1. On December 23,1994, Bulger went into hiding after his former FBI handler, John Connolly, tipped him off about a pending RICO indictment against him.
115 Facts About Whitey Bulger
1. 2.
Five years after his flight from the Boston area, Whitey Bulger was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list; he was considered the most wanted person on the list behind Osama bin Laden.
3.
Whitey Bulger was tried on thirty-two counts of racketeering, money laundering, extortion, and weapons charges, including complicity in nineteen murders.
4.
Whitey Bulger was incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary Coleman II in Sumterville, Florida.
5.
Whitey Bulger was transferred to several facilities in October 2018; first to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma and then to the United States Penitentiary, Hazelton, near Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.
6.
Whitey Bulger, who was in a wheelchair, was beaten to death by inmates on October 30,2018, within hours of his arrival at Hazelton.
7.
Whitey Bulger's father worked as a union laborer and occasional longshoreman.
8.
Whitey Bulger lost his arm in an industrial accident and the family was reduced to poverty.
9.
The Whitey Bulger family moved in and the children grew up there.
10.
Whitey Bulger developed a reputation as a thief and street fighter fiercely loyal to South Boston.
11.
In 1943,14-year-old Whitey Bulger was arrested and charged with larceny.
12.
Whitey Bulger was sentenced to a juvenile reformatory for these offenses.
13.
Shortly after his release in April 1948, Whitey Bulger joined the United States Air Force where he earned his high school diploma and trained as a mechanic.
14.
Whitey Bulger spent time in the military prison for several assaults and was later arrested by Air Force police in 1950 for going absent without leave.
15.
In 1956, Whitey Bulger served his first term in federal prison at Atlanta Penitentiary for armed robbery and truck hijacking.
16.
Whitey Bulger later told mobster Kevin Weeks that while there, he was used as a human subject in the CIA-sponsored MK-ULTRA program.
17.
Whitey Bulger later complained that the inmates had been "recruited by deception" and were told they were helping to find "a cure for schizophrenia", when in fact they were being used to research mind control.
18.
In 1959, Whitey Bulger was briefly transferred to maximum security at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in California.
19.
Whitey Bulger completed various correspondence courses including typing, bookkeeping, and business law.
20.
Whitey Bulger became a voracious reader, devouring numerous books on poetry, politics, and military history.
21.
However, Whitey Bulger instead executed McGonagle's law-abiding brother Donald in a case of mistaken identity.
22.
Whitey Bulger, realizing he was on the losing side, is alleged to have secretly approached Howie Winter, the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, and claimed he could end the war by murdering the Killeen leadership.
23.
Whitey Bulger then used black spray paint to scrawl "Bus Teddy" on the sidewalk outside of the national historic site.
24.
In 1971, the Federal Bureau of Investigation approached Whitey Bulger and attempted to recruit him as an informant in an ongoing effort to gain information on the Patriarca crime family.
25.
FBI Special Agent John "Zip" Connolly, who had grown up in Whitey Bulger's neighborhood, was assigned to make the pitch.
26.
Three years later, Whitey Bulger partnered with Flemmi, unaware that he had been an informant for the FBI since the beginning of his career in 1965.
27.
The police became suspicious that Whitey Bulger had been tipped off about their investigation, but were unsure of how or by whom.
28.
Whitey Bulger profited from the narcotics trade by requiring all drug dealers in South Boston to pay tribute to the Winter Hill Gang, although he and Flemmi denied to their FBI handlers that they were involved in the drug trade, and Connolly strongly defended his informants from his superiors in the FBI against any such allegations.
29.
The DEA inserted a listening device in the windowsill of a condominium where Whitey Bulger lived in the Louisburg Square apartment complex in Quincy, but picked up little other than the sound of a television.
30.
On March 11,1985, days after the car bug had been planted, Whitey Bulger took the vehicle to a garage in South Boston and had a mechanic disassemble the door.
31.
Coffey stated that since Whitey Bulger was accused of "leading a criminal enterprise" while working as an informant and was now a fugitive, he had "forfeited any reasonable expectation" that his identity would be protected.
32.
In 1980, Whitey Bulger was approached in Triple O's by Louis Litif, a Lebanese-American neighborhood bookmaker.
33.
Litif had been stealing money from his partners in the bookmaking operation and using the money to traffic cocaine, and had not only refused to pay Whitey Bulger a cut of his drug profits but committed two murders without Whitey Bulger's permission.
34.
Litif told an outraged Whitey Bulger he was going to kill his partner, "Joe the Barber", whom he accused of stealing from the bookmaking operation.
35.
Whitey Bulger refused to sanction this, but Litif vowed to proceed.
36.
Whitey Bulger had been stabbed with an ice pick and shot.
37.
Whitey Bulger instructed Weeks to dispose of the weapons used in the killings by throwing them in Marine Bay.
38.
Whitey Bulger formed alliances with members of the Patriarca family who had escaped the conviction that sent the Angiulo brothers to prison.
39.
