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Speaker 2: If it's eight plus, you are now listening to True Murder,
Speaker 2: The most shocking killers in true crime history and the
Speaker 2: authors that have written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, Dck.
Speaker 2: Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 2: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 2: your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good evening for
Speaker 2: the first time. Boston reporters Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge
Speaker 2: draw on exclusive interviews and exhaustive investigative reportage to tell
Speaker 2: the complete story of Whitey Bulger, one of the most
Speaker 2: notorious crime bosses in American history and a long time
Speaker 2: FBI informant. The leader of Boston's Winter Hill Gang and
Speaker 2: number one on the FBI's most wanted list, Bulger was
Speaker 2: indicted for nineteen counts of murder, racketeering, narcotics, distribution, and extortion,
Speaker 2: but it was his sixteen year flight from justice on
Speaker 2: the eve of his arrest that made him a legend
Speaker 2: and exposed deep corruption within the FBI. While other accounts
Speaker 2: have examined Bulger's crimes, this remarkable chronicle tells the story
Speaker 2: of his life on the run, his capture, and his
Speaker 2: eventual murder inside one of America's most dangerous prisons, Misery Mountain,
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eighteen. Interweaving the perspectives of Bulger,
Speaker 2: his family and cohorts, and law enforcement, Hunting Whitey explains
Speaker 2: how this dangerous criminal a aided capture for nearly two
Speaker 2: decades and shines a spotlight on the dedicated TOTEM actives,
Speaker 2: federal agents, and prosecutors involved in bringing him to justice.
Speaker 2: It is also a fascinating detailed portrait of both Balger's
Speaker 2: trial and his time in prison, including shocking new details
Speaker 2: about his death at Misery Mountain less than twenty four
Speaker 2: hours after his arrival. Granted access to exclusive prison letters
Speaker 2: and interviews with dozens of people connected to the case,
Speaker 2: on both sides, Sherman and Wedge offer a trove of
Speaker 2: fascinating new stories and create and an incomparable portrait of
Speaker 2: one of the most infamous criminals in American history. The
Speaker 2: book that we're featuring this evening is Hunting Whitey, The
Speaker 2: inside story of the capture and killing of America's most
Speaker 2: wanted crime boss, with my special guest journalist and author
Speaker 2: Dave Wedge, welcome to the program, and thank you very
Speaker 2: much for a Greenness interview. Dave Wedge Ye good evening, David, Dave.
Speaker 6: Going, how you guys doing very good. Thank you very
Speaker 6: much for this interview. An incredible book, and congratulations on
Speaker 6: you and Casey Sherman's book here Hunting Whitey remarkable, remarkable book.
Speaker 4: And all thank you.
Speaker 6: Sorry, go ahead, go ahead. I wanted to say that
Speaker 6: if we could first tell our audience a little bit
Speaker 6: about your background and your connection to Boston before we
Speaker 6: get right into this incredible book. Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, So, I've been a journalist for fourteen years at
Speaker 4: the Boston Herald, and I started writing books with Casey
Speaker 4: back in twenty thirteen. We wrote a book about the
Speaker 4: Boston marathon bombings called Boston Strong, and that book actually
Speaker 4: was used for the movie Patriots Day starring Mark Wahlberg
Speaker 4: that came out in twenty and seventeen. Since then, Casey
Speaker 4: and I have written a few other books together, and
Speaker 4: we did a book about the young man who started
Speaker 4: the ice Pocket Challenge. His name was Pete Frady's. He
Speaker 4: was a kid from Boston and he had als. He
Speaker 4: unfortunately passed away last fall, but that was quite a
Speaker 4: project to do too, and then we actually did a
Speaker 4: book in twenty eighteen about Deflategate and the whole saga
Speaker 4: there with the NFL versus Tom Brady and the fight
Speaker 4: between the union, the NFL union, and the league on that.
Speaker 4: And then you know, so this book here. You know,
Speaker 4: Casey and I both covered the Whitey Balger case for
Speaker 4: many years as journalists in Boston. Case he was an
Speaker 4: investigated producer at the local CBS affiliate and me at
Speaker 4: the Boston Herald. And you know, we never really expected
Speaker 4: to write a book about Whitey Bulger. There have been
Speaker 4: many books written about his exploits over the years. But
Speaker 4: when he was murdered in prison back in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: you know, we just kind of thought about it and said,
Speaker 4: you know what, there's an opportunity here to finished this
Speaker 4: story until the final chapter. And that's what we did.
