Saint Valentine's Day Massacre Rats, had been the valet of the Chicago hit man Fred Goetz. Bolton was privy to many of the Barker Gang's crimes and pinpointed the Florida hideout of Ma and Freddie Barker (both of whom were killed in a shootout with the FBI a week later). Bolton claimed to have taken part in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre with Goetz, Fred Burke, and several others. Because the FBI had no jurisdiction in a state murder case, they kept Bolton's revelations confidential, until the "Chicago American" newspaper reported a second-hand version of the bank robber's confession. The newspaper declared that the
Saint Valentine's Day Massacre $2,000 a week plus bonuses. Karpis also claimed that Capone himself 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 he named, with the exceptions of Burke and Maddox, were dead by 1935. Bank robber Harvey Bailey would later complain in his 1973 autobiography that he and Fred Burke had been drinking beer in Calumet City at the time of the massacre, and the resulting heat forced them to abandon their bank robbing ventures. Claude Maddox