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Pursuing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre killers... A re-enactment...
Pursuing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre killers... A re-enactment...
Item # 724712
February 17, 1929
CHICAGO DAILY TRIBUNE, Feb. 17, 1929
* St. Valentine's Day Massacre investigation
* George 'Bugs' Moran & Al 'Scarface' Capone
* Best title to be had - very rare as such
The front page has a one column heading: "SCHOOLS CHIEF GIVES CLEW TO GANG MASSACRE" with subhead. (see images) More on page 2.
Terrific to have this report in a Chicago newspaper, where it happened.
Complete in 40 pages, this is the "rag edition" printed on very high quality newsprint meant for institutional holdings. Minor spine wear, otherwise in great condition.
background: By February 17, 1929, the investigation into the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre had transitioned from a local police matter into a national forensic milestone, as the Cook County Coroner's Blue-Ribbon Jury began its aggressive inquiry to bypass suspected department corruption. On this day, investigators were intensely focused on the "police ruse" theory, questioning witnesses who described seeing two men in Chicago Police uniforms and two in civilian clothes fleeing the North Clark Street garage in a black Cadillac equipped with a siren. While Al Capone remained comfortably ensconced at his Florida estate—providing a meticulously crafted alibi—the inquiry began to pivot toward his Detroit-based associates, the Purple Gang, following rumors that the hit was a retaliation for hijacked whiskey shipments. Meanwhile, the sole survivor of the massacre, the German Shepherd named Highball, remained a point of public fascination as he was found tied to a truck at the scene, his frantic howling serving as the only "testimony" from a site where the human victims, specifically Frank Gusenberg, had maintained a strict underworld code of silence until death. This period marked the early recruitment of Dr. Calvin Goddard, whose pioneering ballistics analysis of the 70 recovered shell casings would eventually modernize American criminalistics by proving the specific Thompson submachine guns used in the execution did not belong to the Chicago Police Department.
Category: The 20th Century
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