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I'm your host Mark.
And I'm Courtney.
And this is Mountain State Mysteries.
The case we have for you today is about a man whose name became synonymous with organized
crime in Boston.
This is the case of James Whitey Bulger.
James Whitey Bulger Jr. was born on September 3, 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts to Jane Veronica
Jean McCarthy and James Bulger Sr. Whitey grew up in the rough streets of South Boston.
Whitey's father worked as a union laborer, an occasional longshoreman.
He ended up losing his arm in an industrial accident.
After that, his family was reduced to poverty.
In May of 1938, the Mary Ellen McCormick Housing Project was open in the neighborhood of South
Boston.
The Bulger family moved in and the children grew up there.
While his younger siblings William and John excelled in school, James was drawn to the
streets.
This early criminal career police nicknamed him Whitey, which he actually hated.
He preferred to be called Jim, Jimmy, or Boots.
The nickname Boots actually came from his habit of wearing cowboy boots, which is where
he used to hide a switchblade.
Whitey gained the reputation as a thief and a street fighter.
This led him to meet more experienced criminals and find more lucrative opportunities.
In 1943, 14-year-old Whitey was arrested and charged with larceny.
He joined a street gang known as the Shamrocks.
This would lead him to be arrested for assault, forgery, and armed robbery.
Whitey was sentenced to a juvenile for all of these offenses.
Not too long after his release in April of 1948, Whitey joined the United States Air
Force, where he earned his high school diploma and he trained as a mechanic.
Despite his reimagined military life, he was not reformed at all.
He would actually spend some time in military prison for several assaults and was later
arrested by Air Force police in 1950 for going absent without leave.
In 1952, he received an honorable discharge and returned to Massachusetts.
In 1956, Whitey served his first term in federal prison at the Atlanta Penitentiary for armed
robbery and truck hijacking.
While in there, he told mobster Kevin Weeks that he was used as a human subject in the
CIA-sponsored MKUltra program.
Whitey later complained that the inmates had been recruited by a deception and were told
they were helping to find a cure for schizophrenia.
And in fact, they were being used to research mind control.
The evidence was later confirmed when the CIA documentation emerged.
Whitey and 18 other inmates who all volunteered in exchange for reduced sentences were given
LSD and other drugs over an 18-month period.
He described the experience as nightmarish and said it took him to the depths of insanity,
writing in his notebook that he heard voices and feared being committed for life if he told
anyone this.
In 1959, Whitey was briefly transferred to maximum security at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
in California.
During his time at Alcatraz, he kept in shape by weightlifting and took advantage of educational
opportunities afforded to inmates.
Whitey completed curious correspondence courses, including typing, bookkeeping, and business
law.
Whitey also became a vicarious reader, devouring numerous books on poetry, politics, and military
history.
Later in his sentence, he was transferred to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary and in
1963 to Louisburg Federal Prison in Pennsylvania.
Whitey's third petition for parole in 1965 was granted after he served nine years in
prison.
After his release, Whitey worked as a janitor and construction worker before becoming a
bookmaker and a loan shark under mobster Donald Killian, whose gang, the Killians, had dominated
South Boston for over 20 years.
The Killians were led by three brothers, Donnie, Kenny, and Eddie, along with Billy O'Sullivan
and Jack Curran.
Their base was the Transit Cafe in South Boston, which later became Whitey's Triplos.
In 1971, the younger Killian brother, Kenny, allegedly shot Mald Michael Mickey Dyer, who
was a member of the rival Mullen Gang.
Ingebrow at the Transit Cafe, which resulted in a gang war, leading to stinging killings
throughout Boston and the surrounding suburbs.
The Killians quickly found themselves outgunned by the younger Mullen's.
During the war, Whitey set out to commit what Weeks describes as Volger's first murder,
a Mullen member, Paul McGonigal.
Instead, executed McGonigal's lullabiding brother, Donald, in a case of mistaken identity.
According to the former Mullen boss, Patrick Pat Knee, McGonigal ambushed and murdered
O'Sullivan on that assumption he was the one responsible for his brother's killing.
