On this episode of Fedit, we discuss Whitey Bulger, Bolger, and the Winter Hill Gang. This case is one of my favorite cases of all time and I spent a good amount of time working in Boston.
00:03:20.860But he did things very intelligently, but he did things very intelligently where he was giving information on his counterparts, which is actually genius when you look at it and was able to evade arrest and detection for his own criminal activity, which we're going to get into in more detail here.
00:03:36.520But, yeah, man, this is going to be awesome.
00:03:40.380This is one of my, he's one of my favorites crime stories to cover.
00:03:43.980It's going to be one of my favorite ones.
00:03:45.420So, you know, especially since I have such a strong tie to the city of Boston.
00:04:19.580So, and we're going to talk about, you know, his rise, you know, getting, you know, being on the run for damn near 20 years, how he made the FBI's top most wanted list.
00:04:29.920He was number two next to Osama bin Laden, which is crazy.
00:04:33.880And, you know, how he was captured and eventually how he died.
00:05:49.220This guy would put a bullet in your head without any remorse at all.
00:06:19.880For 20 years, Whitey Bulger is secretly protected by rogue FBI agents.
00:06:25.280If the law enforces are the law breakers, then the whole system fails.
00:06:30.420In a barrage of bullets and blood, James Whitey Bulger's Irish mob weaves a web of corruption, double cross, and murder that rocks Boston to its core.
00:06:41.020Boston, Massachusetts, May 11th, 1982.
00:14:15.400When I was, yeah, when I was going to college, Southie, a bunch of, like, students, like, college students from Northeastern, BU, etc., they lived in Southie because it was much cheaper to live there than to live in, like, the main downtown area where BU and NU are located.
00:15:49.400William Michael Bulger, born February 2, 1934, is an American, former Democratic politician, lawyer, and educator from South Boston, Massachusetts.
00:15:59.400His 18-year tenure as president of Massachusetts Senate is the longest in history.
00:16:02.400He then became president of the University of Massachusetts.
00:16:04.400Bulger came from the Old Harbor Village Housing Development, now more commonly known as the Mary Ellen McCormick Housing Development.
00:16:10.400He graduated from Boston College High School in 1952, from then Boston College and Classics, and then from Boston College Law School.
00:16:17.400Despite his brother's infamy as a convicted mob boss, James Whitey Bulger, who led the Winter Hill Gang, investigators have never uncovered any evidence that the two brothers colluded in 2003,
00:16:26.400testified in a congressional hearing about communications he had with his then-fugitive brother.
00:16:30.400Due to negative publicity, he was forced to resign from the presidency of the University of Massachusetts.
00:16:34.400Bulger went on to teach as a visiting scholar at Suffolk University, but has since removed himself from public life, man.
00:16:40.400So, yeah, this is someone who had some political aspirations that were pretty much destroyed from his brother being a crime mob boss, man.
00:16:47.400So, kind of sucks for him, but that's what happens sometimes.
00:16:50.400The Bulger brothers live in a world where people aspire to a simple code.
00:16:55.400Look after your own. Stand up for yourself.
00:16:58.400Disputes are settled by the fist. Men are expected to fight.
00:17:03.400It was a matter of fact that you had to win every fight, but you did have to show up.
00:17:08.400Yeah, they didn't sit there and talk shit about each other on the internet, guys.
00:17:12.400They went and found him and punched him.
00:17:14.400In this tough environment, Whitey Bulger stands out as tougher than most.
00:17:20.400He served a seven-year stretch in Alcatraz for armed robbery.
00:23:46.400They're basically running a sports gambling business.
00:23:48.400And this is how a lot of these guys, right, were making money back then with the bookmaking.
00:23:55.400And then here's Stephen Fleming, who's a very close associate and friend of Whitey Bulger working together.
00:24:00.400And you guys can see, man, this is organized crime, my friends.
00:24:03.400This is I remember I used to have charts like this in my office as well for my cases when I had drug conspiracies, et cetera.
