This Day In History: 02/14/1929
On this day in 1929 in Chicago, gunmen in the suspected employment of organized-crime boss Al Capone murder seven members of the George "Bugs" Moran North Siders gang in a garage on North Clark Street. The so-called St. Valentine's Day Massacre stirred a media storm centered on Capone and his illegal Prohibition-era activities and motivated federal authorities to redouble their efforts to find evidence incriminating enough to take him off the streets. Alphonse Capone was born in Brooklyn in 1899, the son of Italian immigrants from Naples. In 1921 his old friend Johnny Torrio lured him to Chicago, where Torrio had built up an impressive crime syndicate and was beginning to make a fortune on the illicit commerce of alcohol. In 1925, Torrio was shot four times by Bugs Moran and Hymie Weiss, who were associates of a gangster slain by Torrio's men. Capone was in Florida in February 1929 when he gave the go-ahead for the assassination of Bugs Moran. On February 13, a bootlegger called Moran and offered to sell him a truckload of high quality whiskey at a low price. Moran took the bait and the next morning pulled up to the delivery location where he was to meet several associates and purchase the whisky. He was running a little late, and just as he was pulling up to the garage he saw what looked like two policemen and two detectives get out of an unmarked car and head to the door. Thinking he had nearly avoided being caught in a police raid, Moran drove off. The four men, however, were Capone's assassins. Wearing their stolen police uniforms and heavily armed, Capone's henchmen surprised Moran's men, who agreed to line up against the wall. Thinking they had fallen prey to a routine police raid, they allowed themselves to be disarmed. A moment later, they were gunned down in a hail of shotgun and submachine-gun fire. Six were killed instantly, and the seventh survived for less than an hour.

THE PHOTOGRAPH

This picture shows Bundesen (center, with his hand in his pocket) and his jurors at the scene of the crime, watching police with shotguns re-enact the events of the previous day. It was one of the less gory photographs to appear in the local and national newspapers: frames taken by press-men in the immediate aftermath of the shooting showed corpses lying prostrate on the garage floor with pools of blood leaking around them.

The notorious nature of the crime, and its alleged connection to Capone has meant that many artefacts relating to it have been preserved. The building on N. Clark St was demolished during the 1960s, but bricks from the wall, still bearing bullet-holes, were sold off—and many of them are now kept in The Mob Museum in Las Vegas. These have been used to colorize the backdrop in this photograph as faithfully as possible.

THE AFTERMATH

The men who died on February 14, 1929 were members and associates of the North Side gang, run by George ‘Bugs’ Moran. The North Side gang and Capone’s Chicago Outfit had been vying for some time to control the production and distribution of illegal liquor, and the Valentine’s Day Massacre was apparently planned as an attempt to murder Moran.

Andrei Chikatilo was a soviet serial killer, who admitted killing a total of 56 people in Soviet Russia during the 70s and 80s before finally getting executed in 1994. He was nicknamed as Butcher of Rostov, the Rostov Ripper and the Red Ripper. Psychologists later concluded that he suffered from some psychological disorders since his early childhood and that played a great role in his chaotic set of beliefs. Apart from that, the conditions that he was born and brought up in moulded him as a menace to the overall fabric of the society. Many of his victims were women and children, who he sexually assaulted before brutally murdering. This particular behaviour, according to psychologists, developed as a result of his failure to have sexual intercourse with women and the subsequent ridicule he received led to a psychological scarring. ‘Citizen X’, a TV movie made on his life, is banned in many countries due to extremely violent and gory depictions of the murders he committed. He was finally caught after murdering his last victim, Sveta Korostik. He was caught by a patrolling policeman on suspicion and admitted of killing 52 people. Trial took place and he was sentenced to death, which took place in a Moscow jailhouse in 1994.

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Reeva Steenkamp was an illustrious South African model who was shot dead by her famous Olympian boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius. She was a dazzling beauty who was murdered by her boyfriend at his home in South Africa on Valentine’s Day 2013. Born in Cape Town, Reeva began modeling in her teens and after earning a Bachelor of Laws degree, she moved to Johannesburg to pursue a career in the fashion industry. Striking blonde with blue-green eyes, she appeared as a cover girl for FHM magazine and later in South African advertisements for various mainstream brands. In November 2012, she began dating Oscar after meeting him through a common friend. But this relationship transformed into a dreadful disaster when on the morning of Valentine’s Day 2013, Oscar shot her to death at his home. Police arrested him almost immediately on charges of murder and although the defense did not deny the bathroom shooting, they constantly argued that it was a tragic accident and not an outrageous murder. Eventually he was found guilty of culpable homicide and was sentenced to five years in prison. Apart from being a successful model, she was also a domestic violence campaigner. She was a vibrant celebrity and a gorgeous model whose successful career was tragically cut short on this day