Whitey realizing he was on the losing side is alleged to have secretly approached Howie
Winner, the leader Winter Hill gang, and claimed he could end the war by murdering the Killian
leadership.
On May 13, 1972, Donald Killian was gunned down outside of his home in the suburb of
Framingham, Massachusetts.
Although the killing was attributed to Whitey, Knee disputed this, saying that Killian was
murdered by Mullen enforcers James Mantfield and Tommy King, not Whitey.
Whitey and the Killians fled Boston.
They feared that they would be killed next.
After 1972, Whitey and the Mullen's were in control of South Boston's criminal underworld.
FBI agent Dennis Condon noted in his September 1973 log that Whitey and Knee had been heavily
shaking down the neighborhood's bookmarks and loan sharks.
Over the years that followed, Bulgar began to remove opposition by persuading Winter
to sanction the kills of those who, quote, stepped out of line, end quote.
Winner recalled that the highly intelligent Bulgar, quote, could teach the devil's tricks,
end quote.
During this error, Whitey's victims included Mullen veterans McGonagall, King, and James
Spike O'Toole.
In 1979, Winter was arrested, along with many members of his inner circle.
On charges of fixing horse races, Whitey and Fleamy were left out of the indictments.
They stepped into the power vacuum and took over the leadership of the winner, Hill gang,
transferring his headquarters to the Lancaster Strait Garage in Boston's West End, near
the Boston Garden.
In late August or early September 1974, Whitey and an accomplice reportedly set fire to an
elementary school in Walesley, Massachusetts to intimidate U.S. District Court Judge Wendell
Arthur Gourrydy Jr. over his mandated plan to desegregate schools in the city of Boston
by means of busing.
One year later, on September 8, 1975, Bulgar and an unidentified person tossed a Molotov
cocktail into the John F. Kennedy birthplace in Brookline in retaliation for Senator Ted
Kennedy's vocal support for Boston's schools desegregation.
Bulgar used black spray paint to paint bus teddy on the sidewalk in front of the National
Historic Site.
In 1971, the FBI approached Whitey and attempted to recruit him as an informant in an ongoing
effort to gain any information they could on the Patricia Crime family.
John Connolly, an FBI agent that grew up in Whitey's neighborhood and knew him as a
child.
He was assigned to make the pitch, however, John failed to gain Whitey's trust.
Three years later, Whitey partnered with Fleamy, unaware that he had been an informant for
the FBI since the beginning of his career in 1965.
Even though it's a documented fact that Whitey followed Fleamy's example, why he did this
is still debated to this day.
John boasted to his fellow agents about how he had recruited Whitey at a late night meeting
at Walliston Beach while the two sat in his car.
John allegedly said that the FBI could help in Whitey's feud with the Patricia under
boss, Gennaro Angulo.
After his pitch, Whitey said, quote, all right, if they want to play checkers, we'll
place chess.
Well, in quote, FBI supervisor John Morris was put in charge of the organized crime squad
at the FBI's Boston Field Office in December of 1977.
Morris not only proved himself unable to rein in John's protection of Whitey, but even began
assisting him.
By 1982, Morris was thoroughly compromised to the point of having Whitey purchase plane
tickets for his then girlfriend Debbie Noseworthy to visit him in Georgia while he was being
trained for drug investigation.
In 1983, when Morris was transferred to head up Boston's FBI anti-drug task force, he
remained an accomplice to John and Whitey.
During the summer of 1983, tensions between the Winter Hill gang and the Patricia family
escalated to an all-time high. An employee for Coinimatic, a coin laundering vending machine
company owned by the Patricia's, was kidnapped on the job.
The Boston Police Department operated on a tip, raided a butcher shop in South Boston
co-owned by Whitey and two other Winter Hill members.
Police found the victim hanging from a beef rack, having been tortured and held for more
than six days.
The victim would never testify.
Over the next few months, three low-level Winter Hill gang soldiers were executed, mostly
believed to be retribution for kidnapping.
The conflict shined a huge spotlight on Morris's incompetent management and caused an internal
investigation within the FBI.
