South Bend News-Times, 17 December 1929, page 1: Chicago police link Burke in gang massacre

Front page of the South Bend News-Times, 17 December 1929. The story is credited “By United Press,” with the dateline printed “ST. JOSEPH, Mich., Dec. 14” although it reports an announcement made “Monday night” (16 December); the dateline is cited as printed. It opens: “The picture of the man who ruthlessly killed a policeman here and in whose home was found $319,000 in bank loot, has been identified as that of one of the machine gunmen who staged Chicago’s St. Valentine massacre, authorities announced Monday night.”

It names him as “Fred R. Burke, about 45 years of age,” known locally as Fred Dane, on the word of Deputy Police Commissioner John Stege and Pat Roche, chief investigator of the state’s attorney’s office. It quotes Stege that two bullet-proof vests from the house “have been positively traced” to the men police said did the killings, and reports that “Colonel Calvin Goddard, ballistics expert, has started from New York to compare bullets fired from the machine guns with those found in the North Side garage.”

The identification and the tracing of the vests are police statements as reported. The page was printed before Goddard’s tests.