coin.
You know what that is?
That is a shotgun shell.
That’s the back of a casing.
STEWART FILMORE: Exactly That primer cap has been dented in, which means this was fired on the Dillinger property.
[MUSIC PLAYING] This isn’t a modern shot gun shell.
STEWART FILMORE: Exactly.
MIKE THOMPSON: What does it say on the head stamp?
Winchester repeater.
MIKE THOMPSON: 20 gauge. JOSH GATES: 20 gauge.
Right there in the middle. MIKE THOMPSON: 20 gauge.
JOSH GATES: 20 gauge. That is insane.
This style shotgun shell was produced from 1896 to 1938, which puts us right in the heart of the Dillinger era.
When you think Dillinger– STEWART FILMORE: Yeah. – –you think guns.
STEWART FILMORE: You think guns. – I mean, you do.
STEWART FILMORE: You do.
TRAVIS THOMPSON: Yeah.
Dillinger himself and his father may have shot this.
Well, it makes it personal.
The closest thing to shaking their hand is pulling this out of the ground.
He is this criminal, villain, mastermind, whatever you want to call him.
But he also was a kid out at this farm.
I mean, he was a teenager out here.
He was. That’s right.
I have to ask the two of you, especially as family members, Dillinger kind of has this reputation sometimes as like a Robin Hood character.
How do you see him?
If he hadn’t got such a raw deal the first time he went to jail– JOSH GATES: Because he did almost ten years, right?
MIKE THOMPSON: Took his young adult life away from him.
JOSH GATES: Right.
The sentiment that Dillinger got a raw deal or a strict sentence for what he did was felt in the town, so much so that they signed a petition to try to lower his sentence.
JOSH GATES: So you see him as kind of a product of the system?
MIKE THOMPSON: Yeah, basically.
He came out hardened from jail.
Exactly.
JOSH GATES: Newsreel footage of Dillinger’s father from after John’s visit to the farm reveals the emotional toll the crime spree took on the family.
I don’t know where my son John is at.
If John could be exonerated from this crime and come back home, I think he’d make a good citizen or a good officer of some kind.
[MUSIC PLAYING] This is something really special.
STEWART FILMORE: It is.
So there you go, a little piece of family history right there. – Pretty cool.
This farm is like– it’s like a history book.
It is.
And we’re just peeling one page at a time out of the ground. – Exactly.
So there’s more to be done here.
No, I agree.
[MUSIC PLAYING]