Berrien County police have Valentine's Day Massacre guns

HOMETOWN SECRETS:

November 14, 2011|By Clifton French (cfrench@wsbt.com), Click here to follow Clifton on Twitter | By Clifton French (cfrench@wsbt.com), Click here to follow Clifton on Twitter

ST. JOSEPH, Mich. -- Chicago: February 14th, 1929. Seven men from George "Bugs" Moran's Northside Irish Gang are lined up inside of a garage on North Clark Street and executed by the spray from two Thompson submachine guns.

The gruesome scene became know as the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. It was an act that caused public outrage at mob violence and solidified the "Tommy gun" as a gangster icon.

The case is still unsolved. One theory is that the massacre was a retaliatory hit by rival gangster Al Capone.

The two Tommy guns that started it all are in the hands of the Berrien County Sheriff's Department.

"That gun fired a 20-round stick magazine that day into those guys in the garage, the gun further down... fired a 50-round magazine," said Lieutenant Mike Kline of the Berrien County Sheriff's Department as he pointed to the two guns.

Kline is in charge of the weapons now.They're still fully functional and completely original. So how did they end up in Berrien County? That's simple: It's where they were found.

"Al Capone and members of his organization used to spend a lot of time here," Kline explained, "A number of people in his organization started to buy and/or build homes here."

One of those men, known as Fred "Killer" Burke, owned a home in Stevensville. His neighbors knew him as Fred Dane, but in December of 1929, that would all change.

Burke was in a fender-bender in St. Joseph. He had been drinking and fled the scene. A young St. Joseph police officer, 25-year-old Charles Skelly, saw Burke at the intersection of Main Street and Broad Street. When Skelly walked up to Burke's car, Burke pulled out a gun and fired three rounds, killing Skelly.

The chase was on. Police raided Burke's home. In a closet police found a cache of weaponry, including grenades, bulletproof vests and two Thompson submachine guns.

"Chicago PD calls us and says 'Hey, we see that you're looking for Fred Burke, we'd like to talk to him too, but we also see that you've confiscated this huge arsenal of weapons,'" Lt. Kline said.

By using brand new forensic technology, the weapons were linked to the Chicago Massacre. Forever linking small town St. Joseph to the infamous slaying.

The case helped pave the way for ballistic forensic science.

Burke was able to evade police for two years. He was caught in Missouri in 1931 and was convicted of murdering officer Charles Skelly. He was sentenced to life in prison and died in 1940.

Burke was never tried in connection to the Chicago killings.

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