Boston Robin Hood, an FBI informant, second on the list of the most dangerous criminals. In the American prison killed the gangster James Bulger
In Hazelton Prison in West Virginia, the gangster James Bulger, nicknamed Whitey, was found dead. According to The New York Times, citing anonymous sources in the prison administration, the 89-year-old criminal was beaten to death.
As a teenager, Bulger joined a street gang in South Boston. For the first time he was caught stealing at the age of 14 and was sentenced to imprisonment for minors several times. Then Bulger went to serve in the army, but even there he was imprisoned several times, including AWOL. His nickname is "Whitey", a gangster got because of blond hair. He always hated his hair color, but he could not get rid of it.
©Depositphotos / Photos of Whitey taken by the police after his arrest in 1953
After the army, Bulger returned to Massachusetts and served the first full term in a real adult prison - for armed robbery and carjacking. Once released, he made a great criminal career, becoming one of the most famous criminals in South Boston.
"Everyone in this Irish enclave had known from childhood legends about his exploits, passed from mouth to mouth: about how he shot people between his eyes, beat his enemies in the heart with a knife for chopping ice, strangling women who were suspected of treason, buried the victims in secret cemeteries, pre-pulling teeth out so that they cannot be identified." - writes The New York Times.
In the frightening mythology that had arisen around the Bulger figure, he simultaneously appeared to the Boston Robin Hood, who at Thanksgiving gave the turkey to the poor, never sold drugs to children and neighbors, trusted only the Irish, did not sell friends, and was endlessly hiding from the persecution of unclean officials who bribed his enemies. In the 2006 drama "The Departed", he became the prototype for the Jack Nicholson character, and in 2015, the main role of the gangster was shot in the movie "Black Mass" with Johnny Depp.
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The younger brother William, who from 1978 to 1996 served as chairman of the Massachusetts State Senate and became a record holder in terms of length of time in this chair, effectively set off the image of James Bulger. All these years, he denied any contact with his criminal brother, but nevertheless he was forced to resign when Whitey finally went underground.
The most important secret of James Bulger was that since the mid-1970s he was an FBI informant, who was staring at his crimes. In 1994, Massachusetts police decided to arrest a gangster for racketeering. Officially, the FBI did not inform about these plans. Bulger went into hiding a few days or weeks before his arrest - as it later turned out, an agent, who for many years was his curator in the bureau of investigation, told him about the preparation of the operation.
Gangster managed to carefully prepare for the escape. He underwent plastic surgery and safely hid bags of money, valuables and fake passports - not only in North America, but also in Europe, including London, Dublin and Venice. Together with his girlfriend Catherine Greig, who is more than 20 years old, Bulger settled in a small apartment in the California city of Santa Monica, just a few minutes’ walk from the Pacific coast.
Bulger has been hiding for 16 years. For 12 of them, he occupied the second (after Osama bin Laden) line on the list of the most wanted FBI criminals. The gangster spent most of this time watching TV. Bulger did not leave the house, but his addiction to Catherine E. Greig led him to visit beauty salons and especially to whiten teeth. Knowing about her habits, agents were able to figure out a criminal.
Bulger and his girlfriend were arrested on June 22, 2011. In their apartment they found more than 800 thousand dollars in cash, a whole arsenal of weapons and a few fake passports. Gangster accused of involvement in 19 murders, as well as racketeering, fraud and numerous robberies. The jury in 2013 confirmed the conviction on 31 episodes from 32. Bulger sentenced to two life sentences.
By the time of sentencing, it was already widely known that the gangster had cooperated with the FBI. After the trial, Bulger was transferred several times from one prison to another. When they decided to send him to Hazelton in October 2018, a gangster’s lawyer said, "The prison authorities arbitrarily replaced their imprisonment with a death sentence" Even politicians expressed concerns about this decision. Only in 2017, 275 cases of violence were recorded in Hazelton, at least two people died. Bulger was killed the day after he ended up in this prison.