Book Presentations

Recently, I had the privilege to speak at the Westchester, Illinois Library on March 19th. What a great group. I want to thank Patrick Callahan for arranging this and his hospitality.

My next appearance will be at:

On Cuba, JFK Was Married to the Mob

Posted on Mar 21, 2016

By Robert Scheer

 

Antonio Marín Segovia / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Editor’s note: As President Obama begins his historic visit to Cuba, we are posting some of Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer’s past writings about the U.S.’ relations with and actions toward Cuba. This article was originally published in the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 11, 1997.

You don’t need to rely on Seymour Hersh’s racy new book, “The Dark Side of Camelot,” to know that John F. Kennedy’s administration tried to assassinate Fidel Castro by using Mafia hit men. Denials by former Kennedy aides, led by historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and speech writer Ted Sorensen, are simply wrong.

The entire nefarious business is documented in excruciating detail in “Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro,” a 133-page memorandum prepared in 1967 by CIA Inspector General J.S. Earman for Director Richard Helms. The supersecret report was so hot that after Helms read it, he instructed Earman: “Destroy all notes and other source materials” and “Destroy the one burn copy retained temporarily by the inspector general.” This left only one “ribbon copy” kept by the inspector general for “personal EYES ONLY safekeeping.”

Fortunately, that one copy survived; after lengthy lawsuits it was finally declassified in 1993. When Hersh came under attack last week for his new book, I dug out my copy of the CIA report, and there’s no question he got this point right.

I don’t know if Hersh is correct in his assertion that Chicago gangster Sam Giancana stole the 1960 election for Kennedy or that the president shared sexual intimacies with Giancana’s lady friend. But the CIA report makes it quite clear that during the Kennedy years, Giancana was a key player in the effort to overthrow Castro and that the president’s brother, the country’s top law enforcement official, knew all about it.

 

Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy was told about the Mafia’s assassination plot on May 7, 1962, by CIA agents who, according to the report, “briefed him all the way.” Castro’s revolution had wiped out organized crime’s Havana gambling empire and the revengeful mob was eager to return. But Castro had also nationalized other U.S.-owned businesses, incurring the enmity of American policymakers and thereby making an alliance with the Mafia seem all the more opportune.

Later, in his fateful candidacy for the presidency in 1968, Robert Kennedy would question the logic of unremitting U.S. hostility toward Cuba. But back when he was in his brother’s administration, the get-Castro mentality was all-pervasive. Even after being informed of the use of well-known mobsters in the plot to kill Castro, Robert Kennedy did not object except to wryly request of his CIA briefers that “I trust that if you ever try to do business with organized crime again—with gangsters—you will let the attorney general know before you do it.”

The efforts to kill Castro continued with the clear blessings of the administration. On Aug. 10, 1962, Secretary of State Dean Rusk convened a meeting of what was called the “special group” and, according to the CIA report, “[Secretary of Defense Robert] McNamara broached the subject of liquidation of Cuban leaders. The discussion resulted in a Project Mongoose action memorandum prepared by [CIA operative] Edward Lansdale.”

Mongoose was the name of a general sabotage campaign against Cuba that, according to the memoir of a subsequent CIA director, William Colby, included the “sabotage of Cuban factories and rail lines” as well as “spreading nonlethal chemicals in sugar fields to sicken cane cutters.” Efforts to kill Castro with poisoned cigars, infected saccharine pills and explosives fit right in.

True, U.S. planning to kill Castro began during the Eisenhower administration, but it hadn’t amounted to much until the Kennedyites added their special macho zeal. As the CIA report states: “We cannot overemphasize the extent to which responsible agency officers felt themselves subject to the Kennedy administration’s severe pressures to do something about Castro and his regime.” The pressure “to do something” put the knights of Camelot in cahoots with the lords of crime whom Castro had booted out.

That was 35 years ago, but the arrogance of our Cuba policy has not changed. Only now the policy is so ossified that a president who was merely a teenager when his idol Kennedy initiated this policy of fitful revenge is held captive to its inherited inanity.

Last week, President Clinton sanctimoniously justified the continued isolation of Cuba despite his warm welcome for the leader of communist China. Clinton said that the embargo against Cuba must continue until Cuba could prove that “it can turn into a modern state.” Perhaps it isn’t too late for the Cubans to do a joint venture on gambling casinos with the mob to prove just how modern they are.

