The St. Valentine's Day Truth

The St. Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago in 1929 not only made headlines but it almost destroyed my Capone family. No Capone had anything to do with this crime. Here is an excerpt from my book, Uncle Al Capone - The Untold Story from Inside His Family.

            The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre happened on the morning of February 14, 1929, St. Valentine’s Day.  Seven men sat in a garage at 2122 N. Clark Street waiting for George “Bugs” Moran, chief of the North Side gang.  They were also waiting for a delivery of booze “hijacked off a boat”.

            Later that afternoon they were all planning to go to Detroit to pick up some whisky.

            Pete Gusenberg and his brother Frank who were both payroll robbers, James Clark a stickup man, Johnny May a safe-blower, Al Weinshank a speakeasy operator, Adam Heyer the owner of the garage and Dr. Reinhardt Schwimmer who was an optometrist and a german shepard dog who was chained to one of the trucks were the occupants in the garage.

            The garage door opened and two men dressed as policemen entered the garage followed by three other men.  All seven occupants were machine gunned down instantly, the dog was unharmed.

            An inquiry by police and the state’s attorney identified three men.  Fred Burke, Jack McGurn and John Scalise.  And what my grandfather told me you have never read anywhere before.

“So what I'm telling you Deirdre, is that the Valentine’s day fiasco came as a complete surprise to me and Al. If we had planned it we would have gotten Moran, and not some of those other guys who were no threat to us.  But Al was right.  He did get blamed for it.  And. to this day, some people even think he did the shooting.”