Speaker 6: Let's get right to the book itself, and you we
Speaker 6: jump in and with the reader right away and take you.
Speaker 6: Take us to February third, two thousand and eight and
Speaker 6: the first day on the job for Assistant Special Agent
Speaker 6: in Charge, Noreen Gleason. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: this meeting and what Noreen's Gleason's job was according to
Speaker 6: Warrant Bamford, Yeah, so Noreen.
Speaker 4: Was was put So, you know, the FBI had long
Speaker 4: had a White Bulger task force, and over the years
Speaker 4: that he was on the run, that task force would
Speaker 4: grow and shrink from time to time based on the
Speaker 4: special agent in charge and priorities of the office. And obviously,
Speaker 4: when nine to eleven occurred, the office's mission shifted drastically
Speaker 4: from you know, fugitive hunting and organized crime to terrorism.
Speaker 4: And that's that sort of focus kind of persisted for many,
Speaker 4: many years in the Boston office, given that, you know,
Speaker 4: the planes flew out of Logan Airport, so the FBI's
Speaker 4: resources really needed to be used in that fight against terror.
Speaker 4: But there were a lot of agents that still were,
Speaker 4: you know, really upset about the fact that the office
Speaker 4: was stained with this appearance of corruption from prior administrations
Speaker 4: with you know, John Connolly and John Morris and H.
Speaker 4: Paul Rico and some of the other agents that were
Speaker 4: in bed with Whitey Bulger and his crew. And so
Speaker 4: Noring Gleeson was assigned to this task force, and it
Speaker 4: was really kind of a you know, no one looked
Speaker 4: at it as really a good gig at the time,
Speaker 4: because you know, everyone thought he was never going to
Speaker 4: be found, and they thought they were chasing Bigfoot, you know,
Speaker 4: this mythical creature that would never be caught. And but
Speaker 4: Noring Gleeson jumped onto the team, and you know, she
Speaker 4: made it her mission that you know, she wanted to
Speaker 4: change the.
Speaker 6: Narrative before we talk about the team that she assembles.
Speaker 6: Let's you take the reader back and let's take the
Speaker 6: audience back to this trip that Whitey Bulger and his
Speaker 6: longtime girlfriend he's never married, but they lived like they
Speaker 6: were married. That she had four kids from a previous marriage,
Speaker 6: and they had taken a trip to Europe. Tell us
Speaker 6: a little bit about this trip as you take us
Speaker 6: back to Whitey before he went on the run.
Speaker 4: So, you know, there's a lot of mystery out there
Speaker 4: about Whitey Bulger and what he had. You know, what
Speaker 4: he did and didn't do in his life. One thing
Speaker 4: for sure, he made millions and millions of dollars through
Speaker 4: his criminal enterprises, whether it be book making, drug dealing,
Speaker 4: gun running, extortion, and you know, fraudulent business activities. But
Speaker 4: you know him and Teresa Stanley, you know they traveled
Speaker 4: Europe extensively, and Teresa Stanley was his first girlfriend, the
Speaker 4: one that he originally went on the run with. And
Speaker 4: you know, there's a lot of questions as to what
Speaker 4: he did on these trips around the world. A lot
Speaker 4: of people think and the FBI seems to have believed
Speaker 4: that he was stashing money in safety deposit boxes around
Speaker 4: the world. There was a trip to England where he
Speaker 4: is believed to have put some money into a safety
Speaker 4: deposit box near Piccadilly Circus. There's been some stories of
Speaker 4: him putting money in safety deposit boxes in Ireland as well.
Speaker 4: You know, he famously was involved in a gun running
Speaker 4: scheme with Ireland, so he had very close ties to
Speaker 4: the IRA and an organized crime in Ireland. So you know,
Speaker 4: the big question here with Whitey Balder that the remaining
Speaker 4: mystery is where is that money.
