2

The exhibit: featuring the guns of the St. V

alentine's Day massacre.

The American Thompson Association's exhibit this year was based on the ground breaking work of

Dr. Calvin Goddard (Father of Modern Ballistic Forensics). Dr. Goddard pioneered most of the

techniques used today to solve crimes with matching bullets, casings and blood at crime scenes.

What we today take for granted or as entertainment on TV, was "Buck Rogers" science fiction in

the 1920s.

Goddard was brought to Chicago after the massacre to examine the Chicago Police Department

Thompsons to see if they were used in the massacre. Which he proved they had not been. Then in

December of 1929, a minor traffic accident, turned into murder. Fred "Killer" Burke had had a minor

fender bender with another motorist. When a local police officer went to help at the crash scene,

Burke shot and killed him. This then caused a massive man hunt for the unknown shooter. When

he was captured the Berian County Sheriff's Department also raided his rented house. To their

amazement they found an arsenal of bullet proof vests, pistols, two Thompsons, and ammunition.

The Thompson's were sent to Dr. Goddard for ballistic tests. He later proved that these were the

correct Thompsons used in the massacre, after comparing test bullets and cartridges with ones

recovered from the massacre garage.

The TATA exhibit presented the Burke guns, still owned by the Berian County Sheriff's Department,

along with a historical explanation of Dr. Goddard's work on the massacre. We had on display a

period bullet proof vest, a comparison microscope (to view sample cartridges from the guns), bricks

from the massacre garage and lots of memorabilia from Dr. Goddard's lab in Chicago.