I've heard a couple of different stories and I don't know which one is true, so what exactly happened during the St. Valentine's Day Massacre?

Briefly: The Capone organization was never able to completely pacify the rival Northside gang, despite arranging for the murder of the Northsider leaders Dion O'Banion and Hymie Weiss. Bugs Moran, third in succession of the Northsiders, still threatened Capone. In 1928, the Capone bodyguard Machine Gun Jack McGurn (Vincenzo Gebaldi) was himself machine-gunned in a hotel phone booth by the Moran gunsels Frank and Pete Gusenberg. McGurn recovered and plotted revenge. Capone gave him $10k plus expenses to do the job. McGurn recruited Fred "Killer" Burke and James Ray of the Egan's Rats mob, plus Joseph Lolordo, brother of a slain Unione Siciliano official, and Capone's favorite killers, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi. McGurn set up Moran by arranging for the sale of a truckload of good booze. He then set up another delivery for the morning of St. Valentine's Day, 1929, with Moran expected to be in his warehouse to receive the shipment. McGurn's lookouts thought they spotted Moran entering the warehouse (it was someone else), so a stolen police car, containing the hit squad, roared up to the warehouse, discharging two of the murderers in cop uniforms, two in plainclothes. The "cops" lined up the seven occupants of the warehouse, including the Gusenbergs but not Moran. Then the plainclothes guys came in and all four opened fire with machine guns and shotguns. All seven eventually died. Moran, lucky fellow, had seen the stolen cop car pull up, and took off. Capone was in Miami at the time, creating an airtight alibi by spending the morning with the DA. McGurn married his girlfriend pronto so she could provide his alibi. No one was ever indicted for the St. Valentine's Day massacre. But Burke was sentenced to life imprisonment for another murder. McGurn was mowed down in a bowling alley a few years later. Anselmi and Scalise were baseball-batted by Capone at a dinner "in their honor" later (along with Joe "Hop Toad" Giunta), then Capone's bodyguards dispatched them with pistols. Moran died of lung cancer in prison in the Fifties. Capone, as you know, died of syphillis in 1948 after serving more than 10 years in prison, most in Alcatraz, for tax evasion.
Uh, did I say, "Briefly"?

Yes, Capone died in '47, not '48. He was remanded to the Cook County Jail after conviction on the tax rap in 1931, transferred to the Federal pen in Atlanta in '32; to Alcatraz in '34, transferred from Alcatraz to the Terminal Island lockup in LA in '39, then to Lewisburg, PA, late in '39. He was then placed in the custody of Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore for treatment of his syphillis, and was not released to recover at his home in Miami until 1940. He remained on parole until 5/42. He also served a year in jail in the Pennsylvania's Eastern Pen in 1929-30 for a concealed weapons arrest that he engineered in order to lie low during a particularly dangerous time. The treatments he received in Baltimore (including penicillin) stabilized him sufficiently that he became lucid at times. He saw whomever he wanted from Chicago.

Wow, you guys really know your stuff.
Thanks

Liz you can visit http://www.crimelibrary.com . . .

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I command this family right or wrong . . . it was not what I wanted!

If you're looking for insight on the whole Chicago mob and the connection to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre I highly recommend WAR OF THE GODFATHERS by Roemer. It covers the Chicago La Cosa Nostra from the 20's to the modern day. Really eye opening and helps fit all the big names you've heard of into historical context, who knew who, relationships and successions.
Its out in paperback, so its affordable.

I agree about Roemer. His stuff generally is poorly written and obviously self-aggrandizing. Two of the Capone biographers--Kobler and Bergreen--do excellent jobs of detailing the rise of the Chicago outfit and the Valentine's Day massacre.

Turnbull you never stop amazing me!

Bacio tua mano, Camillus!

Another thing to add to this is, rumor is Anthony "Joe Batters" Accardo was one of the shooters on the St. Valentines Day Massacre.

But then again that's just speculation and heresay.

But it's something to think about IMHO.

One of the problems with trying to get definitive accounts of gangsters and gang activities is that there aren't many--if any--definitive accounts. Gangsters generally don't leave their collected papers to universities, to be pored over by scholars. Nor, generally, do they write memoirs. And if they do, as did Joe Bonanno, they don't exactly incriminate themselves by "telling all." (Bonanno didn't admit to jaywalking, much less anything more felonious.)
That's one of the reasons why there's no definitive roster of St. Valentine's Day Massacre shooters. According to Lawrence Bergreen, Capone's most recent biographer, the crew was: Joseph Lolordo, James Ray, Fred "killer" Burke, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi. He doesn't mention Joe Batters. John Kobler, another Capone biographer writing ~25 years earlier, said that Burke was "the only man of whom it can be said with moral certainty that he pulled a trigger on St. Valentine's Day."

We will never know who the shooters were, but looking at the old photos from the front, back and sides of the garage, I would say there were six shooters instead of four, maybe more. In the back of the building there is spot were a car can be hidden from public view close to the side door, and the occupants can enter/exit the building quickly, out of/into the car. Burke was definitely one of the shooters. Keep in mind that both gangs knew each others faces, so the four men that entered the front had to be unknown to the Moran gang.

Nice documentary that shows all of the angles,called The Mob's Bloody Valentine with Johnny Fratto,son of Al Capone's associate Louis "Lew" Fratto.



http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlqevm_...2011_shortfilms

I don't think capone had anything to do with that, the guys that was implicated was guns for hire, they would work for anybody if the money was right, and the theory that capone payed them 10,000??? Well I would have to see ur source

I found a really comprehensive link for all things Capone.

http://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/

There is a ton of stuff on the Big Fellow,including an analysis of discredited St. Valentine's shooter theories,one of which is the Davern/Three Fingered Jack story.

Thread from 2002 WOW