[msb-alumni] James "Whitey" Bulger, Boston Mob Boss, Murdered in West Virginia Prison at Age 89
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2018 13:43:28 -0400
BlankJames "Whitey" Bulger, Boston Mob Boss, Murdered in West Virginia Prison
at
Age 89
BOSTON James "Whitey" Bulger, the murderous Boston gangster who benefited from
a
corrupt relationship with the FBI before spending 16 years as one of America's
most wanted men, was slain in federal prison. He was 89. Caption: This June 23,
2011, booking photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service shows James "Whitey"
Bulger. Bulger died in federal custody after being sentenced to spend the rest
of his life in prison. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said
he died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (Associated Press). This June 23, 2011, booking
photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service shows James "Whitey" Bulger.
Bulger died in federal custody after being sentenced to spend the rest of his
life in prison. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said he died
Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (Associated Press). Bulger was found unresponsive
Tuesday morning at the U.S. penitentiary in West Virginia where he'd just been
transferred, and a medical examiner declared him dead shortly afterward,
according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Authorities did not immediately
release
a cause of death, but Justin Tarovisky, a prison union official, told the
Associated Press the death was being investigated as a homicide. Bulger, the
model for Jack Nicholson's ruthless crime boss in the 2006 Martin Scorsese
movie, "The Departed," led a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling
and drug rackets. He also was an FBI informant who ratted on the New England
mob, his gang's main rival, in an era when bringing down the Mafia was a top
national priority for the FBI. Bulger fled Boston in late 1994 after his FBI
handler, John Connolly Jr., warned him he was about to be indicted. With a
$2 million reward on his head, Bulger became one of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted"
criminals, with a place just below Osama bin Laden. There was no love lost
for Bulger on the Boston streets he once ruled. Patricia Donahue's husband,
Michael, was killed in 1982 when he offered a ride home to a man allegedly
targeted for death by Bulger because he was talking to the FBI. "I'd like to
open up a champagne bottle and celebrate," she told WBZ-TV on Tuesday. Tom
Duffy, a retired state police detective who searched for Bulger and was a
consultant on "The Departed," called word of Bulger's death "celebratory news.
When the extent of his crimes and the FBI's role in overlooking them became
public in the late 1990s, Bulger became a source of embarrassment for the FBI.
During the years he was a fugitive, the FBI battled a public perception that it
had not tried very hard to find him. After more than 16 years on the run,
Bulger was captured at age 81 in Santa Monica, California, where he had been
living in a rent-controlled apartment near the beach with his longtime
girlfriend,
Catherine Greig. In 2013, he was convicted in the slayings, as well as
extortion, and money-laundering after a sensational racketeering trial that
included
graphic testimony from three former Bulger cohorts: a hit man, a protege and a
partner. He was sentenced nearly five years ago to two consecutive life
sentences plus five years. Bulger had just been moved to USP Hazelton, a
high-security prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in
Bruceton
Mills, West Virginia. He had been in a prison in Florida before a stopover at a
transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials
and his attorney had declined to comment on why he was being moved. Bulger,
nicknamed "Whitey" for his bright platinum hair, grew up in a gritty South
Boston housing project and became known as one of the most ruthless gangsters
in
Boston. His younger brother, William Bulger, became one of the most powerful
politicians in Massachusetts, leading the state Senate for 17 years. In
working-class "Southie," Bulger was known for helping old ladies across the
street
and giving turkey dinners to his neighbors at Thanksgiving. He had a kind of
Robin Hood-like image among some locals, but authorities said he would put
a bullet in the brain of anyone who he even suspected of double-crossing him.
"You could go back in the annals of criminal history and you'd be hard-pressed
to find anyone as diabolical as Bulger," said Duffy. "Killing people was his
first option. They don't get any colder than him," Duffy said after Bulger
was finally captured in June 2011. Bulger was accused of strangling Debra
Davis,
the 26-year-old girlfriend of his partner, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi,
and Deborah Hussey, also 26, the daughter of Flemmi's common-law wife. In both
cases, Bulger insisted on pulling out the women's teeth so they would be
difficult to identify, Flemmi testified. During a search of his Santa Monica
apartment, agents found over $800,000 in cash and more than 30 guns, many
hidden in holes in the walls. A property manager at the building said Bulger
and
Greig, who used the names Charles and Carol Gasko, had lived there for
15 years and always paid the rent-controlled rate of $1,145 a month in cash.
They were caught days after the FBI began a new publicity campaign focusing
on Greig. The daytime TV announcements showed photos of Greig and noted that
she
was known to frequent beauty salons and have her teeth cleaned once a
month. A woman from Iceland who knew Bulger and Greig in Santa Monica saw a
report on CNN about the latest publicity campaign and called in the tip that
led agents to them. The Boston Globe identified the tipster as a former Miss
Iceland, a former actress who starred in Noxzema shaving cream commercials
in the 1970s. Greig is still serving her sentence at a federal prison in
Minnesota. Bulger, a physical fitness buff, had been taken to a Boston hospital
from his jail cell at least three times, complaining of chest pains, since
being
brought back to Boston to stand trial.
"To take a lung full of air and push it out with some kind of song is an act of
survival, whether you’re singing in a shower, a car, a bar, in a chorus,
at a birthday party, at a church or wherever.
Try it -- you’ll live longer."
— Pete Seeger (who lived to be 94, singing all the while)
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