00:24:08.400And this allows you to map out, hey, this organization, this is what they do, et cetera, et cetera.
00:24:14.400So back in the 70s, what they were doing, the Irish gang, was they were basically rigging horse bets or horse racing.
00:24:22.400And they were like, you know, paying off jockeys, paying off, you know, fucking up with the fucking with the horses, everything else like that.
00:32:49.400But if you go down to Branigan's, just right down there, they'll let you take a shit in the middle of the floor if that's what you want to do.
00:34:07.400Together, they ruthlessly extort money from local bookmakers, all on behalf of Howie Winter, Boston's biggest Irish mobster.
00:34:17.400There was a bookmaker almost in every bar room.
00:34:20.400And guys, you got to remember with extortion, the way it works is when people are committing criminal activity, you can go ahead and collect the tax on that because they're committing criminal activity.
00:34:28.400It's like they can go to the police like, hey, bro, they're extorting me for doing illegal gambling.
00:34:32.400Well, you're going to get arrested for illegal gambling and selling drugs and all the other criminal stuff that you do.
00:34:36.400So it's easy for criminals to pick on other criminals and get them to pay them extortion fees because you can't go to the police in those days.
00:34:45.400And they'd put the horses during the daytime and they'd take the numbers.
00:34:49.400And then at nighttime, they'd take the dogs.
00:34:53.400One shakedown tactic is to create a problem, then offer a solution.
00:35:00.400Creating a problem is very easy to do.
00:35:03.400You know, if someone owned a bar or something, you know, you'd have people going to smash up the bar.
00:35:07.400You know, you go to people afterwards and tell them, listen, so-and-so is trying to kill you.
00:35:20.400Go ahead and create a problem and then solve it.
00:35:22.400And I got a perfect example of this actually right here.
00:35:25.400This is a situation where Whitey Bulger and Kevin Weeks and Fleming, Stephen Fleming, a.k.a. the Rifleman Fleming, went ahead and extorted a liquor store.
00:36:51.400To those two guys, knocked on your home door.
00:36:55.400They came in, and what did they say to Stephen Weeks?
00:36:58.400They came into the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table and proposed a deal.
00:37:04.400The first deal was that he was going to be partners with us in the liquor store because apparently some people had come to Whitey to put together a contract to kill my husband because supposedly the liquor store was a bad thing.
00:37:25.400See, so there's a perfect example of what Kevin Weeks is telling y'all, right?
00:37:29.400Like, hey, we would create a problem, come in, and then solve the problem that we created.
00:37:34.400So in this case, yo, someone gave us a contract to kill your husband for $100,000.
00:37:40.400But now we're business partners, so we're going to go ahead and take over this liquor shop as well.
00:37:45.400And so Whitey came with a proposal to say that he'll be partners instead of killing them.
00:37:54.400So when my husband called me and said, we're going to have a partner, and I, of course, I'm safe and sound at the store, not knowing what was going on, was diligent.
00:38:05.400And we have no partners saying, no, we're not partners with anyone, especially not him.
00:38:29.400And did Bolger and Flemmie leave any doubt in your mind, in Stephen's mind, that if you didn't go along with the deal, what would it mean for you?
00:38:39.400When Whitey and Flemmie and Weeksie sat at my kitchen table, my youngest daughter was only 13 months at the time teething.
00:38:49.400Waddled, crawled over, and Whitey Bolger put her up on his lap and allowed my daughter to teethe on the barrel of a gun.
00:38:59.400And, of course, the conversation, whatever was going on, stopped.
00:39:18.400Bolger, Flemmie, and Weeks immediately moved into the store, changing its name to the South Boston Liquor Mart, running their illegal businesses from the back room.
00:39:28.400So once this had happened, I mean, you're terrified, you're outraged at the same time.
00:41:15.400And, guys, just so you know, when they went ahead and extorted that liquor store, it was sometime in the early 90s because that documentary was from October 2001.
00:41:23.400So, you know, you could say between, you know, 1980, between 1980 to like 1983, 1984, somewhere in that range, they went ahead and took over that liquor store.
