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From The Archives - January 2015


Frank Gusenberg
  
 

Frank Gusenberg was a American contract killer and a victim of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

He was the second-oldest of three sons and one sister born to Peter Gusenberg Sr. Peter Sr. was of a first generation emigrant from Germany.
Following the footsteps of his older brother Peter, Frank began a life of crime. In 1909, he was arrested for disorderly conduct and until 1914; he was a suspect in numerous armed robberies and burglaries in the Greater Chicago area. The Gusenberg brothers decided to join Dion O’Banion, Hymie Weiss, and other members of the local mob scene for more serious offenses. They became two of the gang’s chief hitmen. After O’Banion’s murder in 1924, Frank Gusenberg joined his friends, led by Hymie Weiss, in getting revenge on the Capone mob.

On September 20, 1926, with the North Side Gang, Frank aided in the drive-by shooting of the Capone headquarters at the Hawthorne Hotel. Despite injuring Capone, the attack worked, he requested for a meeting between the two gangs. Unfortunately, the meeting failed. Three week later, Hymie Weiss was murdered. Growing weaker, The North Siders, desired to kill Jack McGurn, who was suspecting of murdering Weiss. On several occasions, the Gusenberg brothers made attempts on his life. Regardless of his many injuries, McGurn survived these attempts.

In 1928, Bugs Moran, the leader of the North Side Gang allied with Capone’s enemy, Joe Aiello. Thus, assisted by the Gusenberg brothers, The North Siders killed Anotonio Lonbardo and Pasqualino Lolordo, presidents of the Unione Siciliane. As a result, Capone conspired to eliminate Bugs Moran.

On February 14, 1929, seven members of the North Side gang, including Frank Gusenberg, met at a garage behind the offices of S.M.C. Cartage Company. Supposedly, four members of Capone’s gang drove to the garage in a stolen police car. A couple of the men were dressed in police uniforms pretended to conduct an ordinary raid, and lined Moran’s men up against a wall. Immediately when their backs were all turned, two more men entered the room with machine guns and, along with the “police” opened fire on the seven men, pounding seventy bullets into them in what would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Although, he had twenty-two wounds by fourteen bullets, Frank Gusenberg was alive upon the arrival of the police. When asked “who shot you?” Frank replied “nobody shot me”. Even though the killers wiped out a large portion of Moran’s mob, they missed Moran himself.

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