ST.VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE IN CHICAGO 1929-ARE THE BRICKS FROM THE GARAGE OF THE MASSACRE HAUNTED BY SOMETHING EVIL???

Keeping in the spirit of Valentine's Day, I thought I would write about the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago.  

LOCATION:

Street Address of the site of the 1929 Massacre:

2212 North Clark Street
Chicago, Illinois

On February 14th, 1929 the S-M-C Cartage Company, a red brick building and garage stood at this North Clark Street address, on the North side of Chicago. The garage was also used as a warehouse for illegal, black market liquor for the North side Bugs Moran gang, a mob of thugs who were in direct competition with Al Capone's gang in selling illicit bootleg booze to a very thirsty Chicago population during the Prohibition years.

HISTORY OF THIS LOCATION:

After the bloody killing of 7 of the Moran gang, the garage became an unofficial memorial, and the brick wall where the 7 were executed was riddled with machine gun bullets. It became a popular tourist attraction for a time.

Twenty years later, In 1949, the front half of the garage was converted into an antique furniture storage business by people new to Chicago and didn't know what had happened there. Unfortunately more tourists than customers came and they eventually gave up and moved on. In 1967, the old building was torn down, but the infamous wall of bricks was saved and used in another night club, built into a wall of the men's rest room. Other bricks were smuggled out by workmen tearing down the building.

A fenced off lawn, which belongs to a nearby nursing home, was put in where the garage once stood, with 5 trees planted on site. The tree in the middle of the lawn marks the place where the infamous brick wall once stood.

Chicago policemen re-enact the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1929)	St. Valentine's Day Massacre

HISTORY OF AL CAPONE

Al Capone, Chicago's most powerful, ruthless gangster in the 1920s era, was really a Brooklyn transplant who migrated to Chicago with his best buddy and future cohort in Chicago crime, Johnny Torrio who was originally hired by his Chicago mobster uncle, Big Jim Collisimo. Johnny Torrio and Al Capone made ambitious plans to take over the black market booze market, but not by fair market competition. (They missed taking economics in school because they dropped out at the 6th grade).

After knocking off Uncle Big Jim Collisimo, Al and Johnny waged a bloody war against other mobs in Chicago, resulting in 500 deaths by the time Capone was through in 1930. When Johnny was nearly killed in 1925, he retired, leaving a 30 million dollar empire in the capable hands of Al Capone at the age of 26! Al Capone had 1000 gunmen, half the police department on his payroll, as well as local politicians, state attorneys, and law makers. So whenever he had to conduct business, many just looked the other way; that is until he crossed the line on February, 14th, 1929 with the St. Valentines Day Massacre.

While Capone was far away enjoying life in Florida, he put this job in the capable, murderous hands of "Machine Gun" McGurn, who was given complete control of the hit. He planned it but stayed away from the event himself, with an air-tight alibi. "Talented out of towners" were recruited for this hit; Fred "Killer" Burke, James Ray, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi, Joseph Lolordo and Harry and Phil Keywell from Detroit's Purple Gang.

DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT

On the morning of February 14, 1929, a group of Bugs Moran's gangsters were waiting in this garage, for a truck full of stolen liquor from Detroit to arrive. Johnny May, Frank and Pete Gusenburg, Bugs Moran's brother-in-law, James Clark, Adam Heyer, Al Weinshank and a gangster wanna-be, optometrist Reinhardt Schwimmer, who learned too late that it was dangerous hanging with men on the wrong side of the law.

As they waited, a police car pulled up outside. (Uh oh, this wasn't good!) Five men, three dressed as policemen exited and walked into the garage with machine guns ready. All seven men were lined up against the brick wall and shot many times from the machine guns. While Capon's gunmen wiped out the Northern Chicago gang, they missed Bugs Moran, who was late to the party. Bugs Moran later accused Al Capone of this vicious hit. Though there wasn't any evidence to directly link Al Capone to this event, people believed Bugs.

MANIFESTATIONS:

The location of this brutal mass killing has been haunted for years, the bricks are said to bring bad luck, and Al Capone himself saw his reign come to an end and was haunted by an entity until he died in Florida.