00:42:23.400So they're basically just collecting a tax on everybody.
00:42:25.400Because remember, the Irish mob ran, you know, all these rackets.
00:42:29.400They'd get some money, push it up to the, you know, the leader of the Winter Hill gang.
00:42:33.400And then they would and he would push up and pay money to the mafia who really control the whole area.
00:42:38.400But, you know, the Irish mafia and the Italian mafias were able to coexist during this period of time because, you know, everybody was paying paying up.
00:44:02.400Stephen Joseph Flemmy, born June 9, 1934, is an American gangster and convicted murderer and was a close associate Winter Hill gang boss.
00:44:10.400Weddy Bulger, beginning in 1975, Flemmy was a top echelon informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, despite delivering a great deal of intelligence about the inner work is the Patrick Yarka crime family.
00:44:21.400Flemmy's own criminal activities proved a public relations nightmare for the FBI.
00:44:24.400He was ultimately brought up on charges under the RICO Act and pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of life in prison.
00:44:30.400Yeah, because he had killed a bunch of people, guys.
00:44:33.400With Flemmy's help, Bulger could still pose as a loyal member of the Winter Hill gang, discreetly murdering anyone who stands in his way.
00:44:43.400They end up tying Bulger to about 19 murders, guys.
00:44:58.400Based miles to the north in Somerville, Howie Winter continues to pocket his cut from the Southie Rackets, unaware of the growing Bulger menace.
00:45:06.400He was very, very cute, the way he went about doing things, you know, I mean, and they were over there in South Boston, and I was going about my business, you know, and you'd hear that this guy was missing or something like that, and you wouldn't think anything of it, you know.
00:45:21.400James Whitey Bulger wants to get to the top of Boston's Irish gangland.
00:45:27.400By 1978, only Howie Winter stands in his way, yet Winter's luck is running out.
00:45:37.400Winter participates in a race-fixing scheme at the horse tracks.
00:45:41.400The gang bribes jockeys and dopes horses to get the results they want.
00:45:48.400But a jockey is caught and soon spills the beans to the FBI.
00:45:52.400His testimony helps send Howie Winter to jail for 10 years for racketeering.
00:46:53.400This gets into, you know, one part about Bulger that I thought he was very intelligent for utilizing his position as an informant to insulate himself from prosecution while simultaneously taking out competition.
00:47:03.400So that, and that whole horse, that bookmaking scheme that they had where they were doping horses and cheating and fixing races, et cetera, to make a bunch of money.
00:47:31.400You got to pay me a cut of all the money that you're getting for this sports betting.
00:47:34.400So they go ahead and get a cut of that.
00:47:36.400Not only are they getting a cut from the bookmakers who are taking the bets, they also are involved of fixing the races and doping up the horses, paying off jockeys, all this other stuff, right?
00:47:47.400Messing with the races so that they would, you know, ensure that certain people win so that they can go ahead and make more money.
00:47:56.400They're making money from extorting the bookkeepers.
00:47:58.400And on top of that, they go ahead and cooperate with FBI and get this guy, the first guy from the Winter Hill Gang, the leader of the Winter Hill Gang at the time, who is Howard Winter.
00:48:10.400He gets indicted and 75 is the main guy.
00:48:13.400Meanwhile, Bulger and Flemmie do not get indicted, right?
00:48:17.400And here they are going back to this organizational chart, right?
00:48:19.400So you guys know what I'm talking about.
00:48:20.400And I'll pull it up on screen one more time for you guys so that we can stay on track here.
00:49:08.400So let's go ahead and back to the documentary, gentlemen.
00:49:13.400Whitey Bulger has finally made himself undisputed king of Boston's Irish gangland.
00:49:22.400But while he kills informants who ran on him, he himself is an FBI informant.
00:49:28.400Whitey Bulger and his deputy, Steve Flemmie, are both part of the FBI's top echelon program.
00:49:39.400Informant information is critically important in order to enhance public safety.
