Editing Saint Valentine's Day Massacre (section)

== Bolton revelations ==
On January 8, 1935, FBI agents surrounded a Chicago apartment building at 3920 North Pine Grove looking for the remaining members of the [[Barker–Karpis gang|Barker Gang]]. A brief shootout erupted, resulting in the death of bank robber [[Russell Gibson]]. Taken into custody were [[Arthur Barker|Doc Barker]], Byron Bolton, and two women. Bolton was a Navy machine-gunner and associate of Egan's Rats, and he had been the valet of Chicago hit man [[Fred Goetz]]. Bolton was privy to many of the Barker Gang's crimes and pinpointed the Florida hideout of [[Ma Barker]] and Freddie Barker, both of whom were killed in a shootout with the FBI a week later. Bolton said he took part in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre with Goetz, Fred Burke, and several others.

The FBI had no jurisdiction in a state murder case, so they kept Bolton's revelations confidential until the ''[[Chicago American]]'' newspaper reported a second-hand version of his confession. The newspaper declared that the crime had been "solved", despite being stonewalled by [[J. Edgar Hoover]] and the FBI, who did not want any part of the massacre case. Garbled versions of Bolton's story went out in the national media. Bolton, it was reported,{{where|date=February 2019}} said that the plan to murder Bugs Moran had been plotted in October or November 1928 at a [[Couderay, Wisconsin]] resort owned by Fred Goetz. Present at this meeting were Goetz, Al Capone, [[Frank Nitti]], Fred Burke, [[Gus Winkler]], [[Louis Campagna]], Daniel Serritella, William Pacelli, and Bolton. The men stayed two or three weeks, hunting and fishing when they were not planning the murder of their enemies.

Bolton said that he and Jimmy Moran were charged with watching the S.M.C. Cartage garage and phoning the signal to the killers at the Circus Café when Bugs Moran arrived at the meeting. Police had found a letter addressed to Bolton in the lookout nest (and possibly a vial of prescription medicine). Bolton guessed that the actual killers had been Burke, Winkeler, Goetz, [[Robert Carey (gangster)|Bob Carey]], Raymond "Crane Neck" Nugent, and Claude Maddox (four shooters and two getaway drivers). Bolton gave an account of the massacre different from the one generally told by historians. He said that he saw only "plainclothes" men exit the Cadillac and go into the garage. This indicates that a second car was used by the killers. George Brichet said he saw at least two uniformed men exiting a car in the alley and entering the garage through its rear doors. A [[Peerless Motor Company]] sedan had been found near a Maywood house owned by Claude Maddox in the days after the massacre, and in one of the pockets was an address book belonging to victim Albert Weinshank. Bolton said that he had mistaken one of Moran's men to be Moran, after which he telephoned the signal to the Circus Café. The killers had expected to kill Moran and two or three of his men, but they were unexpectedly confronted with seven men; they simply decided to kill them all and get out fast. Bolton said that Capone was furious with him for his mistake and the resulting police pressure and threatened to kill him, only to be dissuaded by Fred Goetz.

His claims were corroborated by Gus Winkeler's widow Georgette in an official FBI statement and in her memoirs, which were published in a four-part series in a true detective magazine during the winter of 1935–36. She revealed that her husband and his friends had formed a special crew used by Capone for high-risk jobs. The mob boss was said to have trusted them implicitly and nicknamed them the "American Boys". Bolton's statements were also backed up by William Drury, a Chicago detective who had stayed on the massacre case long after everyone else had given up. Bank robber [[Alvin Karpis]] later said to have heard secondhand from Ray Nugent about the massacre and that the "American Boys" were paid a collective salary of $2,000 a week plus bonuses. Karpis also said that Capone had told him while they were in [[Alcatraz]] together that Goetz had been the actual planner of the massacre.

Despite Byron Bolton's statements, no action was taken by the FBI. All the men whom he named were dead by 1935, with the exception of Burke and Maddox. Bank robber [[Harvey Bailey]] complained in his 1973 autobiography that he and Fred Burke had been drinking beer in [[Calumet City]], [[Illinois]] at the time of the massacre, and the resulting heat forced them to abandon their bank robbing ventures. Historians are still divided on whether or not the "American Boys" committed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.