By Larry McShane
New York Daily News
Notorious Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger was murdered Tuesday inside a West Virginia federal prison, with a Mafia-linked inmate reportedly suspected in the slaying.
The Boston Globe reported the alleged mob hit on Bulger and the detail on the suspect as federal officials confirmed the death of the onetime organized crime kingpin. The 89-year-old Irish-American gangster was only transferred one day earlier to the high-security prison in Hazelton, W.Va.
“At approximately 8:20 a.m., inmate James Bulger was found unresponsive,” read a brief statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. “Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff. Mr. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston County Medical Examiner. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified and an investigation has been initiated.”
No other details were provided surrounding his sudden, violent demise. Bulger, previously held in Florida, was convicted of 11 murders himself during his bloody reign as crime boss in his hometown of Boston.
Hazelton is home to about 1,300 inmates.
The lingering animosity between Bulger and New England’s Italian organized crime operations stems from his former positions as both head of Boston’s powerful Irish mob, the Winter Hill Gang, and his simultaneous work as informant for a local FBI agent. Most of his tips steered investigators toward the Italians, clearing the way for Bulger’s group to grab hold of the city’s illegal operations from gambling to drugs.
The corrupt relationship between the fed and the felon became the movie “Black Mass,” with Johnny Depp playing Bulger. The feds, in return for Bulger’s inside information, turned a blind eye to the brutal boss’s criminal activities.
He bolted Boston in 1995 after a warning from Agent John Connolly, who wound up behind bars over his crooked relationship with the gangster.
Bulger spent 16 years on the FBI’s Most Wanted list after going on the lam, fleeing his hometown as the feds closed in. He was busted in 2011 in California and convicted two years later for an assortment of crimes including the homicides.
Three former Bulger associates turned rat on their old boss, who was convicted of the killings, extortion and money laundering on a long-awaited day of reckoning for the relatives of his victims.
His sentence at age 84: Two consecutive life terms, plus five years.
His legend only grew as Bulger evaded arrest after his disappearance, with endless reported sightings around the U.S. and the world. One tipster insisted spying Bulger inside a Boston movie theater in 2006, watching the Martin Scorsese movie “The Departed” — where Jack Nicholson played a mob boss based on the fugitive son of South Boston.
Bulger was behind only 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden for much of his time on the FBI’s list of fugitive criminals.
Bulger became a lingering embarrassment to the feds as he remained on the run, with a $2 million reward posted for information on the globe-trotting gangster. Prior to his arrest, the last confirmed Bulger sighting came in London in 2002.
He was finally busted with longtime girlfriend Catherine Grieg in their Santa Monica, Calif., apartment — a $1,145-a-month, rent-controlled residence near the beach. Agents searching their home recovered more than $800,000 in cash and more than 30 guns, stuffed inside the walls.
Bulger’s kid brother, William Bulger, followed a different path: He became one of the Massachusetts’ most powerful politicians, leading the state Senate for 17 years.
