Could the ghost of a legendary gangster be haunting a Moraine Sports Bar? Did you know that former flashy Chicago gangster George “Bugs” Moran has a Moraine connection due to his 1946 robbery and kidnapping crime? Moran is forever linked to Chicago’s infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Mob Boss Al Capone was the leader of Chicago’s south side gang. Bugs Moran was the leader of the north side gang. On February 14, 1929, Capone’s gang (several dressed as police officers) machine gunned Moran’s top seven gangsters in a north side garage (Photo#1). Moran was late arriving or he would have also been killed. After the massacre Capone took control of organized crime and bootlegging in Chicago.
Fast forward to 1946 in Dayton, Ohio. Moran was not the big time crime boss that he once was in Chicago. He needed money and a new city to flex his muscle. Dayton, Ohio was a promising, blooming, industrial city. Along with Dayton bootlegger Al Fouts and Moran’s partner Virgil Summers, the trio of killers followed Silas Tavern bar manager Paul Kurpe, Jr. from Winters Bank on West Third Street. They forced Kurpe’s car off the road, kidnapped him at gunpoint and drove him to a wooded area on Vance Road (Photo#2). Kurpe was led into the woods, bound hand and foot and robbed of the $10,000 bank withdrawal that he was going to use to cash pay checks for workers at the nearby Frigidaire Plant in Moraine. Eventually, he got free and called police.
Within two weeks all three criminals were apprehended by Dayton Police (Photo#3) and the FBI with their trial being a big media sensation in Dayton. All three were convicted to 20 years in prison (Photo #4) where Bugs Moran eventually died in prison of cancer. The end of the story? Not quite…