The Moran gang garage shooting, Chicago
Seven men were shot dead in a Chicago garage on 14 February 1929. After the building came down in 1967, stories grew up around its bricks.
On 14 February 1929 seven men tied to the bootleggers of "Bugs" Moran were shot dead in a commercial garage in Chicago's Lincoln Park, on North Clark Street (number 2122). Four to six men came in, two of them in police disguise. The seven stood in a row facing a wall and were shot with Thompson submachine guns and a shotgun. Six died at once. The seventh lived a short while and refused to name the killers. Many suspected the Chicago Outfit of Al Capone of ordering the hit, and nobody was ever prosecuted.
The garage was demolished in 1967. The entrepreneur George Patey saved the wall's bricks, and three hundred of them are now on display at the Mob Museum. A CBS Chicago piece on local hauntings quotes Szabelski saying the bricks became collector's items, especially those with blood or bullet holes. Then, he says, stories began coming out of people who had odd experiences after getting bricks. These are Szabelski's claims as CBS reports them.
"The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago, garage when between four and six men entered, two of whom were disguised as police officers. The seven men were lined up facing a wall and shot with Thompson submachine guns and a sawed-off shotgun; seventy rounds were fired from the Thompsons, and one cartridge was fired from the shotgun. Six of the victims died immediately; one lived for a short while but refused to identify the killers."
- Chicago Hauntings: Cursed Bricks, Noises, And Poltergeists Follow The Never-Prosecuted St. Valentine's Day Massacre, CBS Chicago
- St. Valentine's Day Massacre Wall, The Mob Museum
- The Massacre, St. Valentine's Day Massacre (stvalentinemassacre.org)