1) The location of this brutal mass killing has been haunted for years

a) Unusual light and mists have been reported.

b) Male voices are heard when no one else is around.

c) Sounds of screaming men and machine-gun fire are still heard by the living passing by this place

d) Sensitive people who stand in front of the fenced lawn, or walk by it, develop a sense of real fear and so do animals.

2) The bricks are said to bring bad luck.

a) The theory is that the bricks soaked in all this powerful negative energy from the killings. Legend has it that after the nightclub outlived its purpose, the bricks were taken out and sold individually for 1000 dollars each. But many of the bricks that were sold were given back because the new owners suffered a rash of bad luck, so the story goes.

b) Others say that the bricks were never sold individually but were kept together in a packed box, numbered, with a diagram as to how to put the wall back together, with the hopes that a single buyer would buy the whole wall of bricks. It never sold; not yet anyway.

3) Capone himself got his just desserts. Unfortunately for Al Capone, consequences resulted as a result of this planned massacre, carried out by hired gunmen.

a) People were repulsed with this bloody mass killing, and a lot of political pressure resulted in nailing Capone for tax evasion, landing him in prison, sentenced to 11 years of hard time, winding up on the rock, Alcatraz. Though he only stayed in until 1939, he didn't always have both oars in the water, which forced him into retirement.

b) The entity of Moran's brother-in-law, James Clark immediately started to haunt Capone who was living in his Florida house at the time of the massacres. He tried to send the entity to the other side via a medium in 1931, but it didn't work. After Capone, broken in spirit and mind, returned to Florida after being released from prison, the entity reappeared and haunted Al until he died.

c) Al Capone was buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery. It is said that he sometimes appears to the disrespectful visitors who come to visit his family's plot.

The video below is one we took in the creepest stairway of the Congress Hotel in Chicago where Al Capone is said to have lived part time and stayed.  You really have to look hard to this stairway we were in below!   The bricks inside were burned and it was obviously a place where not many people go!  Very old and very dark!  

CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY TELLING FORGOTTEN/5 TRUE CHILLING MURDERS ON CHRISTMAS-NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

Watching over everyone in Spirit!!! Merry Christmas!!!!

Well, the countdown begins....Christmas is in 4 days!!! Hope everyone is ready and has a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends! I know I will!!!  Don't forget to say a little prayer for all those serving our county and for those who have gone before us.

I wish I could send each and everyone of you a special gift that says "Thank you" for showing up and reading blog week after week.  You guys are the BEST followers EVER and I really appreciate the support!  Without you, the words are......just words!  No one hears the story. :)

Ok....I wanted to write about something to do with Christmas but at the same time kept with the theme of ghosts....hhhuummm How am I going to do that?  GOT IT!!!!

A long time ago, a tradition Christmas was started with the English during the mid 19th century.  Now, I am not saying that people haven't always celebrated Christmas but the traditional ways like the sending of Christmas cards, decorating the trees, caroling in front of homes, putting stocking up over the fireplace were all started in the Victorian era.  We STILL do all these things TODAY expect for one tradition that is all but completely forgotten.....gathering around a fire and telling ghost stories!  That's right!  A HUGE part of Christmas back in the mid 19th century would have been to wrap up in a warm blanket, gather the family with some hot coco and sit around a roaring fire and tell....GHOST STORIES!!!!

“Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories,” wrote British humorist Jerome K. Jerome as part of his introduction to an anthology of Christmas ghost stories titled “Told After Supper“ in 1891. “Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters.”One verse of Andy Williams’ classic Christmas song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” for instance, clearly says, “There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.”

And lets not for the Charles Dickens' "ghostly little story" called "A Christmas Carol."

I would like to recommend if you don't already have it, that you get the Walt Disney version with the  3-D charters.  The kids these days will enjoy all the animation and you will enjoy the story. :)  It's a great family film!

Now, I know that some people will say that you shouldn't talk about Ghosts and that "kind of stuff" during Christmas....that "stuff like that" should just stick with Halloween. Well, to each their own...but ghosts DON'T always have to be scary.......just ask my friend Casper the Friendly Ghost.  Below is another cute little family story that is about Casper the Friendly Ghost and he is suppose to scare someone before Christmas.  Well you know me......if I can put something "ghostly" in....I will.