00:49:44.400Michael Sullivan ran the Organized Crime Task Force guys in Boston at the time, back in the 80s, who was responsible for taking over the mafia.
00:49:53.400So he obviously was, you know, aware of Bulger being an informant to help them take down the mafia.
00:49:58.400You look at identifying people in the organizational structure.
00:50:02.400Anybody that might be able to assist law enforcement, you have to infiltrate that organization.
00:50:08.400In Boston, busting the mafia, the city's oldest organized crime group.
00:50:15.400And we're going to go ahead and play this little clip for you guys from the movie Black Mass of this alliance between Special Agent John Connolly,
00:50:23.400who was the main case agent against the mafia, Jerry Angelo and them, and him and Bulger meeting.
00:52:52.400The feds believe Whitey Bulger can help them bring the mob down.
00:52:57.400The Boston Mafia is based in the city's Italian district, the North End.
00:53:03.400A maze of bars and restaurants located just to the east of some of America's most important historical sites.
00:53:10.400Whitey Bulger has a difficult relationship with the city's Italian mobsters.
00:53:16.400And the North End, guys, just so you know, I'm very familiar with the North End because North Station, so I used to, when I was an intern, guys, remember I told you guys I used to work at the tip federal building when I was an intern.
00:53:27.400That's in the North End of Boston because you've got to go into North Station.
00:53:30.400I would take the green line in, or excuse me, I would take the orange line in from Ruggles, right, in Northeastern, take it to North Station.
00:53:40.400And then I would, you know, get out and then the tip building was right there.
00:53:44.400And actually, you know what, let's go down memory lane real quick.
00:53:46.400This is going to bring back some pretty good memories of mine.
00:53:49.400And I'll show you guys kind of what I mean by this because it's much easier if I show you.
01:01:55.400Bolger's like, wait, you're telling me that I can provide information on my competition while simultaneously not going to jail and making more money?
01:02:05.400Under the top echelon program, the FBI can shield informants from the police as a way of keeping them on the street.
01:02:14.400Normally, the FBI and local law enforcement routinely share details of their organized crime operations.
01:02:22.400But in Whitey Bolger's case, the disclosure is strictly one way.
01:02:28.400There is no obligation, certainly, to share information.
01:02:31.400There's nothing within our rules or within our law that requires that to happen.
01:02:37.400But good law enforcement practices would suggest that there should be some communication between the law enforcement agencies.
01:02:45.400In this case, such communication doesn't happen.
01:02:49.400The FBI does not reveal Bolger's informant status to the local cops.
01:02:55.400Whitey Bolger is occasionally captured on Boston police surveillance cameras.
01:03:00.400Unaware of the extent of his crimes, the city cops consider him a small time selfie hood.
01:03:06.400So the state police and the Boston Police Department was looking at Whitey Bolger guys back then as well.
01:03:11.400But since Bolger was cooperating with the FBI, FBI didn't want to let them know that he was an informant, which, you know, I'll be honest with you guys.
01:03:20.400A lot of time, if an agency had someone as an informant, that was a criminal as well.
01:03:23.400A lot of the times, unless they're working in a joint investigation with you, they would not tell you that their guy was an informant because obviously that can cause issues. Right.
01:03:30.400So they were more focused on the Italian mafia and not the Irish mafia.
01:03:34.400Is that right? No. You know, I genuinely do think that, you know, when you work with other agencies, you need to be transparent and have full disclosure.
01:03:47.400But, hey, this shit happens a lot of times on the job.
01:03:50.400So in 1980, when Bolger is spotted at a garage near the north end, far from his home turf, the local cops take an interest.
01:03:59.400And I'll show you guys exactly what it what they mean by this. OK.
01:04:03.400And nowadays, guys, there's a bunch of methodologies. Right.
01:04:05.400With deconfliction, something called deconfliction now exists where, you know, if you're looking at a target, you put that person's name in.
01:04:11.400And then if someone else puts that name in, then they'll go ahead and they'll connect you this like service.