From gangster's moll to Hollywood hostess: the life and death of Virginia Hill

The heroic goodbyes shared by Annette Bening as Virginia Hill and Warren Beatty as Bugsy Siegel in the movie Bugsy were a romantic fantasy.

Paul Byrnes

Film critic

 
Virginia Hill has been portrayed in two movies so far, but neither of them did her justice. She's a hard case for a movie character: gangster's moll, Hollywood hostess, Mob courier, a gal with a smart mouth and bad attitude. Her friends said she was also charming, funny, flamboyant and gorgeous.

 Hers is a particularly American story – a kind of mirror inversion of Breakfast at Tiffany's, where Audrey Hepburn is Holly Golightly, a charming girl-on-the-make. Holly carries messages to her Mob benefactor in Sing Sing. She has her own secrets – a dirt poor southern childhood, a backwoods husband.

 Virginia Hill's secrets put Holly in the shade. They share the dirt poor childhood, but Virginia didn't stop at one mobster – she had a whole stable of the most powerful gangsters in America, and I do mean had. With flaming red hair, a sharp mind and very long legs, she moved up the chain of power – from Joe Epstein, a chubby bookie for the Chicago outfit in the early 1930s, to Joey Adonis, a capo for the Genovese family in New York, and finally to Los Angeles, where she was the girlfriend of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, New York's man on the coast. He was shot to death in her house in June 1947, a crime that has never been solved, except that everyone believes his "friends" in the Mob killed him for spending too much of their money building the Flamingo Hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Hill had flown to Paris a few days before the hit – and may have known it was coming.
That's a far cry from the laughable final moment of Barry Levinson's otherwise excellent Bugsy (1991), where Annette Bening and Warren Beatty kiss and make up in the rain in Vegas, as he's about to fly back to Los Angeles, and a bullet in the head. It's a Casablanca finale – the plane propeller flashing as she offers to go with him, even though she's terrified of flying. The film is a fictionalised biography of Bugsy, with a brilliant performance from Beatty, who was nominated. Bening gives Virginia Hill a tonne of personality – spitfire one minute, sexpot the next. She loves this man deeply when she doesn't want to kill him. That might be true, or it might not. Solid information about her life is hard to come by, given all the cheap and racy stuff written about her. If she loved Ben Siegel, it was not enough to warn him before she flew to Paris.

Virginia Hill's hard-bitten story was a kind of mirror inversion of Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn. Photo: Supplied
 

Hill was one of 10 children, born August 26, 1916, which makes this her centenary year. Michael Munn, in one of the aforementioned racy accounts (The Hollywood Connection: The Mafia and the Movie Business), says she was 15 when she arrived in Chicago from Bessemer, Alabama, with an older man she soon dumped. She began working as a waitress and prostitute. Joe Epstein, a bookie for Capone, is said to have called her The Flamingo because of her long legs. By some accounts he was crazy for her; by others, he was gay and never laid a finger on her, but became a lifelong friend. That's how he's portrayed by Allen Garfield in Virginia Hill, an atrocious 1974 TV movie in which Dyan Cannon sleepwalks through the role.

Advertisement

From Epstein she moved on to Joe Fischetti, Capone's cousin, then to Adonis in New York, where she first met the handsome Siegel, who was a well-established killer and a long-time associate of Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano.

Hill was by now a dancer, a courier, a Mob tomato, but she thought she wanted to act. In Hollywood she did the rounds of the studios. She took a few small parts, notably as a hat check girl in Manpower (1941) with her friend George Raft (who was himself pretty close to being a gangster), but she didn't need the work. Once she hooked up with Bugsy Siegel, she had her hands full with parties, the racetrack and the Mob businesses Siegel was sent to take over in Los Angeles.

Annette Bening's Virginia Hill in Bugsy was an alluring firecracker. Photo: Supplied
 

The Warren Beatty movie perpetuates the myth that Bugsy looked at the Nevada desert and saw a gold mine – a paradise where gambling was legal. In fact, the Flamingo Hotel project was started by Billy Wilkerson, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. When he got into debt, Siegel and Lansky saw an opportunity to move in. Construction costs rocketed to $6 million, most of which was Mob money. Siegel knew the rules: Mob loans came with stiff penalties for late repayment. In the movie, Hill is partly to blame for his death, because she has siphoned $2 million from the project to a Swiss bank account, without Siegel's knowledge. That seems fanciful. She would have been dead before him
.
Virginia Hill went downhill after his murder. She stayed in Europe and tried four times to take her own life. In 1966, she succeeded, under a tree in a snowbank outside Salzburg. A few writers say she was murdered because she was threatening to sell her little black book, containing everything she knew about the Mob, to the US government. They were pressing for $80,000 in unpaid taxes. She died on March 24, 1966, 50 years ago this week, aged 49 years. It was a sad ending to an eventful, somewhat tragic life.