Here's the thing...Christmas can be celebrated in MANY different ways....and if you want to include GHOST STORIES on Christmas like I do (of course, lol) then do so.  If you don't....then don't.  There is only ONE reason Christmas is Christmas.... and that is the day Jesus was born.  And that, HOWEVER you choose to celebrate it, is up to you and your beliefs.

In addition to being the longest night of the year, traditionally it is held to be the MOST HAUNTED night due to its association with the death of the sun and light.  It was the one night of the year when the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest.  Now, most people believe that night is Halloween because spirits can roam freely without being seen.  (because of the costumes of course)  In the old tradition on Christmas Eve, ghosts could walk the earth and finish unsettled business, as exemplified by the apparition of Marley in Charles Dickens' Christmas masterpiece.

Below is a site to a book that was written back in 1891 that is called REAL GHOST STORIES that the written states in the very beginning..." any one of tender years, of morbid excitability, or of excessively nervous temperament". It is suppose to be true ghost stories told by different individuals.  I found it to be a very interesting read when you have the time....but NOT NOW....your reading my blog!!!!

http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/dec2007.html

Now, below is True Massacres that took place on Christmas.  Fair warning, these are not happy stories so before you read them....let me say again MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!  Don't forget to LOVE not HATE.  Share a smile and a kind word with someone at Christmas.....you never know when it might be the only "present" they receive.  🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅

1. Covina Massacre, 2008

On Christmas Eve night, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo put on a Santa suit and headed over to a party his former in-laws' place. Sounds appropriate for Christmas, right? Well, except for the fact that the "presents" that Pardo brought with him included a wrapped homemade flamethrowerand four 9mm semi-automatic handguns.

When he entered the home, he began shooting at random, immediately shooting an eight-year-old girl who was excitedly running to greet him (thankfully, she ended up living). After shooting many more members of his former wife's family, he used his makeshift flamethrower to douse the house in gasoline and set it on fire. In the end, nine people (including his ex-wife and former in-laws) were killed by gunshot wounds or flames.

Authorities suspect that Pardo was still furious about the divorce and having to pay alimony to his ex-wife. While he had concocted a plan to escape by plane with almost $17,000 in cash, the burns he suffered committing his horrible crimes drove him to commit suicide.

2. Ashland Tragedy, 1881

While three teenages (Robert Gibbons, Fannie Gibbons, and their friend Emma Carico) slumbered in the Gibbons home in the early hours of Christmas morning, intruders broke in and beat them to death with axes and a crowbar. The assailants then lit the house on fire, leaving charred remains with their skulls viscously cracked open.

A local bricklayer named George Ellis ultimately told police that he commited the crime along with coworkers William Neal and Ellis Craft. Because the public was so enraged by the murders, the trio needed to be removed from Catlettsburg jail to avoid a lynch mob. Following the trial, Neal and Craft were sentenced to death by hanging, and Ellis was given a life term. The townfolk were furious with this verdict, however, and removed Ellis from his jail that very night and lynched him.

3. Dallas Christmas Massacre, 2011

In another horrendous example of a murderer taking advantage of Santa's jolly effect on people, Aziz Yazdanpanah wore the iconic red and white suit to go on a murderous rampage. Like Pardo, he was experiencing financial troubles, and his rage was directed toward his estranged wife and family.

Yasdanpanah arrived at his wife's apartment where his family had just finished unwrapping gifts. He opened fire on his wife, daughter, son, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and niece, killing them all in the living room and kitchen. When the police found the carnage, Yasdanpanah had already turned the gun on himself.

4. The Los Feliz Murder Mansion, 1959

According to his neighbors, Dr. Harold Perelson was a respectable family man residing in a nice area of Los Angeles. That is until he murdered his wife in cold blood and then pursued his oldest daughter. After enjoying a calm dinner and putting his two younger to bed, Dr. Perelson grabbed a hammer from the garage. He returned to his bedroom and, with excruciating force, pummeled his wife's head. When Judye, his eldest daughter, saw the grisly sight, her father attempted the same attack on her, but she was only wounded and stunned. She escaped to the neighbors who called the police, and Dr. Perelson drank a bottle of acid in the living room, leaving all his children thankfully alive.

His motive for the murders is still a mystery.

Though the actual murder occurred on December 6th, the mansion was all decked out for the upcoming holiday. The freakiest part of all is that the Christmas Tree and the still-wrapped presents remain from the original owners remain untouched, and the house still sits almost exactly how it did on that fateful day in 1959. Though there is a "No Trespassing" sign, the spot has become a destination for visitors interested in the macabre.

