From Wondery, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American history tellers, 1929, seven men were gunned down in a Chicago garage.

To this day, the so-called St. Valentine's Day massacre remains officially unsolved, although at the time, most involved in the investigation suspected Al Capone had ordered the killings.

Although he was never charged with ordering the murders, by the end of the roaring 20s, Al Capone had become the exemplar of the Prohibition-era gangster,

and the feds set out to get him any way they could.

In the end, Al Capone went to prison on charges of tax evasion.

My guest today will help us unpack the story of how the feds closed in on Capone

and what became of him in the years after his imprisonment.

Jonathan Aig is the author of Get Capone,

the secret plot that captured America's most wanted gangster.

Iig also won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2023 biography of Martin Luther King.

Our conversation is next.

Music Jonathan Igg, welcome to American history tellers.

Thanks for having me.

So I think we should start with the big question.

Did Al Capone order the St. Valentine's Day Massacre?

And if he didn't, who do you think may have done it? I think it's one of the great mysteries. It's one of the greatest unsolved crimes in all of American history. And you really have to unpack it to try to understand who might have been responsible. But I think that there's a good chance that some of the guys around Capone were involved in it. But bottom line for me is that we still don't know.

All right. Well, who might be the leading suspects? Well, there are a lot of them. The problem with Chicago gangland in general is that there are just almost endless rivalries and almost

endless numbers of competing gangs. So some people thought the purple gang out of Detroit or Egan's rats

out of St. Louis might have done it. Then there were other gangs in Chicago that were circling

around gangs that, you know, you probably haven't heard of. I think some of the guys associated

with Capone were probably involved. You know, guys like Jack McGern and Killer Burke. First

all, when you have the nickname Killer, when you have the nickname Machine Gun, Jack McGurn, you know, guys like Jack McGern and Killer Burke. First of all, when you have the nickname Killer, when you have the nickname Machine Gun, Jack McGern, you're going to be a suspect. And, of course, one big theory is that the cops did it, and there were no gangs involved at all. When you think about murder in general, what do we know? It's usually a crime with some anger involved. But why would somebody want to kill seven people in a garage, including some people who were not involved in gangland activities at all?

...