September 11, 2019

History Channel Drops Out Of Planned Dillinger Documentary

The headstone of John Dillinger is seen at Crown Hill Cemetery, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2019, in Indianapolis. Two relatives of notorious 1930s gangster John Dillinger who plan to have his remains exhumed say they have "evidence" the body buried in an Indianapolis cemetery beneath a gravestone bearing his name may not be him and that FBI agents possibly killed someone else in 1934.  - AP Photo/Darron Cummings

The headstone of John Dillinger is seen at Crown Hill Cemetery, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2019, in Indianapolis. Two relatives of notorious 1930s gangster John Dillinger who plan to have his remains exhumed say they have "evidence" the body buried in an Indianapolis cemetery beneath a gravestone bearing his name may not be him and that FBI agents possibly killed someone else in 1934.

AP Photo/Darron Cummings

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The History Channel has dropped out of a planned documentary on John Dillinger that would have included the proposed exhumation of the 1930s gangster's Indianapolis gravesite.

A&E Networks spokesman Dan Silberman says The History Channel is no longer involved in the Dillinger documentary.

Silberman says network officials won't comment on why it has withdrawn from the project.

The planned exhumation of Dillinger's grave has become the subject of a lawsuit. Crown Hill Cemetery officials objected to the exhumation, prompting Dillinger's nephew, Michael C. Thompson, to sue the cemetery.

Thompson is one of two Dillinger relatives who obtained a state permit to exhume the gravesite, saying they have evidence that Dillinger's body may not be buried there.

An Oct. 1 hearing is scheduled in the exhumation lawsuit.

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