Twitter: @ptbyrnes

What happened to Anthony Catalano: His family wants to know

By Peter Bella, March 19, 2016 at 8:34 am
       

Anthony Catalano was last seen on video surveillance cameras leaving his condo building at 8747 w. Bryn Mawr. He drove off in his Mercedes Benz and vanished. His family filed a missing person report with the Chicago Police Department. The date was March 25, 2009.

Days later, his Mercedes Benz was found parked on a street near the building. It was so clean there was not even one fingerprint or other shred of evidence to be found. It is alleged the car was meticulously cleaned, returned, and parked on the street to avoid security cameras picking up the driver. Why the car was returned is a mystery.

Anthony R. Catalano, missing since March, 2009. Photo Credit: lostmissing.org. Used with permission.

Anthony Catalano was in a dangerous business, the drug business. It is alleged he had ties to Chicago Outfit, Chicago's organized crime group.

There are no friends in the drug business. There are no friends in the Outfit. You are here today. Gone tomorrow. No explanation. It is business. Business is business. Money is money. People are expendable.

On December 23, 2009, Michael DeFilippis was murdered. He was found in his condo at Grand and Harlem. His head was caved in and he was stabbed several times. There was no forced entry, signs of a theft, burglary, or home invasion.

Everything was neat, clean, and tidy. Just a dead body and a dinner table set for two or three, depending on whose version of the tale is believed.

Michael DeFilippis was a friend of  Anthony Catalano and Catalano's partner in the drug business.
DeFilippis was also allegedly associated with the Outfit.

DeFilippis and Catalano may have been involved with another nefarious character with alleged mob ties. He was given the nom de plumes, Dr. Millionpills and Dr. Numb-it-all.

Like the disappearance of Anthony Catalano, the murder of DeFilippis was never solved. The DeFilippis family knows what happened to their loved one. They had remains to mourn over and bury.

The Catalano family has no idea what happened to Anthony. They can only hypothesize and keep dwindling hope alive.

The Outfit adage, and by extension those associated with it is, "No one knows what happened to or who killed so-and-so, no one cares, so don't ask."

Anthony R. Catalano's relatives want to know what happened to him. They care. They are asking. Their questions have fallen on deaf ears. They received no answers from the Chicago Police Department, D.E.A., or F.B.I. Friends or family members in law enforcement hit dead ends or were allegedly ordered to stop asking questions, or else.

The cast of characters involved with Catalano and rumored to be involved with his business, social life, and disappearance reads like a roster of notable gangsters' grandchildren. There were ex-cops with South Side Outfit ties who used to be in the drug and chop shop businesses. A family member allegedly laundered much of the drug money. He supposedly got greedy, and was accused of stealing by the missing man.

Catalano and DeFilippis supposedly had drug connections in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Florida. That would indicate the cartels or meth distributors. Some claim Catalano had his own drug problem. He was getting out of control. Anthony was becoming the problem.

All of this is circumstantial. Some of it is speculative. A few accounts border on conspiracy theories. There is no solid proof or evidence the various characters involved had anything to do with the disappearance of Catalano or the murder of DeFilippis.

This month, after seven years, the family can petition to claim Anthony Catalano legally dead. They want answers. They want closure.

Anthony Catalano, from all descriptions, was no saint. He was a bad guy in a bad business with bad people.

Anthony Catalano was also a son, brother, cousin, and close friend. There are people who love him. These people want answers, not dead ends, closed doors, and the sound of silence.

Someone knows what happened to Anthony R. Catalano. In law enforcement or on the streets.
The Catalano family is not looking for justice. They are not looking for revenge. They just want to know what happened. The Catalano family, at the very least, deserves that much.

