Dillinger Museum in northwestern Indiana abruptly closes

CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) - A museum dedicated to 1930s gangster John Dillinger has abruptly closed in the northwestern Indiana city where he famously escaped from jail using a fake gun.

The tourism organization that ran the museum at the Old Lake County Courthouse in Crown Point announced Thursday it had permanently closed at that location. South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority spokeswoman Erika Dahl declined to explain the closing, saying the collection would go into storage.

The museum moved two years ago to Crown Point from the Indiana Welcome Center in Hammond.

Jack Laninga is a former shop owner in the old courthouse and tells the Post-Tribune he was surprised to see the museum's contents being moved out

FBI agents fatally shot Dillinger outside Chicago's Biograph Theater four months after his 1934 jail break.