01:04:16.400And then you go ahead and you speak to that law enforcement officer, whether they work for DEA, FBI, whatever it may be.
01:04:21.400And you're able to kind of deconflict and figure out what's going on here.
01:04:23.400So there are a bunch of instruments now put in place to kind of help fix this problem with people working the same guy.
01:04:35.400In 1980, state police stumbled on Whitey Bulger's headquarters, a garage on Lancaster Street near the old garden, which is literally right next to where I just showed you guys where the tip building is.
01:04:45.400I used to walk back and forth on this street to, you know, deliver paperwork and stuff because they had two different federal buildings.
01:04:50.400You had the Tip O'Neill Federal Building and then the JFK Federal Building down the street.
01:04:54.400So I had to walk down Lancaster Street every single day as an intern, man.
01:04:58.400Around the same time, the Angelo's headquarters were about to be bugged by the FBI.
01:05:03.400The state police figured it was the perfect opportunity to drop a few bugs on Whitey and Stephen Fleming.
01:05:30.400And for the next several months, they went up there, a team of state troopers, and were clicking away with their cameras to develop their investigation and the probable cause to do a bug over here.
01:05:42.400And they just had this wonderful photo album of Whitey, Stevie doing business here.
01:05:47.400Mafia figures, the Angelo brothers coming over for meetings, standing in the garage bays, talking.
01:05:52.400And it was, you know, very rich investigative material.
01:05:57.400And whatever happened with the evidence that the state police collective that was going on here?
01:06:10.400And what happened was, after these weeks and months of developing the probable cause to get a judge to approve a bug, the state troopers put the bugs in here.
01:06:18.400And Whitey and Fleming knew about them right away.
01:07:32.400Every time the state cops have Bulger under surveillance and informed me.
01:07:36.400So he was meeting with them to gather information for John Connolly so that they can go ahead and bug up 98 Prince Street, which I showed you guys before.
01:07:43.400Right here. That's why he was meeting with these guys in the north end to get that information and give it back to John Connolly.
01:07:49.400At the same time, John Connolly didn't want the state police and the Boston Police Department to go ahead and arrest his informant because he was trying to build a case on the mafia.
01:07:58.400OK, so it's a shame that they work together and just, you know, put this put this together.
01:08:02.400But, you know, this happens a lot, guys, where agencies don't share information and issues like this arise.
01:08:11.400We had numerous, you know, wiretaps going and bugs, you know, throughout the city.
01:08:16.400But if it started moving over towards Bulger and Flemmie's group, oftentimes those investigations were being compromised.
01:08:26.400It was kind of clear that there was something happening, that it was some kind of relationship that was not allowing investigations to be conducted on them.
01:08:38.400The state cops come to suspect that Bulger is under FBI protection.
01:08:43.400But now they accuse the feds of alerting Bulger when local law enforcement is watching him.
01:08:49.400And that's more than protection. It's corruption.
01:08:52.400That's when we started to run into a little bit of conflict with with some of the people in the FBI.
01:09:00.400Now, let me tell you guys how you're supposed to address situations like this normally in the field.
01:09:04.400So if you got an informant, right, and they're they're gathering information for you and then you find out that another agency is looking at that individual.
01:09:14.400Right. You got to have a meeting with those people and let them know, listen, man, this guy's working for me.
01:09:19.400You know, we're gathering information on this investigation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:09:25.400And, you know, they conflicted and, you know, work together.
01:09:29.400But here with the FBI, the mistake the FBI did was John Connolly probably didn't want to share information with the state police and the and the Boston Police Department.
01:09:36.400And it ended up, you know, putting them in a bad situation because they were going ahead trying to build a case against Bolger.
01:09:42.400Right. And they didn't know that he was an informant for the FBI at the time.
01:09:47.400So they're looking at it like, oh, what the fuck? Why is it that every time we actually get this kind of surveillance or whatever the hell, you know, he stops showing up, he stops using phone lines, whatever it may be.
01:09:56.400But there was other issues at bay here, which you guys are going to find out later on.