NOTE: The Chicago Outfit was responsible for over one thousand unsolved murders and disappearances since its founding during prohibition.  This story is the result of communication with a member of the family who wants to remain anonymous. There was internet and public records research. As mentioned in the piece, the people alleged to be involved in Anthony Catalano's life, business, disappearance and investigation are numerous, some notorious. The names were made available to me. They were withheld due to the circumstantial, speculative, and sometimes conspiratorial nature of their involvement. —PVB

Michael Mann, Don Winslow Team for Mob Book, Possible Movie

March 18, 2016 1:20pm PT by Andy Lewis

Michael Mann  Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

 

The pair will tackle Chicago mob bosses Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana in the novel planned for publication in 2017.

Director Michael Mann and The Cartel author Don Winslow are teaming up to create a novel about organized crime bosses Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana.

Winslow will start work in the spring, following delivery of his next book. Publication is aimed for 2017 and the novel is slated to be the first book in the recently announced Michael Mann Book imprint. Mann and Winslow intend to shop the project to publishers very soon. Mann’s book imprint is, as of yet, not affiliated with a publisher.

The potential movie will be based on the novel and a pre-existing screenplay on the subject written by Mann and Shane Salerno.

Giancana ran the Chicago mob in the late 1950s and 1960s. Many have speculated that he played a part in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Giancana was murdered in 1975.

Less well known to the public, Accordo’s mob career spanned from the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre through the Reagan era. From the end of World War II, he was the most powerful figure in Chicago organized crime and one of the most powerful in the country.

Mann has directed, produced and written or co-written Heat, Public Enemies, Thief and Manhunter as well as the Oscar-nominated dramas Ali and The Insider. Winslow’s The Cartel was a 2015 best-seller. Ridley Scott is attached to direct a movie adaptation for 20th Century Fox.

The Michael Mann Books publishing venture is represented by Shane Salerno at The Story Factory. Mann is represented by CAA, LBI and attorney Harold Brown

 

Why gangland lawyers sometimes end up a victim of their own success

March 16, 2016 8:00am

Troy LennonHistory editor The Daily Telegraph

A police mugshot of disgraced Melbourne lawyer Mario Rocco Condello, who mas murdered in 2006 during the Melbourne gangland wars.

ORGANISED crime gangs have ways to avoid their operations being shut down by police or having gang members locked away. One way is to hire legal minds to defend them in court or to exploit loopholes in the law to make sure their nefarious businesses continue as usual. For this lawyers
are often richly rewarded. However, dealing with the underworld can have fatal consequences.

Like lawyer Joe Acquaro who was gunned down this week in Melbourne. But before he was killed he was warned: “Don’t be a gangster, be a lawyer”.

 

It is a lesson other mob-connected lawyers learnt the hard way. Although many have avoided a nasty end.

 

When Chicago mob boss Al Capone needed legal advice he turned to Edward “Easy Eddie” O’Hare. Born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1893 to parents with Irish heritage, O’Hare put himself through law school, passing the bar exam in 1923. He got work at a St Louis law firm, where one of their clients was greyhound racing commissioner Owen P. Smith, who had patented the electric rabbit.

Chicago mobster Al Capone in 1931 before he was jailed for 11 years for tax evasion.

When Smith died in 1927 O’Hare acquired the patent from Smith’s widow and invested in racing tracks, bringing him into contact with the underworld.

 

Al Capone met with O’Hare to get rights to the rabbit for his track in Illinois, where dog racing was illegal at the time. O’Hare also helped Capone fight legal action against his tracks in the courts. Easy Eddie became Capone’s business partner in race tracks around the country and O’Hare also arranged Capone’s business affairs to avert prosecution. O’Hare was well rewarded, but as authorities began to close in on Capone, O’Hare realized he could be dragged down with the gangster.

 

In 1930 the lawyer provided evidence against the mobster leading to a trial for tax evasion. Unaware of the betrayal, Capone was confident of getting off lightly, with legal advice from his new lawyers Michael Ahern and Albert Fink. In 1933 Capone was sentenced to 11 years.

Al Capone (centre), in court in Chicago during his 1931 tax-evasion trial, with lawyers Michael Ahern (left) and Albert Fink.

Capone’s health deteriorated in prison and on November 16, 1939, he was released. Just a few days earlier, on November 8, O’Hare was shot dead in his car. The killers were never caught.

