Volume 18 , Issue 7

1931 Capture of Gangster of St. Valentine Massacre (1929)

The Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wisconsin, 26 March 1931, Thursday, page 1, headline: "Hold Man As Burke, Slayer-Bandit, Raid missouri Farmhouse to Seize suspect." Gangster sought in St. valentine massacre, Jefferson Bank holdup. And other murders and robberies laid to notorious Chicago character.

Found on Newspapers.com

St. Joseph, Mo. (AP 1931) -- Fred H. Burke, notorious killer and robber indicted for the st. valentine's day massacre of severn gangsters in Chicago in 1929, was arrested in a farmhouse near Milan, Missouri, early today and brought to the St. Joseph jail where he admitted his identity.

The prisoner, characterized by Chicago authorities as "the most dangerous man alive," was placed in a specially constructed cell in the st. Joseph jail and two patrolmen were detailed to guard him.

Burke engaged in a long telephone conversation with the chief of detectives in Chicago, whom he told, police offices said, "I am not a dam bit afraid to come back to Chicago." When told he had been identified as the gangster held responsible for a dozen murders and robberies totaling a million dollars, Burke at first said:

"Well, if you know who I am there is no use of me telling you."

Police Captain J. E. Kelly said the prisoner later readily admitted he was Burke.

St. Joseph, Mo. (AP 1931) -- A man whom they identified as Frederick Burke, notorious Chicago gangster charged with he St. Valentine's day massacre of seven men, half a dozen other murders, and robberies totaling a million dollars, was arrested at dawn in a farmhouse near Milan, Mo., by St. Joseph police. Burke was in bed when Police Captain John Lard, Detectives Melvin Swepston, e. R. Kelly and A. W. Thedinga, accompanied by Sheriff Hoover of Mercer county, rushed into his room with machine guns ready. Burke was seized before he could reach for his revolver.
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