INDIANAPOLIS — The body of notorious 1930s gangster John Dillinger is expected to be exhumed in September at an Indianapolis cemetery but it could be a tough job because his grave is encased in concrete.

Digging up the remains more than 85 years after Dillinger was killed by FBI agents also could resolve conspiracy theories that the man some considered a hero during the Great Depression isn’t buried in his marked grave, said Susan Sutton, a historian with the Indiana Historical Society. Among the tales is that Dillinger’s family tricked the FBI into shooting the wrong man.

The Indiana State Department of Health approved a permit July 3 sought by Dillinger’s nephew, Michael C. Thompson, to have the body exhumed from Crown Hill Cemetery and reinterred there.

The permit doesn’t give a reason for the request, and Thompson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Indiana health department spokeswoman Jeni O’Malley said that based on the permit, the agency expects Dillinger’s body will be exhumed and reinterred on Sept. 16 — the date listed on the document.

But digging up Dillinger’s grave might prove a difficult task because days after his son’s funeral, Dillinger’s father had the casket reburied under a protective cap of concrete and scrap iron topped by four reinforced-concrete slabs, Sutton said.

The reason for the concrete-encased grave was to thwart would-be vandals, Sutton said.

The Indianapolis-born Dillinger was one of America’s most notorious criminals. The FBI says Dillinger’s gang killed 10 people as they pulled off a bloody string of bank robberies across the Midwest in the 1930s.

Dillinger was never convicted of murder and he was lauded by some for robbing banks during the Great Depression as many Americans lost their homes and farms to foreclosure, Sutton said.