In 1988, Whitey as an FBI informant was revealed publicly when the Gleb spotlight team, which
was led by journalist Gerard O'Neill, published a story detailing the numerous crimes committed
and attributed to him while nominally under the protection of the FBI.
Rumors came around before then, since it was unheard of a criminal like Whitey to go years
without a single arrest.
In 1995, Whitey and Flemy were indicted on racketeering charges, along with Frank Salem
and Bobby DeLuca.
During the discovery fumes of the investigation, Salem and DeLuca were listening to a tape
from a roving bug.
They overheard two of the agents who were listening in on the bug mentioned off-handedly
that they should have not told one of their informants to give a list of questions while
speaking to the mobsters.
When their lawyer, Trenney Cardnell, learned about this, he realized that the FBI had lied
about the basis for the big in order to protect one of the informants.
Suspecting that this was not the first time that this had happened, Cardnell sought to
force prosecutors to reveal the identities of the informants used in connection to this
case.
On June 3, Paul E. Coffey, who was the head of the organized crime and racketeering section
of the Department of Justice, gave a sworn statement admitting that Whitey had been an
FBI informant.
Coffey stated that since Whitey was accused of leasing a criminal enterprise while working
as an informant, was also now a known fugitive.
He was forfeited and of reasonable expectation that his identity would be protected.
On September 5, 2006, federal judge Reginald C. Lindsay ruled that the mishandling of bulgar
and fleamy callots did 1984 murder a police informant, John McIntyre, awarding his family
$3.1 million in damages.
He stated that the FBI failed to properly supervise Conley in Stickett's head in the
sand regarding numerous allegations that Whitey and Fleamy were involved in drug trafficking,
murder, and other crimes for decades.
In later years, there was actually a manhunt for Whitey.
The first confirmed sighting of Whitey before his capture was in London in 2002.
It was by a businessman who was actually watching the movie Hannibal when he recognized a photograph
of Whitey in a scene featuring the website of the FBI's most wanted fugitives.
There were unconfirmed sightings elsewhere as well.
At one point, FBI agents were sent to Uruguay to investigate a lead while other agents were
sent to stake out the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Battle of Normandy.
As Whitey was said to be an enthusiastic fan of military history, later reports talked
about a sighting in Italy in April 2007 which was proved to be false.
Two people on video footage in Torminna, Sicily, Whitey, Greg, walking the streets of the city
center.
They were later identified as a tourist couple from Germany.
In 2010, the FBI geared its focus to Victoria, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island.
In pursuit for Whitey, who was a known book lover, the FBI visited bookstores in the area
questioned employees and distributive wanted posters following his arrest.
Whitey revealed that instead of being reclusive, he had in fact traveled frequently with witnesses
coming forward to say that they had seen him on the Santa Monica Pier and other places
in Southern California.
A confirmed report by an off-duty Boston police officer after a San Diego screening also led
to a search of Southern California.
After Whitey's 16 years at large and 12 years on the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives list,
Whitey was arrested in Santa Monica, California on June 22, 2011.
He was 81 years old.
Whitey was captured as a result of the work of the Bulgari fugitive task force, which
consisted of FBI agents, a deputy U.S. Marshal, according to retired FBI agent Scott Balkin,
quote, here you have somebody who's more sophisticated than some 18 year old who killed someone in
a drive by.
To be a successful fugitive, you have to cut all contacts from your previous life.
He had the means and kept a low profile, end quote.
A $2 million reward had been offered for information leading to his capture.
This was second to Osama bin Laden's capture reward on the FBI's 10 most wanted lists.
Whitey was actually featured on the TV show America's Most Wanted 16 times, first in 1995
and the last on October 2, 2010.
According to authorities, the arrests were a direct result of the media campaign launched
by the FBI in 14 television markets across the country where Bulgari and Greg reportedly
had ties.
The campaign focused on Greg describing her as an animal lover who frequently went to
beauty salons.
Authorities received a tip from a woman in Iceland that Whitey was living in an apartment
near a beach in Santa Monica.
Anna Bjorn's daughter, a former model, actress and Miss Iceland of 1974 lived in Whitey's
neighborhood.