Speaker 6: You take us back to December twenty third, nineteen ninety
Speaker 6: four and again White Bulger leader of the winter Hill
Speaker 6: Gang in Boston South End, violent Irish mafia and he's
Speaker 6: out shopping Christmas shopping with Teresa Stanley, but he gets
Speaker 6: a deeper message from his longtime partner, Kevin Weeks tell
Speaker 6: us what happened to this meeting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, you know, Whitey Bulger had several law enforcement,
Speaker 4: corrupt members of law enforcement on his payroll and at
Speaker 4: his beck and call. One of them was John Connolly,
Speaker 4: who grew up in the same South Boston neighborhood as
Speaker 4: Whitey Bulger and his brother Billy, who was a powerful
Speaker 4: politician in Massachusetts. He was the president of the Massachusetts
Speaker 4: Senate and the president of University of Massachusetts. And Kevin
Speaker 4: Weeks was kind of the go between for Whitey Bulger
Speaker 4: and a lot of these corrupt law enforcement folks. And
Speaker 4: you know, there was a lot of chatter in the
Speaker 4: media and you know, just in criminal circles that there
Speaker 4: was indictments coming down against Balder and his crew, you know,
Speaker 4: sweeping rico cases. You know, people were being arrested and
Speaker 4: rounded up, and there was a lot of chatter on
Speaker 4: the streets that people were talking. And you know, when
Speaker 4: Kevin Weeks gets that deeper message, it was an alert
Speaker 4: to Whitey Bulger to let him know that the indictments
Speaker 4: were coming and it was time for Whitey to put
Speaker 4: his plan into action, which was to go on the run.
Speaker 4: And he had been planning for this moment. Really for
Speaker 4: many many years through what we just described, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, leaving money in safety deposit boxes around the
Speaker 4: world and around the country, and also having cash at hand, guns,
Speaker 4: fake identities and disguises, and a plan to get out
Speaker 4: of Dodge.
Speaker 6: Whitey has a partner as well of associate named Steve Flemy,
Speaker 6: and so he contacts him as well and tells him
Speaker 6: about the indictments, doesn't.
Speaker 4: He Yes, So Whitey got the tip from John Conley
Speaker 4: they were coming down, and he did let Steve Flemy
Speaker 4: know that that was coming. Steve Flemy was not as
Speaker 4: lucky as white Balger. He was not able to get
Speaker 4: out of Dodge in time, and Steve Flemy was rounded
Speaker 4: up while white he went on the run for sixteen years. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Now, when we talked about that trip that I mentioned
Speaker 6: with Teresa Stanley, the reason for part of one of
Speaker 6: the reasons for the trip was to strengthen their relationships.
Speaker 6: What was wrong with their relationship? What had Teresa found
Speaker 6: out and what was the situation between them?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so she knew about Catherine greg and they had
Speaker 4: had a confrontation the two women where they were basically
Speaker 4: fighting over Whitey Bulger. You know, and the research that
Speaker 4: we did for this book and the interviews that we conducted,
Speaker 4: one thing was very clear to the people that were
Speaker 4: closest to Whitey and Catherine was that they had a
Speaker 4: true love. And you know, while Teresa Stanley spent more
Speaker 4: time in her life with Bulger than Catherine Gregg had
Speaker 4: up to this point that we're discussing, he really, I believe,
Speaker 4: you know, my opinion is that he trusted Catherine Moore
Speaker 4: and that he actually loved her more. Him and Teresa
Speaker 4: had a very volatile relationship. There's a lot of uh,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of violence in the relationship, a lot
Speaker 4: of control, and you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 4: it was centered around the issues here that that he
Speaker 4: had another woman in his life and that was Catherine greg.
Speaker 6: Right when he decides that he needs to go on
Speaker 6: the run and leave Boston, he doesn't immediately go on
Speaker 6: the run because he gets this head's up. But what
Speaker 6: was the situation with Stanley. You talked about that he
Speaker 6: had more love for Katherine greg But why was it,
Speaker 6: at least on the surface, the reason why Teresa couldn't
Speaker 6: join him on the run.
Speaker 4: So Teresa had children, and she had family ties and
Speaker 4: She was not ready to give those up and just
Speaker 4: go on the run and disappear forever and not see
Speaker 4: her family and friends anymore. She was She expressed that
Speaker 4: to Bulger, you know when when this plan was first enacted,
Speaker 4: and he was furious, obviously, and he brought her back
Speaker 4: to Boston and he dumped her off and he picked
Speaker 4: up Catherine Greg under the cover of night. He picked
Speaker 4: her up in Boston and he took her on the
Speaker 4: run with him and left Teresa Stanley behind forever. And
Speaker 4: it was It's a weird thing, you know, because I
Speaker 4: think Catherine Greg feels like, you know, felt like at
Speaker 4: that moment that she had won. You know, she won
Speaker 4: the battle for Bulger and she was now his number
Speaker 4: one mall for lack of a better term.
