St. Valentine's Day Massacre with Pictures - True Crime
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
by Kevin Hammonds
Page 2 of 3
When it comes to suspects, a murder mystery can run the gamut of
possibilities. In the case of The Valentine's Day Massacre, the person
with the most motive was not difficult to come by. Although he claimed
to be in Florida at the time of the murders, Al Capone was, without
hesitation, the one and only suspect in this infamous crime.
Thanks to prohibition, Capone had become the crime czar of Chicago, running
gambling, prostitution and bootlegging rackets while continuously
expanding his territories by getting rid of rival gangs. Capone's
fortune was estimated at $60,000,000. That kind of money gave Al
Capone one of the oldest and most common motives in murder mystery
history. He had to take down "Bugs" Moran at any cost. But as one of
the leading gangsters in Chicago, Moran was not an easy person to get
rid of. So in order to get rid of Moran, Capone chose to start at the
bottom and get rid of Moran's outfit, leaving him defenseless.
When the bodies were discovered splattered on the floor of the
garage, it seemed at first glance, that not one single person could
have survived the force of the attack. However, this proved to be
untrue, when one investigator on the scene found Frank Gusenberg lying
amongst the bloody corpses, breathing heavily and choking on his own
blood. Immediately, the unconscious victim was taken to the hospital
where investigators waited with anticipation for their only possible
lead to wake up and finger the men who were responsible. Their
greatest fear was that he would die before they had the opportunity to
question him, but eventually he did wake.
When he was asked for the identity of the killer,
he simply stated "I'm not gonna talk," before
he laid his head back and died. Without Frank Gusenberg's testimony
and with only a few eye witnesses outside the garage, the
investigators had to return to the scene of the crime and try to piece
the murder together with what information they had.