01:10:01.400But normally in a situation like this, if you have an informant and they're, you know, getting looked at by another agency for their criminal activity, because to be honest here, informants are criminals themselves.
01:10:11.400That's why they're able to give you such good information.
01:10:14.400You're supposed to meet with that other agency, contact them, communicate, let them know what's going on and bring them on in the case or share information, whatever it may be.
01:10:21.400And, you know, take it down together. But the problem here with the bureau is that they didn't want to share information with the state police and the Boston Police Department, which is going to cause problems.
01:10:28.400And you're going to see why here in a second. So John Connolly fucked up their stupid by not involving the other agencies.
01:10:36.400So there would be some transparency. Now, do they have to share information? They don't.
01:10:40.400You know, a lot of the times agencies won't want to share information for certain reasons.
01:10:44.400But, you know, this this was this was a situation where they should have.
01:10:51.400At the height of the growing conflict between the state police and FBI, Robert Fitzpatrick is appointed deputy chief of the Boston FBI office.
01:11:03.400I was told that I had to go up there, kick some ass and take names because the office did have a problem.
01:11:11.400But I wasn't really told specifically what the problem was.
01:18:07.400It's the doctrine of political or popular movements that claim and seek to occupy usually territory considered lost or unredeemed to the nation.
01:18:16.400The belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic free from British rule.
01:18:21.400The original Irish Republican Army, 1919 to 1922, often now referred to as the old IRA, was raised in 1917 from members of the Irish Volunteers in the Irish Citizen Army,
01:18:31.400later reinforced by Irishmen formerly in the British Army in World War I who returned to Ireland to fight against Britain in the Irish War of Independence.
01:18:39.400An Irish law of the IRA was the Army of the Revolutionary Irish Republic as declared by its parliament, Dale Irene in 1919, okay?
01:26:44.400I was making, but it fell on deaf ears.
01:26:47.400Connolly and his supervisor, John Morris, have woven such a dense web of deceit around Bulger that no one at FBI headquarters believes Fitzpatrick's allegations.
01:27:33.400All of a sudden, they're making a ton of money. And when they got arrested, all of a sudden, they want forgiveness. And I'm sorry. Who can I put in jail instead of me?
01:27:40.400Bulger has made a crucial mistake. The drug trade leaves him vulnerable to dealers who turn squealers.
01:27:48.400And this is, guys, so the mafia, just so you guys know, the mafia back then, the Italian mafia, had issues with trafficking drugs.
01:27:56.400Now, obviously, you know, a lot of them did get caught for trafficking drugs, famously, people like John Gotti.
01:28:02.400But typically, you know, back then, if you traffic drugs as a maid guy, as a guy in the mafia, you can get killed for that.
01:28:09.400Because the problem with drugs is it's a dirty business, and the mafia didn't want to be involved.
01:28:12.400Because when you deal with drugs, you deal with degenerates, you deal with people that are more likely that you're dealing with dope fiends, etc.
01:28:18.400These guys are, you know, a lot of times they get picked up, and they get snitched.
01:28:23.200So it causes issues for the family when you're involved in drug trafficking that can open everyone else up to issues.
01:28:29.400So typically, drug trafficking was looked at as something like, yo, we don't want to be involved in this.
01:28:34.060So Bulger getting involved in a drug game opens up to quite a bit of liability because we know that drugs are, it's a conspiracy-based crime inherently.
01:28:44.080Because you have to have someone that supplies, you have to have someone that has, you know, someone that manufactures it, someone that supplies it,
01:28:50.300then someone that distributes it, and then someone else that, you know, traffics it, whatever it may be, someone that deals with the money in the Korean.
01:28:55.620So drug trafficking in itself is always going to be a conspiracy-based case, which means what?
01:29:00.680You have the opportunity for snitches to go ahead and provide information.
01:29:04.380So that's why the mafia traditionally always stayed away from drugs, and a lot of criminal organizations back then stayed away from it.
01:29:11.580But Bulger, you know, being the greedy guy that he was, opened himself up with the drug trafficking, and he ends up getting in the eyes of the DEA here.
