The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone

by Helmer, William J.

• ISBN13: 9781581823295
• ISBN10: 1581823290
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

During Prohibition, Chicago's Beer Wars turned the city into a battleground, secured its reputation as the gangster capital of the world, and laid the foundation for nationally organized crime. Bootlegger bloodshed was greater there than anywhere else. The machine-gun murders of seven men on the morning of February 14, 1929, by killers dressed as cops became the gangland "crime of the century." Since then it has been featured in countless histories, biographies, movies, and television specials. "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, however, is the first book-length treatment of the subject, and it challenges the commonly held assumption that Al Capone decreed the slayings to gain supremacy in the Chicago underworld. Instead, the authors assert the deed was a case of bad timing and poor judgment by a secret crew from St. Louis known to Capone's mostly Italian mob as the "American boys." The target of the murder squad was indeed Bugs Moran, but the "American boys," who were dressed as policemen and arrived in two bogus police cars, arrived too early at the garage wh

Author Biography

William J. Helmer is the author of The Gun That Made the Twenties Roar and the co-author of Dillinger: The Untold Story, The Quotable Al Capone, and Baby Face Nelson. He lives in Maquoketa, Iowa Arthur J. Bilek is a former chief of the Cook County Sheriff's Police, a member of the Chicago Crime Commission, professor of criminal justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago, adjunct professor at Aurora University and Kendall College, and associate director of the Traffic Institute at Northwestern University. He lives in Evanston, Illinois

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	ix
St. Valentine's Day, 1929	3	(10)
Prohibition, Chicago Style	13	(8)
The Gun that Made the Twenties Roar	21	(6)
The Chicago Beer Wars	27	(20)
``Dever and Decency''	47	(8)
Back in the Saddle	55	(6)
Racketeering	61	(6)
The War of Sicilian Succession	67	(6)
Chicago's ``Pineapple Primary''	73	(6)
The American Boys	79	(12)
The Murder of Frankie Yale	91	(4)
Blood and Guts	95	(12)
Hoods in Hiding	107	(6)
The Coroner and the Crime Lab	113	(14)
The Wood Street Fire	127	(12)
The St. Louis Connection	139	(8)
``Seize M'Gurn for Massacre''	147	(16)
Machine Guns for Sale	163	(10)
The Fall of Al Capone	173	(4)
Smoking Guns	177	(14)
Capone Meets Uncle Sam	191	(8)
Gus Winkler Meets His Maker	199	(14)
Hoover's ``War on Crime''	213	(14)
The Crime Nobody Wanted Solved	227	(16)
Post Mortem	243	(8)
Chronology	251	(30)
Notes	281	(10)
Bibliography	291	(2)
Index	293