Speaker 6: You talk about his age and the age difference between them.
Speaker 6: What is the age difference between them? And also you
Speaker 6: you write about a son that he had with a
Speaker 6: former relationship, Douglas Glenn Sear. Tell us what happened there
Speaker 6: and his reaction to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so White and Catherine. There's there's a big age
Speaker 4: difference there. I believe it's about twenty years. But yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, one thing, a lot of people don't know
Speaker 4: about Whitey Bulger is. You know, he was never married.
Speaker 4: You know, he Teresa Stanley was could be kind of
Speaker 4: considered like his common law wife, but they never formally married.
Speaker 4: They never had any children, but white he did have
Speaker 4: a child. He had a boy, and and that boy
Speaker 4: got very sick, he had high fever and uh and
Speaker 4: the kid ended up passing away in the hospital. And
Speaker 4: that you know, a lot of people that know Bulger
Speaker 4: in his story point to that loss of his sons
Speaker 4: as a pivotal moment in his life that really pushed
Speaker 4: him from being just another organized crime figure to really
Speaker 4: be in this ruthless, ruthless gangster that was really heartless
Speaker 4: and had no no mercy, no moral compass anymore.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: And not only did he play law enforcement like a fiddle,
Speaker 4: but he would really go out of his way to
Speaker 4: exact revenge on people, particularly cruel to women. Throughout the
Speaker 4: rest of his life. He blamed the mother of his
Speaker 4: son for that boy's death. He blamed her for not
Speaker 4: helping the kid get medical help fast enough. And it
Speaker 4: really changed the He was on a bad path anyway,
Speaker 4: but I think it really pushed him further into the Abyss.
Speaker 6: You're right that Kevin Weeks is a free man, but
Speaker 6: Steve Flemy is in jail, so hesits him business them
Speaker 6: This isn't very often. What had Whitey done to alter
Speaker 6: his appearance of anything? And what was the situation in
Speaker 6: terms of what the FBI contained in terms of photos.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Bulger when he went on the run was
Speaker 4: a very different appearing man than he was in the
Speaker 4: surveillance photos that the FBI had of him. Remember that,
Speaker 4: you know he went on the run in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4: Most of the surveillance photos that the FBI had of
Speaker 4: him were from the seventies and eighties and even sixties.
Speaker 4: And you know, his mug shots were ancient. They were
Speaker 4: from the fifties and sixties. So Whitey Bulger was very smart.
Speaker 4: He hated having his picture taken. He avoided it. There
Speaker 4: there aren't many pictures of him that exist. They were
Speaker 4: able to find a couple. There's there's one infamous one
Speaker 4: that we have in our book from Christening of John
Speaker 4: Moderano's son. John Monerano was one of Whitey's and forces.
Speaker 4: Who's a guy that killed over twenty people for the crew.
Speaker 4: And there's a picture that we have in the book
Speaker 4: of Bulger holding John Monarano's son at a christening. That's
Speaker 4: one of the last known photos of Bulger from before
Speaker 4: he went on the run. So when he went on
Speaker 4: the run, you know he was he was notoriously wore
Speaker 4: a bucket cap, sunglasses, grew a beard, and he just
Speaker 4: appeared like an old, older, you know, retiree that was
Speaker 4: kind of in these you know, Southern states and and
Speaker 4: and you know, tropical climates he kind of fit in.
Speaker 4: He hit playing site.
Speaker 6: What was the alias that he used? Uh that Teresa
Speaker 6: knew of as well, that Catherine and Whitey were using.
Speaker 6: What was the alias that they were using on the run?