A day later, using the ruse, agents and other task force members, Lerd Whitey, out of his
apartment arrested him without incident.
They went into the home and arrested Greg.
Bulgari was charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, narcotics, distribution
and money laundering.
Agents found more than $800,000 in cash, 30 firearms and fake IDs all around the apartment.
Give us attorney Carmen Ortiz for the district of Massachusetts said, quote, she believes
in the death penalty.
It's not an option in the federal charges Whitey faces in her district, but that he
could face the death penalty for two cases outside of the district, end quote.
They were in Oklahoma where Whitey is alleged to have ordered the killing of businessman
Roger Wheeler Singer.
In 1981 Tulsa County District Attorney, Tim Harris said, quote, it is our intention to
bring Whitey to justice and to be held accountable for the murder of Mr. Wheeler, end quote.
In Florida Miami Dade State Attorney, Catherine Fernandez, Randall said, quote, after a 16
year delay, I would be working to ensure that the Miami in Florida Miami Dade State
Attorney Catherine Fernandez Randall said, quote, after a 16 year delay, I will be working
to ensure that a Miami jury has the opportunity to look Whitey in the eyes and determine his
fate.
Right after Whitey was brought back to Boston, he began talking to authorities.
He said that during his day as a fugitive, he often went back and forth across the border
to Mexico to buy medication for his heart disease.
Many anticipated and some feared that Whitey in exchange for his favorable treatment in
sentencing would have much more to tell authorities about corruption at the local, state and federal
levels, which allowed him to operate his criminal enterprise for so long.
Whitey was arraigned in federal court on July 6, 2011.
He pleaded not guilty to 49 charges, including 19 counts of murder, extortion, money laundering,
obstruction of justice, perjury, narcotics distribution and weapons violations.
In 2011, Kevin Weeks expressed surprise at Buggers decision to cooperate after his arrest.
Weeks said, quote, I don't understand because he's not the same as I remember him.
I can't believe he's so chatty right now.
So I don't know what he's doing.
End quote.
Weeks also added that he is not afraid of Whitey and that the residents of Boston shouldn't
be either.
I don't think he's Pablo Escobar, where he can just walk out of his prison cell and
come to the South Boston or anywhere.
No.
No one's worried about him.
End quote.
According to an expert of the book on Whitey published by Boston magazine, Whitey not only
made a friend during his post sentencing detention, Clement Chip Janus, a young convict who was
trusted to run art classes for other convicts.
When Whitey arrived at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona, there were other famous
inmates including Brian David Mitchell, who is known as the man who kidnapped Elizabeth
Smart, Stephen Dale Green, who is known for war crimes, Montoya Sanchez, who is known
as a Colombian former crime boss and leader.
According to Janus, Whitey was attacked by fellow inmate, nickname Retro, whose knife
pierced Whitey's neck and skull, which sent him to the prison's infirmary for a month.
Rather Whitey was targeted randomly or not is not known.
Apparently the inmate was not motivated by any personal issues with Whitey, but committed
the near fatal assault so that he would be sent to solitary confinement because he wanted
to avoid paying for drugs that he acquired from other prisoners.
At Coleman, Whitey started experiencing night terrors, which he said came from experiments
he had taken part in while incarcerated in the 1950s, where he had been given LSD.
Whitey who started his imprisonment with rigorous exercise regimens was in a wheelchair at
this point.
On June 12, 2013, Whitey went on trial in South Boston's John Joseph Moallie United
State Courthouse before Judge Dennis J. Casper on 32 counts of racketeering and firearms possession.
The racketeering counts included allegations that Whitey was complicit in 19 murders.
The trial lasted two months and included the testimony of 72 witnesses.
The jury began deliberations on August 6.
On August 12, the jury convicted Whitey of 31 out of 32 counts in the indictment.
As part of the racketeering charges, the jury convicted Whitey of the murders of 11 victims.
Paul McDonnell, Edward Connors, Thomas King, Richard Cattucey, Roger Wheeler, Brian Halloran,
Michael Donahue, John Callahan, author Bucky Barrett, John McIntyre, and Deborah Hussie.
