Jack McGurn would soon learn that of the seven men killed the morning of Feburary 14, 1929, George “Bugs” Moran was not one of them. Moran and a couple of associates were on their way to the garage when they saw the police car pull in. Believing that a Prohibition raid was about to take place, Moran and his associates did not enter the garage but instead continued their walk down the street.¹ Although Moran survived this attempt on his life, it would cause him to go into a sort of early retirement from his life of crime.

As reports from witnesses and tips began to come in, police began to narrow their search of suspects, naming Al Capone as the man who orchestrated what would forever be named the St.Valentine’s Day Massacre. Police looked into Capone, but were unable to find any ties to the crime. Capone was with his family in Florida at the time of the crime, and after checking phone records, police saw that no calls were made to or from Capone several days before or after the massacre.² Capone was ultimately ruled out as a prime suspect. It may seem that because these were his men who committed this gruesome crime, it would be easy to say it must have been Capone who ordered the hits, but looking closer at the story, it seems that while he may have been involved, it was Jack McGurn who was calling all the shots.

The days and weeks following the massacre churned out rumor after rumor that police had been involved in the incident.³ If McGurn wanted to create confusion in the minds of law enforcement and keep his name out of the spotlight, having his men pose as officers as they gunned down the Moran gang did the job. Law enforcement made attempts to shut down the accusations as quickly as they could, and tried everything in their power to catch the men responsible for the hideous crime. Rewards for the capture and conviction of the criminals were offered $50,000 from the Chicago Association of Commerce, $20,000 from the City Council, $20,000 from the state’s attorney, and $10,000 from public collections.⁴ It was clear that not only the police, but the entire city of Chicago wanted these men to pay for their crimes.

One of the seven men shot that morning, Frank Gusenberg, had somehow survived the initial attack from McGurn and his men. An officer visited him when he was taken to the hospital, but Gusenberg remained tight lipped and refused to give any names as to who orchestrated the attack. When asked by the officer who had shot him, he simply replied, “No one, nobody shot me.”⁵ If the police wanted to nail down any leads, they had their work cut out for them. Clues slowly began to come in, and on March 4^th, three men were named in the massacre: Joseph Lolodro, James Ray, and Fred Burke.⁶ Lolodro disappeared off the grid, it is unknown what happened to Ray, and Burke was tried and sentenced to life in prison for an unrelated crime.⁷

Later, Jack McGurn and John Scalise were taken into custody, but both made bail and were back on the streets of Chicago. Scalise was soon the victim of another gangland assassination, leaving McGurn to fight alone against the charges.⁸ Forensic science in 1929 was nothing like it is in our current age, so McGurn’s case continued to be pushed back further because of the ongoing investigation. Finally, ten months later, on December 2, 1929, it was decided that there was not enough evidence to convict McGurn or anyone else involved in the case, and the case was ultimately dismissed.⁹ “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn and his men had gotten away with murder. No one was ever convicted in the St.Valentine’s Day Massacre. Chicago became home to the “most vicious slaughter” in the nation up until then.¹⁰ No matter how the case ended, and who was really at fault, the gang wars in the Chicago area had reached an all-time high, and something needed to be done, the violence needed to be stopped. The city of Chicago would forever be changed and tied to gangland violence because of this event. The city would continue to see gang warfare for decades to come, but hopes were that this was the last time such a gruesome attack would occur.

Return to Part I