01:29:19.260Also makes him a target for a second federal agency, the DEA.
01:29:25.280If the DEA can link Bulger to drugs, his informant status may not protect him.
01:29:30.440In the early 1990s, after 15 years of murder and extortion under FBI protection, the tide is finally about to turn against James Whitey Bulger.
01:29:43.300In 1990, Boston's Irish gang boss, James Whitey Bulger, is starting to feel the pinch.
01:29:56.400For years, he has secretly been protected from the law, courtesy of two FBI agents.
01:30:01.780But now, the DEA is beginning to close in.
01:30:09.100Drug enforcement agents find a South Boston street dealer with a story to tell.
01:30:13.860He's lost over $100,000 in a coke buy gone wrong, and it leaves him unable to pay Whitey Bulger.
01:30:20.920Fearing for his life, the dealer begins to talk.
01:30:24.760In August 1990, the DEA busts over 50 Bulger associates.
01:30:29.760In an instant, Whitey's drug ring is smashed.
01:30:49.080As you look over all those reports, they provided a lot of gossip about the mafia.
01:30:54.840But it was mainly stuff like, you know, so-and-so's going to this wedding, or, you know, Joey's brother opened a restaurant on Hanover Street.
01:31:03.760Since the mid-80s, the FBI has scored a string of major Boston mafia busts, all without significant information from Bulger.
01:31:12.280I think the record would suggest that James Whitey Bulger did not give significant value to help dismantle the organized crime in Massachusetts.
01:31:24.700He gave some information that he thought would potentially be helpful to him, more helpful to him than helpful to law enforcement.
01:31:32.120With Connolly's help, Bulger has successfully fooled the FBI into protecting him for over 15 years.
01:33:38.720But then I started getting mad because, you know, we had, we killed people for being informants.
01:33:45.800Weeks' testimony reveals the full brutal extent of Bulger's crimes.
01:33:49.540As the remains of Bulger's victims are recovered, investigators like Robert Fitzpatrick and Tom Foley are finally vindicated.
01:33:58.240It wasn't until we started pulling the bones out of the ground and showing the bodies of their victims that some people take a step back and all of a sudden...
01:34:10.620So he pointed them to the direction of bodies, which included McIntyre as well, guys, who I told you guys before was the person that was involved in driving, you know, captaining the boat, the Valhalla, to Ireland to try to smuggle those guns and ended up getting caught.
01:34:24.940And he ended up providing information on Bulger and a couple other guys to the DEA because he was also a pilot as well that was smuggling marijuana.
01:34:34.140So when that gun running situation failed, he went ahead and cooperated and Bulger found out, lured him to the house, you know, on the premise of it being a party.
01:34:44.380And Weeks knew because he was there when they murdered him and was involved in burying the body.
01:34:48.900So he gives that information to the state police and they're able to dig up the bodies, which obviously they're able to independently corroborate a story, which makes him a credible witness because they were able to actually find a couple of different people buried there.
01:34:59.340At that point, say, OK, they finally started registering with people what we were dealing with.
01:40:44.180And a fake Irish passport are among the few artifacts Bulger left behind.
01:40:48.860All right, so they ended up catching Bulger, guys, a few years after this recorded.
01:40:57.500FBI's 16-year manhunt for James Whitey Bulger.
01:41:00.840The search ended in 2011 when agents found the mobster and his girlfriend living in an apartment building in Santa Monica, California.
01:41:08.820Bulger and Catherine Gregg went by the aliases Charlie and Carol Gasco until the FBI got a tip.
01:41:15.380Agent Scott Gagariola set up a ruse with their landlord, Josh Bond, and it ended one of the most embarrassing episodes in the Bureau's history.
01:41:25.500Bond told the FBI he wasn't going to knock on the Gasco's door because there was a note posted expressly asking people not to bother them.
01:41:33.940Carol had told neighbors that Charlie was showing signs of dementia.
01:41:38.820So Gagariola devised a ruse involving the Gasco's storage locker in the garage.
