Bloody Valentine – 5 Grisly + Tragic Murders That Took Place on Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day typically conjures images of heart-shaped chocolate boxes, luxurious red roses and bubbly champagne — not crime scenes.

While the February 14th holiday is known as a day to celebrate love and romance, throughout the years the date has been tarnished by a number of bloody massacres and violent homicides that would rattle Cupid to his core.

Whether sparked by marital rage, jealousy or even gang wars, these gruesome and tragic Valentine’s Day killings give horrifying new meaning to the phrase “love is murder.”

The Saint Valentine’s Day Gang Massacre

One of the bloodiest Valentine’s Days in history took place nearly 100 years ago on Feb. 14, 1929. During the explosive Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, members of Chicago’s North Side Gang were murdered when the seven men were lined up against a wall in a garage and shot by four unidentified gunmen.

The massacre was a violent result of Chicago’s Prohibition-era organized crime spree, during which the Irish North Side gang, led by “Bugs” Moran, battled against the Italian Chicago Outfit gang, led by Al Capone, for control of the city.

A Double Shooting Sparked by Jealousy

In 2023, a man named Melvin Ojeda-Rodríguez allegedly broke into his ex-girlfriend’s Pennsylvania apartment in the early hours of Valentine’s Day, where he shot both his ex and the man who was with her at the time.

The woman, who was shot in the leg and treated at a hospital, survived, but the man, who was shot multiple times, died at the scene.

After turning himself in, Ojeda-Rodríguez was charged with “first-degree murder, burglary, aggravated assault and several other charges,” according to NBC Philadelphia.

An Execution-Style Triple Homicide on Valentine’s Day

On Valentine’s Day 1999, Dawn Rogers, 30, Cayci Higgins, 19, and O.J. Blair, 18, were shot “execution style” in a Tennessee apartment the day after an alleged altercation with another party.

Police described the brutal murders as a “revenge-style attack.”

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More than a decade later, in 2022 a man named Maurice Johnson was found guilty and convicted of the killings. He received three consecutive life sentences without parole.

The Man Who Dismembered His Wife

A gruesome and unforgivable crime took place in a seemingly peaceful Michigan town back in February 2007 when it was discovered a man had killed and dismembered his wife.

Stephen Grant called police to report his wife, Tara, missing on Feb. 14, 2007. Claiming she had left their home a few days earlier, the woman’s torso was later discovered in the family’s garage. Not long after, Stephen admitted he had murdered his wife and cut up her dead body in his industrial shop in order to get rid of the evidence.

He was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

A TV Star’s Beloved Ex Tragically Killed

Though technically killed on Feb. 15, 2020, the tragic death of Hollywood therapist Amie Harwick began to unfurl just hours before on Valentine’s Day. The day before she was murdered, Harwick reached out to her former fiancée Drew Carey to set up a friendly get-together, to which Carey texted back, “I would love to do that … I love you.” The pair sadly never reunited.

Later that evening, Harwick went out on the town with her girlfriends for Valentine’s Day. When she returned to her home just after 1:00AM, she was violently attacked by a hidden assailant in her bedroom. Responding to a phone call about a “woman screaming,” police soon discovered Harwick’s strangled body lying on the ground 20 feet underneath her balcony.

During their investigation, police discovered Harwick had been killed by her ex-boyfriend Gareth Pursehouse, whom she had filed domestic violence complaints against years earlier. In 2023, a jury found Pursehouse guilty of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.