His cruelty had inspired many films: the former Boston mobser, James “Whitey” Bulger, was found dead Tuesday in a prison in West Virginia, murdered by a fellow prisoner according to several US media.
Federal authorities confirmed that Bulger had died in his cell at Hazelton’s federal high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, 400 miles west of Washington, where he had been transferred the previous day.
James Bulger, 89, was “found unconscious in his cell around 8:20 am” (12:20 GMT), and efforts to revive him were in vain, said the Federal Bureau of Prisons in a statement.
The FBI has opened an investigation, without giving any indication of the causes of death.
According to several sources, the famous gangster, who was also an informant of the FBI, was killed by a fellow prisoner also linked to the mafia. He was beaten to the point of being unrecognizable, according to the New York Times.
Almighty godfather of Boston between the years 1970 and 1990, with the complicity of corrupt authorities, Bulger had been arrested in Los Angeles in 2011 after sixteen years on the run.
He had been found residing with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, in an apartment just steps from Santa Monica Beach, thanks to information provided by an Icelandic beauty queen, Miss Iceland 1974, who had lived near their apartment.
She had received $2 million in prize money for her capture of the FBI, of which Bulger had become the No. 1 enemy since bin Laden’s death.
Bulger and Greig lived under the false names of Charles and Carol Gasko. The police had found in their apartment some $800,000 in cash and firearms.
Judged in the summer of 2013, during a trial in Boston where some 72 witnesses had been deposed, he had been convicted of eleven murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.
He had refused to testify, assuring that the federal police had promised him immunity.
Movie character
A complex character, at once a gangster and an informant of the FBI, cruel and charismatic, Bulger has been the subject of dozens of books, and inspired the character played by Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese’s film “The Infiltrates” (2006), as the one played by Johnny Depp in the crime fiction “Strictly Criminal” (2015).
An American with Irish roots, Bulger ruled Boston’s southern neighborhoods at a time when they had not yet become gentrified. The wicked surroundings of the harbor were still teeming with shady bars.
He had been nicknamed “Whitey” for his blond hair, but hated that name and called himself Jimmy.
At the time, the federal police were so much in the face of the mafia that it helped Bulger kill his rivals, allowing him to ensure its pre-eminence in the city, said the Boston Globe.
It is also an FBI agent who will warn Bulger in 1995 of his imminent indictment, allowing him to abscond before the arrival of the police.
His cruelty and cynicism were legendary. His trial revealed that he could kill his enemies with a pickaxe, shoot them between the eyes, strangle the women who threatened to betray him by tearing their teeth to prevent their identification. And go take a nap right after coldly killing his rivals.
But he presented himself as the protector of these neighborhoods, ensuring the preservation including drugs, even as his trial had revealed that he flooded the southern neighborhoods.
If the movie “The Infiltrated” presented Bulger as a monster, “Strictly Criminal”, with also Kevin Bacon and Benedict Cumberbatch in costars, lingered over Bulger’s relationship with a childhood friend turned FBI agent.
Bulger had helped him stop his Italian rivals in exchange for an enlargement of his territory.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrew Lelling commented on his death in a terse release. “We learned this morning the death of James” Whitey “Bulger. Our thoughts are with his victims and their families, “he said.
Candice Smith is a reporter for Oracle Savvy. After graduating from UCLA, Candice got an internship at a morning radio show and worked as a journalist and producer. Candice has also worked as a columnist for the The Sacramento Bee. Candice covers economy and community events for Oracle Savvy.