In 1984, Whitey Bulger acquired Stippo's Liquor Mart adjacent to the Old Colony Housing Project in South Boston by forcing the liquor store's proprietor, Stephen "Stippo" Rakes, to sell him the business at gunpoint for $67,000.
40.
Whitey Bulger renamed the store the South Boston Liquor Mart and used the backroom of the business as his gang's primary headquarters.
41.
Whitey Bulger forced local bars to buy alcohol from the store.
42.
Whitey Bulger threatened Solimando, a bodybuilder, with a machine gun and said: "Your muscles aren't going to do you any good now".
43.
Whitey Bulger told the agents that, although he and Flemmi would not usually agree to meet with law enforcement agents about any crime, they had agreed to the meeting because Wheeler was a "legitimate guy" and they wanted to refute the allegations against them.
44.
Whitey Bulger became involved in the narcotics trade in 1981, but upheld a pretence that he did not partake in drug trafficking.
45.
Whitey Bulger profited from the distribution of marijuana and cocaine.
46.
Whitey Bulger prohibited dealers from selling heroin in South Boston, however.
47.
Whitey Bulger required all narcotics traffickers in South Boston to pay tribute to the Winter Hill Gang, and he and Flemmi often obtained a share of profits from drug shipments brought into the South Boston piers.
48.
Whitey Bulger utilized his contacts in the FBI to help him take control of the drug trade.
49.
When Murray later retired from drug trafficking, Whitey Bulger demanded a $500,000 "severance package" from him.
50.
One such criminal who came to Whitey Bulger's attention was Arthur "Bucky" Barrett, a safecracker and thief who was allegedly one of six men who stole $1.5 million from the Depositors Trust bank in Medford on Memorial Day Weekend of 1980.
51.
Barrett had refused to give Whitey Bulger a cut of the money from the heist, and Whitey Bulger believed Barrett was under the protection of the Patriarca family.
52.
Whitey Bulger asked Weeks to lure Barrett to a secret meeting, and on November 30,1983, Barrett arrived at the East Third Street home for a purported diamonds sale.
53.
Flemmi removed Barrett's teeth, in the belief it would prevent later identification, while Whitey Bulger reclined on a couch upstairs.
54.
Whitey Bulger was annoyed when he learned that the IRA members he supplied had burned the van that contained the weapons.
55.
Whitey Bulger arrived carrying a case of beer, anticipating a party, and was confronted by Bulger wielding a MAC-11 submachine gun.
56.
Whitey Bulger unsuccessfully tried to strangle McIntyre with a boat rope.
57.
Whitey Bulger then shot McIntyre and went upstairs to take a nap while Weeks and Flemmi removed the corpse's teeth with a pair of pliers and buried it in the basement of the South Boston house next to the remains of Barrett.
58.
Whitey Bulger decided to kill Deborah Hussey, the 26-year-old stepdaughter and mistress of Flemmi, because he considered her a liability.
59.
On January 14,1985, Flemmi drove Hussey to the East Third Street house, which Whitey Bulger called "the Hauntey".
60.
The gangsters then followed their regular post-killing routine, with Whitey Bulger going upstairs to nap, Flemmi removing Hussey's teeth and clothing, and Flemmi and Weeks burying the body in the basement alongside those of Barrett and McIntyre.
61.
An angry Whitey Bulger chastized Weeks for not shooting the man, saying there was "plenty of room in the hole".
62.
Whitey Bulger was widely thought to have obtained his share of the jackpot illegitimately.
63.
Whitey Bulger had established a whole other person, Thomas Baxter, with a complete ID and credit cards in that name.
64.
Whitey Bulger had even joined associations in Baxter's name, building an entire portfolio for the guy.
65.
Whitey Bulger had always said you had to be ready to take off on short notice.
66.
Whitey Bulger had set up safe deposit boxes containing cash, jewelry and passports in locations across North America and Europe, including Florida, Oklahoma, Montreal, Dublin, London, Birmingham and Venice.
67.
On January 5,1995, Whitey Bulger prepared to return to Boston, believing that it had been a false alarm.
68.
Weeks immediately passed the information on to Whitey Bulger, who altered his plans.
69.
Whitey Bulger then drove to Boston and dropped off Stanley in a parking lot.
70.
Whitey Bulger met with Weeks at Malibu Beach in Dorchester, where Weeks brought Whitey Bulger's girlfriend, Catherine Greig.
71.
Whitey Bulger reminisced fondly about his time hiding out with a family in Louisiana.
72.
In mid-November 1995, Weeks and Whitey Bulger met for the last time at the lion statues at the front of the New York Public Library Main Branch and adjourned for dinner at a nearby restaurant.
73.
Whitey Bulger's tone was a little more serious, and there wasn't as much joking as usual.
74.
Whitey Bulger repeated the phrase he had used before that a rolling stone gathers no moss, which told me that he knew he was going to be on the move again.
75.
In pursuit of Whitey Bulger, a known book lover, the FBI visited bookstores in the area, questioned employees and distributed wanted posters.