The jury acquitted Whitey of killing Michael Milano, Al Plummer, William O'Brien, James
O'Toole, Al Notoangeli, James Sosa, and Francis Leonard.
They reported themselves unable to agree about the murder of Deborah Davis, though Whitey
had already been found liable for her death in a civil suit.
Following this verdict, Whitey's attorney, J.W.
Carney, Jr. and Hank Brennan vowed to appeal, citing Casper's ruling which prevented Whitey
from claiming he had been given immunity.
On November 4, 2013, Whitey was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment, plus five
years.
Casper told Whitey that such a sentence was necessary, given his quote, unfathomable,
end quote, crimes, some which inflicted quote, agonizing, end quote, suffering on his victims.
He was also ordered to forfeit $25.2 million and pay $19.5 million in restitution.
Prosecutors in Florida and Oklahoma announced after Whitey's convictions that they would
wait until after sentencing concluded before deciding whether or not to prosecute Bugga
in their states.
Whitey was indicted in Florida for the murder of Callaghan and in Oklahoma for the murder
of Roger Wheeler and could have received the death penalty in those states.
In September of 2014, Whitey entered the Coleman, Whitey entered the Coleman II United States
Penitentiary in Sumnerville, Florida.
In October of 2018, he was transferred to the Federal Center in Oklahoma City.
And just a few days later, he was sent to the Federal Penitentiary in West Virginia.
According to prison documents obtained by the New York Times, Butler gained a reputation.
According to the prison documents obtained by the New York Times, Bugga gained a reputation
for his disconcerting behavior during his time in prison.
Whitey was also in very poor health as he was unable to walk and had a damaged hip, often
falling out of bed.
Whitey was transferred from the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City to the United States
Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia on October 29, 2018.
At 8.20 am on October 30, 89-year-old Whitey was found dead.
He was found in a wheelchair and had been beaten to death by multiple inmates, armed
with sock-wrapped padlocks and a shiv.
His eyes were nearly gouged out and his tongue was almost cut off.
A law enforcement official described Whitey as unrecognizable.
This was the third homicide in the prison in a 40-day span.
Massachusetts-based mafia hitsman, Photos Freddy Geese, was the primary suspect in orchestrating
the killing of Whitey.
Geese 51 and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for the roles in several
violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Aldolfo Big Al Bruno.
A Genevieve crime family, Capo, who was shot in a Springfield, Massachusetts parking lot,
according to the ABC News, Whitey's medical status had been lowered in October 2018 before
he was transferred.
On November 8, 2018, a funeral mass was held for Whitey at Santa Monica St. Eugeston Church
in South Boston.
Family members, including his brother, former Massachusetts State Senate President William
M. Bolger, and the twin sister of Catherine Gregg attended Whitey's death.
Whitey's death came as a relief to many Boston locals, especially for family members of his
victims.
Stephen Davis, whose sister, Deborah, was reportedly killed by Whitey in 1981, stated
that he died the way I hoped he always was going to die.
Bolger is buried at St. Joseph's Cemetery in the Boston neighborhood of West Roxbury.
His headstone is blank, except for the inscription, Bolger.
In 2019, the Bolger family filed a rungful death lawsuit against the Justice Department
alleging that by lowering Whitey's medical status and transferring him to Hazelton, he
was deliberately placed in harm's way.
There is simply no other explanation for the transfer of someone in his condition and inmate
status to be placed in general population of one of the country's most violent federal
penitentiaries.
The Bolger family sought out $200,000 in damages in January of 2022.
U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that federal law did not
allow his family the right to sue the Bureau of Prison officials because the Congress expressively
puts custody of inmates in the hands of the BOP.
And quote, had repetitively limited judicial authority to review BOP housing decisions
and to entertain claims brought by the prisoners in quote.
On August 18, 2022, three men were charged in connection with the beating death of Whitey.
Fotius Gies, Paul J. Desiogero, and Sean McKinnon.
On May 14, 2024, the Department of Justice announced plea agreements with the three have
been accepted on September 6 of 2024.
Fotius Gies was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for the murder of Whitey.
We will be back next week with a new episode.
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