CHICAGO — Written by hand, the autopsies on seven bullet-riddled bodies vividly describe why the Valentine’s Day massacre of 1929 is still considered Chicago’s most infamous gangland killing.
The reports were recently unearthed with inquest transcripts from a warehouse after eight decades, and the Cook County medical examiner’s office is now considering how best to preserve and display them.
Executive officer James Sledge, a Chicago native, said he felt a chill down his back when he first read the documents outlining the attack at a Lincoln Park garage that left seven men dead and more than 160 machine-gun casings littering the scene.
The attack, carried out by men dressed as city police officers, is widely believed to have been ordered by famed Prohibition-era gangster Al Capone. The crime was never solved.
Shortly after Sledge joined the medical examiner’s office in 2014, he asked for permission to look at the autopsy records. His staff took multiple trips to a Cook County government warehouse to find the reports, which were tucked away in a metal file cabinet.
Sledge is considering where the documents should be stored and how accessible they should be, he told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Becky Schlikerman, a spokesman for the medical examiner’s office, said the office is still considering what to do with the documents.