Dillinger sat in the theater with Polly Hamilton and Anna Sage. Outside, approximately twenty FBI agents and Chicago police officers were positioned around the theater’s entrances and in a hand-drawn diagram that field agents later created, the positions showed a comprehensive encirclement of the exits.
The film ran approximately two hours. At approximately 10:30 p.m., Dillinger, Hamilton, and Sage walked out of the Biograph. Melvin Purvis, positioned near the theater entrance, lit a cigar — the pre-arranged signal for the other agents to move in.
What happened in the next few seconds is documented in multiple accounts that agree on the broad outline: Dillinger became aware that agents were moving toward him. He reached for the .380 Colt automatic pistol he was carrying. He ran toward an alley on the south side of the theater’s exit.
Agents fired. Three shots struck Dillinger. The fatal wound entered the back of his neck and exited below his right eye. He fell in the alley and died within minutes. He was 31 years old.
Two bystanders were wounded by stray fire in the crowd: Etta Natalsky and Theresa Paulus. Neither wound was fatal. The agents who fired were identified as Charles B. Winstead, Clarence O. Hurt, and Herman E. Hollis. None of the three ever publicly stated which of them had fired the shot that killed Dillinger.
Dillinger was pronounced dead at Alexian Brothers Hospital at 10:50 p.m. He had survived slightly more than fourteen months from the Crown Point escape.