It probably couldn’t have had a more fitting ending than if it had been scripted for the movie The Untouchables.
Boston gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger Jr. has been murdered behind bars one day after he was transferred to a federal prison in West Virginia. He was 89.
Bulger was found dead overnight on Tuesday at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Bruceton Mills.
The official word from the Justice Department:
A prison source told TMZ that wheelchair-bound Bulger was in general population when three inmates rolled him to a corner out of view of surveillance cameras, beat him in the head with a lock in a sock, and attempted to gouge his eyes out with a shiv.
The former head of south Boston’s “Winter Hill Gang”, Bulger was convicted in 2013 of killing at least 11 people and was serving two life sentences at the time of his death.
Bulger was seen as a Robin Hood by some: helping old ladies across the street and giving turkey dinners to neighbors at Thanksgiving. But authorities said he was diabolical and would kill anyone who would cross him.
It emerged in Bulger’s 2013 trial that he had served as an FBI informant as far back as 1975, though he always denied it. The deal gave Bulger virtual impunity to commit any crime he wanted for decades – except for murder.
Law enforcement sources have confirmed that Whitey had been talking about outing people in the top echelon of the controversial FBI informant program.
The sources said he hadn’t even been processed at the West Virginia facility when he was killed. But someone who knew he was being transferred put the word out – the killer had to know he was coming.
The ex-crime boss was on the run for years and was one of the FBI’s most wanted before being captured in Santa Monica in 2011.
Bulger’s life story was documented in the 2015 flick, “Black Mass,” where Johnny Depp played the ruthless Winter Hill Gang crime boss, and longtime FBI informant, who terrorized the Boston area for years.
Reaction:
The widow of one of Bulger’s victims says she’d like to celebrate the crime boss’ death with champagne.
Patricia Donahue tells WBZ-TV she and her family are “very happy that the man is not here any longer” and they don’t ever have to hear his name again.
Michael Donahue 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.