 

Easy Eddie’s son Edward “Butch” O’ Hare served in WWII, winning the Medal of Honour and dying in action in 1943. Chicago’s airport was renamed O’Hare in 1949 in his honour.

 

Another infamous mob lawyer was Frank Ragano. Born in 1923 to Sicilian parents he served as a naval airman in WWII, winning a bronze star. After the war he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1952. In 1954 he was recruited to work on a case concerning mob boss Santo Trafficante’s illegal lottery racket and became friends with Trafficante. He would also later represent Miami boss Carlos Marcello.

Mobster Santo Trafficante (right) with his lawyer Henry Gonzalez.

When Fidel Castro took over in Cuba in 1959, he closed down mafia casinos and had Trafficante arrested, Ragano negotiated for the gangster’s release. He also represented Jimmy Hoffa when the union boss was on charges of corruption in the ’60s.

But Ragano had problems with tax evasion that saw him disbarred in the ’70s, causing a rift between him and Trafficante. It was later healed and after being readmitted to the bar in the ’80s he successfully defended Trafficante in a racketeering case. But when Trafficante died in 1987 it was his new best friend and legal adviser Henry Gonzalez who announced the death to the media.

John Gotti (left) leaves court with his attorney Bruce Cutler in 1999.

Ragano was abandoned by the mob and served time in prison in the ’90s for tax evasion. In 1992 he claimed to have information about the mob’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, claims which he repeated in his autobiography Mob Lawyer, published in 1994. He evaded mob execution and died in his sleep in 1998.

 

New York lawyer Bruce Cutler also became notorious in the ’80s for defending crime boss John Gotti. But he was disqualified from one trial because of evidence that he had connections with the Cosa Nostra and knew of Gotti’s criminal activities. He was suspended in 1995 but in 1999 returned to the limelight defending Gotti’s son. He is still practising law today.

A police mugshot of disgraced Melbourne lawyer Mario Rocco Condello, who mas murdered in 2006 during the Melbourne gangland wars.

Not so lucky was Australian lawyer Mario Condello. Born in 1952 to parents from Calabria, Italy, he spent some of his childhood years in Italy, he graduated with a law degree from the University of Melbourne but strayed and instead of making a career in law became a part of the Melbourne underworld.

He was involved in drug trafficking and a range of other crimes with the Calabrian Mafia in Australia. An attempt on his life was thwarted in 2004 but he was gunned down in 2006 during Melbourne’s “Underbelly” gangland wars just before he was due to stand trial for his part in the murder of crime figure Carl Williams.

Limited-time St. Valentine's Massacre display hits the Mob Museum

LAS VEGAS (KSNV News3LV) — One of the most infamous events in organized crime history happened 87 years ago on Valentine's Day.

The St. Valentine's Day massacre took place in Chicago, but this weekend, pieces of that crime scene are here in Las Vegas at The Mob Museum.

"This is the first time this evidence has ever been on public display," said Geoff Schumacher, the Director of Content for the Mob Museum. "It's a rare opportunity."

You'll find 2 Thompson machine guns on display. Lt. Mike Kline from the Berrien County, Michigan Sheriff's Office, where the guns are stored, says the significance of these firearms was that they were proven to be tied as the main murder weapons in the 1929 St. Valentine's Day massacre. They were uncovered, however, after a minor incident.

"Our department, two of our officers responded to a call of a wrecked car and a man running in the street," said Lt. Kline.

Lt. Kline explained that Officer Charles Skelley stopped the driver who caused the fender-bender and the driver, later identified as Fred Burke, fatally shot him. Burke's home was raided.

"The firearms, cash and arsenal were taken from Fred Burke's house in Michigan," said Lt. Kline.
A display also shows how the firearms were tied to the incident.

Dr. Calvin Goddard scientifically proved the link through pioneered ballistics testing techniques. He compiled a collection containing some of the original crime scene evidence.

The bullets pulled from the leg of Frank Gusenberg and from the forehead of Adam Heyer are on display. An autopsy report shows Reinhardt Schwinner was shot 23 times. They are just three of the seven victims, who were members of Bugs Moran's gang, gunned down execution style.