76.
Whitey Bulger was 81 years old at the time of the arrest.
77.
Whitey Bulger was captured as a result of the work of the Whitey Bulger Fugitive Task Force, which consisted of FBI agents and a Deputy US Marshal.
78.
Whitey Bulger had the means and kept a low profile.
79.
Whitey Bulger had been featured on the television show America's Most Wanted sixteen times, first in 1995, and finally on October 2,2010.
80.
Authorities received a tip from a woman in Iceland that Whitey Bulger was living in an apartment near a beach in Santa Monica.
81.
Whitey Bulger was charged with murder, "conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, narcotics distribution and money-laundering".
82.
In Oklahoma, where Whitey Bulger is alleged to have ordered the killing of businessman Roger Wheeler Sr.
83.
Immediately after being brought back to Boston, Whitey Bulger began talking to authorities.
84.
Whitey Bulger said that during his days as a fugitive he often went back and forth across the border to Mexico to buy medicine for his heart disease.
85.
Whitey Bulger reported that if he thought he was going to die, he planned to die with his body hidden so that authorities would always be looking for him.
86.
Whitey Bulger was arraigned in federal court on July 6,2011.
87.
Whitey Bulger pleaded not guilty to 48 charges, including 19 counts of murder, extortion, money laundering, obstruction of justice, perjury, narcotics distribution and weapons violations.
88.
Whitey Bulger was represented in the criminal proceedings by the prominent criminal attorney Kevin Reddington of Brockton, Massachusetts.
89.
In September 2015, Greig was indicted on a charge of criminal contempt stemming from her refusal to testify before a grand jury about whether other people aided Whitey Bulger while he was a fugitive.
90.
When Whitey Bulger arrived at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson there were other famous inmates there, including Brian David Mitchell, Steven Dale Green and Montoya Sanchez.
91.
Whether Whitey Bulger was targeted randomly or deliberately is not known.
92.
Apparently the inmate was not motivated by any personal issues with Whitey Bulger, but committed the near-fatal assault so that he would be sent to solitary confinement, allegedly to avoid paying for drugs he had acquired from other prisoners.
93.
Whitey Bulger was able to begin taking part in counseling with a prison psychologist at the Tucson facility.
94.
Whitey Bulger's counseling was terminated, and he was transferred to the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida.
95.
At Coleman, Whitey Bulger started experiencing night terrors, which he attributed to the experiments he had taken part in while incarcerated in the 1950s, where he had been administered LSD.
96.
Whitey Bulger, who started his imprisonment with a rigorous exercise regime, was by this point using a wheelchair.
97.
On June 12,2013, Bulger went on trial in South Boston's John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse before Judge Denise J Casper on 32 counts of racketeering and firearms possession.
98.
The racketeering counts included allegations that Whitey Bulger was complicit in 19 murders.
99.
The jury acquitted Whitey Bulger of killing Michael Milano, Al Plummer, William O'Brien, James O'Toole, Al Notorangeli, James Sousa and Francis Leonard.
100.
On November 14,2013, Whitey Bulger was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment, plus five years.
101.
Whitey Bulger was indicted in Florida for the murder of Callahan and in Oklahoma for the murder of Roger Wheeler, and could have received the death penalty in those states.
102.
In September 2014, Whitey Bulger entered the Coleman II United States Penitentiary in Sumterville, Florida.
103.
Whitey Bulger's health declined due to a lack of exercise.
104.
Whitey Bulger was transferred from the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City to United States Penitentiary, Hazelton, in West Virginia on October 29,2018.
105.
Whitey Bulger was in a wheelchair and had been beaten to death by multiple inmates armed with a sock-wrapped padlock and a shiv.
106.
Whitey Bulger's eyes had nearly been gouged out and his tongue almost cut off; a law enforcement official described Bulger as "unrecognizable".
107.
Whitey Bulger is buried at St Joseph's Cemetery in the Boston neighborhood of West Roxbury.
108.
William Whitey Bulger served in the military during the Korean War but was never posted to Korea.
109.
Whitey Bulger was formerly an influential leader of the Democratic Party in Massachusetts.
110.
In December 2002, William Whitey Bulger appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and refused to testify, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
111.
John "Jackie" Whitey Bulger, a retired Massachusetts court clerk magistrate, was convicted in April 2003 of committing perjury in front of two grand juries regarding sworn statements he gave concerning contacts with his fugitive brother.
112.
Whitey Bulger fathered one child, Douglas Glenn Cyr, during a 12-year relationship with Lindsey Cyr, a waitress and former fashion model living in North Weymouth, Massachusetts.
113.
Whitey Bulger bought her an expensive house in suburban Quincy, Massachusetts, and acted as father to her children while commuting to "work" in South Boston.
114.
Whitey Bulger was issued a pistol permit within 24 hours.
115.
Whitey Bulger wanted another opportunity to "finish the job," but Bulger advised him to forget about Howie Carr.