5. Charlie Lawson Murders, 1929

Just before Christmas in 1929, Charlie Lawson took his large family (wife Fannie and their children: Marie, 17; Arthur, 16; Carrie, 12; Maybell, 7; James, 4; Raymond, 2; and Mary Lou, 4 months) on an uncommonly lavish trip to buy new outfits and take a family portrait. The new garments would turn out to be burial clothes.

On Christmas Day, Lawson began slaughtering his family with a shotgun. He shot Carrie and Maybell first, and then pursued his wife. Hearing the shots, the little boys tried to hide, while Marie screamed. He found and killed them all, even the infant Mary Lou. The only survivor was his eldest son Arthur, who returned to the farm with a police officer to find that his father had committed suicide.

Perhaps the most insidious element of this story is the potential motive. In their book White Christmas, Bloody Christmas, M. Bruce Jones and Trudy J. Smith argue that based on the testimony of people who knew the Lawsons intimately, Charlie and his eldest daughter Marie had likely been having an incestuous affair. A friend of Marie's even claimed that Marie told her she was pregnant with Charlie's baby, and both Charlie and his wife knew about it. The theory goes that Lawson was either racked with guilt or so unwilling to father a child with his daughter that he snapped and slaughtered the whole family. Either way, it's easily the most heinous Christmas murder in the country's history.

MASSACRE RIGHT IN MY OWN BACKYARD!-SHOAL CREEK, TX HAS HISTORY, TREASURE AND GHOSTS...WHAT ELSE COULD THERE BE???

OMG!!! I found the coolest place!!!  I had to go to Austin for business but you know me....I HAD to find something ghostly! lol  So, as I sat in my room one night I found this place that was talking about an Indian massacre and the more I read the more I became fascinated with the location.  Where is the location you may ask?????  Shoal Creek in Austin, Tx.  I have never heard about this place before and I have lived in Texas all my life!  What the heck???  WHY haven't I heard about paranormal groups going here???  Well for whatever the reason.....you can BEAT I'm going to check it out!!!!

And guess what???  It was only a like 15 mins from my hotel.  Oh man!!! Could it get any better!!!!  

This was the site of an Indian massacre where the victims were buried. No one is certain how many of the victims were buried at the site. (White’s grave at nearby Oakwood Cemetery is also haunted and yes....I totally went there) There are many other unmarked graves at Shoal Creek. Many victims of cholera and yellow fever were hastily buried at the Creek. These include soldiers who camped at the creek during the Civil War, and those who served with General Custer during his Reconstruction occupation of Austin. Most of those bodies were later removed and reburied at Arlington National Cemetery, but about 35 graves were never found. Then, in April 1915, a flash flood took even more lives along the banks of Shoal Creek. They report that bones were exposed from unmarked graves. Easy place to investigate because it’s a public park and open to everybody.  They also have markers at the haunted sites! However, curfew is 10PM.

Now, Mr. Gideon White decided to build his log cabin close to the springs near Shoal Creek in 1839.  After a few years of peace, Native Americans attacked and killed White in 1842. He and many other spirits are said to linger around the creek bed.  So go at your own risk.  Risk...... what is that???? lol

Now, this place is beautiful!  The trees were starting to change colors and the night was very quiet and peaceful.  Long winding paths through the trees and squirrels just sitting along the side of the pathway just watching as you pass.  Not the kind of night or place you could picture all the horrible things that happened here.  It was already late when I arrived so I didn't have a lot of time.  So I put as many small pieces of equipment as my pockets would hold.......including a camera (of course) and a recorder. (I never leave home with them. lol)

Below is a quick video I put together of some of the EVP's that I captured.  Some good, some not so good.  But let me tell you.....I will go back and NEXT TIME I will stay after dark and have lots more equipment!

No comments on what I look like!!!  I stayed up late and had to get up early.  Had to read about this location you know.....

I really didn't get anything in my pictures but here are a few just so you can see what it looks like.

Have a great rest of the week everyone and get ready for the cold weather!!!!  buuuurrrrrr

DEADLIEST SCHOOL MASSACRE REMEMBERED 89 YEARS LATER.