"There's something about being able to examine the evidence up close and take a look at it," said Schumacher. "Most crimes, you can't do that because police hold onto that and they hold it in their evidence vault and it stays there forever. In this case, we have this rare opportunity because it's so old that the same procedures were not followed back in the day in Chicago, so this evidence is available for public viewing. To me, that's something very different and something you don't see very often."
These artifacts go hand in hand with the permanent St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall display that's been at the Mob Museum since it opened in 2012. The original bricks from the warehouse wall show the bullet holes.

"Sadly, no one was ever prosecuted for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. We think we know who did it, but they never went to prison for that crime," said Schumacher.

Some of the displays will only be here in Las Vegas until Monday, but the display with the autopsy report and retrieved bullets will remain through the end of the month.

Locals can stop by the museum for free until 9 p.m. Sunday evening, and out of state visitors can take advantage of a buy one-get one free admittance.


Find Christine on social media! Follow Christine on Twitter or find her on Facebook.

Lovebirds spend Valentine's Day learning about Al Capone in Frankfort

Local author and historian Richard Lindberg

Frank Vaisvilas / Daily Southtown

 

Local author and historian Richard Lindberg shows slide photo of the aftermath of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre which took place in Chicago on Feb. 14, 1929.

 

Local author and historian Richard Lindberg shows slide photo of the aftermath of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre which took place in Chicago on Feb. 14, 1929. (Frank Vaisvilas / Daily Southtown)

Frank VaisvilasDaily Southtown

Besides gifts of flowers and chocolate, many people in Frankfort wanted to learn more about Chicago's infamous past with Valentine's Day.

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre occurred on Feb. 14, 1929 when seven men were gunned down in a Lincoln Park neighborhood garage owned by North Side gangster "Bugs" Moran. The hit was allegedly ordered by his rival, and Chicago's most famous gangster, Al Capone.

Chicago-area author and historian Richard Lindberg spoke on Sunday about the attack, and the factors that led up to it during a two-hour presentation at the Frankfort Public Library.
"I don't think there's anywhere else in the country where we can celebrate (Valentine's Day) and also celebrate the life of the Chicago mob," Lindberg said.

Fred and Jennifer Rice thought the event would be the perfect way to spend Valentine's Day.

"I love Valentine's Day and he likes history, so this seemed like a good fit for us," Jennifer Rice said.
Lindberg, who's written 17 books, including his latest "Gangland Chicago," used a 1960s vintage projector to show slide photos of the prohibition era as he talked about the history of gangs and corruption in Chicago.

He said the city has been steeped in vice since its inception. Even one of the city's founders, John Kinzie, murdered a man and hid the body in 1814, Lindberg said.

Local author and historian Richard Lindberg

Frank Vaisvilas / Daily Southtown

 

Local author and historian Richard Lindberg discusses an early 19th-century editorial cartoon depicting corruption in Chicago during a presentation at the Frankfort Public Library.

 

"Even one of our most famous citizens who has a street named after him was a murderer," Lindberg said. "Since then the city's been full of ruthless thugs."

 

And by the 1920s, gangsters such as Capone were allowed to operate with virtual impunity.
Lindberg said Capone's gang had murdered his North Side rivals one by one before going after Moran for control of the then-illegal liquor business.

Capone was conveniently out of town when the 1929 massacre of Moran's men occurred, he said.
The culprits were two men who dressed like police officers and two plain-clothed men. Lindberg said Moran missed being murdered that day because he went to a nearby coffeehouse after seeing the phony policemen enter his garage.

Lindberg said a gangster allegedly involved in plotting the assassinations later identified the murderers, but neither the FBI or Chicago police ever followed up.

Lindberg also related Chicago's criminal pastime with modern problems.

"Handgun crime is nothing new in Chicago, neither are gangs," he said.

But Lindberg added that the city is probably safer today than it was in 1900, when newspapers were "screaming" for officials to do something about rampant gun crime. He said a little boy back then could simply walk into a hardware store and purchase a gun with no registration.

Frank Vaisvilas is a freelancer for the Daily Southtown

Autopsy reports found from Chicago's Valentine's Day massacre

On Feb. 14, 1929, seven men were lined up against the wall in a North Side garage and gunned down execution-style. The infamous mob hit became known as the St. Valentine's Day massacre. Five known members of George 'Bugs' Moran's gang, one associate and a garage worker were killed. The hit was allegedly orchestrated by rival mob boss Al Capone, who was conveniently at his Florida home at the time.
(Chicago Tribune)

Tribune news servicesContact Reporter

Written by hand, the autopsies on the seven bullet-riddled bodies vividly describe why the Valentine's Day massacre of 1929 is still considered Chicago's most infamous gangland killing.
The reports were recently unearthed with inquest transcripts from a warehouse after eight decades, and the Cook County medical examiner's office is now considering how best to preserve and display them.

