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ny a —- M'GURN DEADLY ‘AND DEBONAIR IN ALL HIS KILLINGS Desire to Avenge Death of Fothoar CGnaid to La PE auriwve we CLI LE Ra Prompted Crimes. Vé ¥¥Uu If epitaphs must be written for hoodlums, it can be said for “Ma- chine Gun Jack” McGurn, who was slain early today, thai not since the medieval days of the Italian city Slates has there been a hired killer as gracious, debonair and deadly. What their velvet-clad and ftlumed young men with Florentine Gaggers were to the Sforzas or thi Medici, MceGurn was to no less buccaneer, “Searface Al’ Capone, who revered him for his deadliness jand his loyalty. | The legend about McGurn on the hear west side is that he started his | career as a killer to avenge his father, slain by blackhanders when McGurn was a boy in his teens. This j Was about the time of the birth of | prohibition. McGurn, born Gebhard], was a carefree youth living in the snadow of Notre Dame church at Sibley and Oregon streets when his father was slain, A relative “ribbed” the young ,man up and told him the names of at least six men responsible for the murder of his father, the story goes. When this relative had stirred in the young man a passionate desire Gurn on his career. Within the gossip, McGurn had killed every lone of the Sicilians “fingered” in the death of his father. or revenge, he had launched Me-5 | next year, according to underworld | ocoused of about everything but pickpecketing, but never served a \ His First Murder. The first murder was obvious! nervous piece of work for the sensi~ tive young west sider, but once over the niil of his first homicide, Me= Gurn went, in the parlance of the ts b. town, efficiency and earnestness tn Len otf wrongs with a pistol won ‘the admiration of “Scarface Al’ Capone, then rising to prominence as Chicago's. biggest gang leader. Once under the wing of the rising Capone, McGurn was made. A close friendship developed be- tween the two social outlaws, and among. all his associates, Capone trusted McGurn to the last line. It was McGurn, according to competent police informers, who first learned some years ago that ambition had stirred within the breasts of John Scalise, Albert Anselmi and Joseph Giunta, who planned to kill Capone and seize his organization. McGurn informed Capone of the plot. A few nights later McGurn was host to Scalise, Anselmi and Giunta at @ spaghetti party in Cicero. The next morning the bodies mond. ! MeGurn was shot once in an at: fempted assassination as he stood in a Cigar store in what was the the MeCormick hotel, Ontario an ‘Rush streets. This was in the days of the intense rivalry between the Capone mob and the north side gang of George (‘Bugs’) Moran, The St. Valentine Murders, This rivalry was liquidated seven ‘years ago yesterday, when a squad of Capone killers walked into the garage at 2122 North Clark street and mowed down seven Moranites and their associates. McGurn was reported to have been at that party, along with Fred (‘Killer’) Burke and the late Gus Winkler. McGurn was the target for assassins a second time, on March 7, 1928. Machine gunners riddled © his automobile on the west side, but he escaned unscathed, Pstaped McGurn in his lifetime had been Jail term. He was convicted in the state | of the three were found in Ham- ! He was also convi court of viol act with the woma widow, but won a in the United State McGurn was indi rf ar in the St. Valentin but the case dropped. He esta that he was with the Stevens hotel the mass killing. His golf was go him dare to compe’ : right name, in 7 a ; tournament a few re la ~ the first six holes "\ \wr ch? then discovered thm with a warrant iss. __ Thomas A, Green in Felony court, were following him, He blew up and quit, He stood trial and was convicted in the lower court. “tt is a good thing he is gone,” Judge Green said today. “Men of his type have no place in the com~ rounity. His case is a point in the argument for an amendment to the constitution to permit men with [reputations as gunmen to be jskarched on ‘probable cause’ by po- ice,” ' Since the breakup of the Capone yang, accomplished through the in- come-tax conviction of the leader, McGurn, along with other notorious members of the mob, had drifted almost into obscurity, McGurn had spent his time golfing and taking care of a few handbooks in which he was interested in Cook county outside Chicago. Renthas Claime Body. The body was claimed at the morgue by McGurn's brother, An- theny Gebardi, 622 South Morgan street, who filled out a blank con- taining: some family history at the request of Henry Vala, a clerk in the coroner's office. - MeGurn was born July 2, 1903, jat La Gota, Italy, and was brought ito this country as a baby by his parents, Thomas and Josephine Verderams Gebardi. The dead aes meafaccion fae given ge hoodium'’s profession was given a5 a golf professional at the Maywood" Sountry Club for seven years prior to February, 1935. According to the brother, McGurat ‘tearried no insurance and had no courts for gun carrying and on B* property, real or personal, vagrancy charge, but beat both t eases in the Illinois Supreme court. * Ut a “~~