01:41:44.180It had the name Gasco across it, apartment 303.
01:41:48.220He had the manager called to tell them that their locker had been broken into and that he needed someone to come down to see if anything was missing.
01:41:55.840Carol Gasco said her husband would be right down.
01:49:02.420Really, they said that they beat him so bad that his face was unrecognizable after the
01:49:07.840three guys that killed him while he was in prison serving his sentence.
01:49:11.300They took this mobster, Whitey Bulger, terrorized people in Boston and beyond for years.
01:49:16.600Tonight, three men suspected of killing him are facing murder charges.
01:49:21.200And an author who interviewed one suspect behind bars tells WBZ this was prison justice.
01:49:27.140Bulger was killed at a federal prison in West Virginia nearly four years ago.
01:49:32.800Two of the men now charged are accused of hitting him in the head several times.
01:49:36.920The suspects are Paul DeColagero from Lowell and mob enforcer Freddy G.S. from West Springfield.
01:49:43.500A third, Sean McKinnon, is accused of lying to investigators.
01:49:46.880All were inmates at the time of the murder.
01:49:48.860Freddy G.S. was an old school gangster and he lived by the code that you don't quote unquote rat on your friends.
01:49:56.320Author Casey Sherman interviewed G.S. for his book Hunting Whitey.
01:50:00.360He says Bulger never should have been transferred to the prison where he was killed because Bulger was a known FBI informant.
01:50:07.240Yeah, that's crazy that they put him in gen pop like that.
01:50:09.640The deadly attack on Bulger happened just hours after he was transferred from a Florida prison where he'd been serving a life sentence for 11 murders.
01:50:30.580He got charged 119 but convicted of 11.
01:50:32.720...on the Bulger trial and spoke with her shortly after he was killed.
01:50:36.800He's 89 years old. Why wasn't he moved to the medical facility and why didn't anybody notice the commotion?
01:50:44.440Bulger was on the FBI's most wanted list for years before police arrested him in Southern California in 2011.
01:50:51.340Tonight, U.S. Attorney Rachel Rollins says Bulger's family experienced the excruciating pain that Bulger inflicted on so many other families.
01:50:59.220And Rollins says in the truest of ironies, the justice system is now coming to their aid by arresting the mobsters' accused killers.
01:51:08.860A lot of people said it was justice because he had killed so many people himself in gruesome ways.
01:53:35.700He got committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons for life, followed by a consecutive minimum mandatory term of five years and a consecutive minimum mandatory term of life in prison.
01:53:45.780The term consists of terms of life on counts 1SS and 2SS, 240 months, etc.
01:53:53.300So this is the actual official judgment right here.
01:54:28.780They hit him with money laundering, possession of firearms, possession of machine guns, and furtherance of violent crime, possession of unregistered machine guns.
01:54:33.780Possession of machine guns, possession of firearms, obliterated serial numbers.
01:54:39.140So he got, the defendant is hereby committed to the custody of the U.S. BOP in prison for a total term of life, followed by a consecutive minimum mandatory term of five years and a consecutive minimum mandatory term of life.
01:54:50.760This term consists of terms of life on counts 1SS and 2SS, 240 months, 240 months.
01:54:56.260So, yeah, this is what they got him on.
01:55:31.680You know, this is, like I said, one of my favorite crime stories.
01:55:35.220Yes, obviously, Bolger was an informant, but, you know, you got to give the guy credit.
01:55:39.260It was very smart for him to be an informant and provide information on his competition while simultaneously still running his criminal activities and making money and doing all the things that he did.
01:55:46.860Hey, man, you got to you got to give your hats off to the guy.
01:55:49.520So anyway, with that said, guys, hope you guys enjoyed this video.
01:55:52.560Don't forget to like the video on your way out.
01:55:53.880I'll catch you all on the next episode of Fed It, where we react to criminal documentaries and we also react to, you know, contemporary cases going on.
01:56:02.780So other than that, man, subscribe to the channel, like the video.