Executive officer James Sledge, a local history fan and a Chicago native, said he felt a chill down his back when he first read the documents outlining the attack at a Lincoln Park garage that left seven men dead and more than 160 machine gun casings littering the scene.
The attack, carried out by men dressed as city police officers, is widely believed to have been ordered by famed Prohibition-era gangster Al Capone. The crime was never solved.

Archive: Chicago Daily Tribune coverage of St. Valentine's Day MassacreOpen link

 

Shortly after Sledge joined the medical examiner's office in 2014, he asked for permission to look at the autopsy records. His staff took multiple trips to a Cook County government warehouse to find the reports, which were tucked away in a metal file cabinet.

Sledge is weighing where the documents should be stored and how accessible they should be, he told the Chicago Sun-Times in a story published Thursday.

"On the one hand, we want to have them readily available," Sledge said. "But we don't want them so accessible that we in some way anger some part of the population who feel we are not paying proper respect to the deceased."

The victims of the Feb. 14, 1929 massacre were five men who were known gangsters working for Capone rival George "Bugs" Moran, an optometrist who was friends with Moran's crew and a mechanic at the garage that served as Moran's headquarters. They were gunned down by four men, two of whom were wearing police uniforms. Since there was no evidence of a struggle, it's believed that Moran's men thought it was a police raid.

The documents that are now in Sledge's possession offer insight into the 87-year-old investigation of the unsolved crime.

"The reports are very graphic about what happened," Sledge said. "You read about history, you talk about it, but to have something in your hands — it gives you an odd feeling."

Those documents include an inquest interview with the optometrist's mother in which the coroner prepares her for the grisly state of her son's body. Other documents also outline the difficulties investigators faced while attempting to solve the crime, including witnesses who were too afraid to testify, the limits of forensic science and photographers who were eager to document the event.
Sledge wasn't immediately available for comment Friday.

Becky Schlikerman, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office, said the office is still considering what to do with the documents.

The documents have to remain the property of the Medical Examiner's office because they are autopsy reports, she said.

Associated Press

Copyright © 2016, Chicago Tribune

Valentine's Day Massacre: 11 Things To Know About 1920s Mob Murders

A video presentation is projected on a wall at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada February 13, 2012. The wall is an actual section of the garage where the infamous St. Valentines Day massacre took place in Chicago in 1929. REUTERS/Steve Marcus

 

If you were thinking this had anything to do with the 2001 thriller “Valentine,” think again! On February 14, 1929, seven men associated with the Irish gangster George “Bugs” Moran, one of Al Capone’s longtime enemies, were shot to death in the city of Chicago. This gang-related multiple murders are known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

During the late 1920s, mob wars ruled the streets of the Wind City and Al Capone was recognized as chief gangster. Even though the murders were never officially linked to the kingpin, it is believed that he orchestrated this misdeed in order to eliminate his rivals and gain absolute control in the illegal trades of bootlegging (the illegal manufacture and sale of alcohol), gambling and prostitution.

Scroll down to learn more about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre:

1)Between the years 1924 and 1930, Chicago was considered a lawless and violent city.
2) Al Capone took over from his boss Johnny Torrio in 1925.
3) Al Capone is the original “Scarface,” and his income from illegal activities was close to $60 million a year.
4) George “Bugs” Moran survived the massacre and told reporters “Only Capone kills like that.” Capone replied, “The only man who kills like that is Bugs Moran.”
5) The men who executed the Irish mobsters were dressed in cop uniforms.
6) The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre is considered Chicago’s gang war climax.
7) 70 rounds of ammunition were fired on the day of the killings.
8) When officers from Chicago’s 36th District arrived to the scene, Moran’s garage on the North Side of Chicago, Frank Gusenberg was still alive but refused to reveal the killers identities.
9) Capone’s alibi was that he wasn’t even in the city on the day of the massacre, he claimed to be at his home in Florida.
10) After the happenings, authorities dubbed Capone as “Public Enemy No. 1.”
11) The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre marked the beginning of Al Capone’s downfall