Speaker 4: So the first alias that he used was Thomas Baxter
Speaker 4: and that that name almost got him caught in New
Speaker 4: York because you know, the FBI was able to and
Speaker 4: the the you know, the law enforcement that was that
Speaker 4: was trailing and was able to find that that was
Speaker 4: a fake name, and they were able to tact the
Speaker 4: track to a vehicle. But whye he was managed to
Speaker 4: stay a step ahead of them every step of the way.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of questions as to why that happened,
Speaker 4: whether or not early in the investigation if he was getting,
Speaker 4: you know, continuing to get help from law enforcement, from
Speaker 4: you know, the likes of John Connolly. And you know,
Speaker 4: it appears that that is the case, that early in
Speaker 4: his flight from justice, that Whitey was continuing to get
Speaker 4: inside information from Lauren Wilson authorities. So Bulger changed that name,
Speaker 4: and he used several different names. One name that he
Speaker 4: used was James Lawler, and then there was another one
Speaker 4: that he ended up using at the end, which was
Speaker 4: Charles Gasco. And he had used a variation of that
Speaker 4: at times as well, Charles Gasca with an A on
Speaker 4: the end. But in the end, when him and Catherine
Speaker 4: greg were in Santa Monica, they were Charlie and Carol
Speaker 4: Gasco and that's that's how people knew them out there.
Speaker 6: Now, at the same time, you've talked about with Norien
Speaker 6: Gleason assembling a team to start re evaluating and re
Speaker 6: invigorating this this mission to try to find Whitey Bulger.
Speaker 6: So what was the what was the wisdom at the
Speaker 6: time where he might have gone? He had all this money,
Speaker 6: they reckoned, But where did the FBI believe he had
Speaker 6: gone to?
Speaker 4: Likely, Well, there were you know, there were sightings all
Speaker 4: over the world of Bulger and Catherine greg and he
Speaker 4: in fact holds the unique distinction of being the most
Speaker 4: featured criminal ever on the old show America's Most Wanted.
Speaker 4: He was on there more than a dozen times and
Speaker 4: it generated literally thousands of thousands of tips over the year.
Speaker 4: So I said earlier that you know, it wasn't really
Speaker 4: looked at as a plum gig to be in the
Speaker 4: Whitey Bulger Task Force. But there was a time when
Speaker 4: it was looked at as a plum gig, not because
Speaker 4: you had the opportunity to catch white Bulger, but because
Speaker 4: you got to travel the world. And a lot of
Speaker 4: the agents would joke about it that, you know, he
Speaker 4: joined the Bulger Task Force and see the world. You know,
Speaker 4: agents were going to Cuba, they were going to Ireland,
Speaker 4: they were going to Aruba, they were going to remote
Speaker 4: Caribbean islands. They were sent to Italy to check out
Speaker 4: these and all of them proved to be false. None
Speaker 4: of them proved to be accurate. And in fact, it
Speaker 4: appears that Whitey Bulger never left the country. That's actually
Speaker 4: you know, we have some letters, exclusive letters that have
Speaker 4: never been seen before. In the book where he says
Speaker 4: that you know, he never left the country and they
Speaker 4: were chasing his ghost.
Speaker 6: I talked about this team that was assembled by Gleason
Speaker 6: with a guy named Tommy McDonald that she knew from
Speaker 6: the past, and a couple other people that she agents
Speaker 6: that she trusted. What was a person named Charles gian
Speaker 6: Turco was one of these people. Now, what was the
Speaker 6: mindset that these people put together and what was the
Speaker 6: the I guess the pivotal decision that they made in
Speaker 6: terms of the new direction for this this hunt for Whitey.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think all these agents came in with
Speaker 4: the same mindset, which was, you know, enough's enough. You know,
Speaker 4: the Bureau has been smeared enough over this case. Let's
Speaker 4: find a way to end this once and for all.
Speaker 4: And the pivotal decision that was made was to stop
Speaker 4: chasing Whitey and stop chasing Catherine. And that was a
Speaker 4: decision that was that was made by that group you mentioned,
Speaker 4: led by Nora Gleason. And what they did was they
Speaker 4: started tracking down every bit of information that they could
Speaker 4: find about Catherine greg And what they found was that
Speaker 4: she had that she had received extensive plastic surgery and
Speaker 4: they actually were able to track down her plastic surgeon
Speaker 4: and get some pictures of her that they later used
Speaker 4: for a famous public service announcement that was broadcast across
Speaker 4: the country. And that's really the break in the case
Speaker 4: that had never been done before by the FBI. They
Speaker 4: had never you know, funded their own PSA. They spent
Speaker 4: fifty thousand dollars to make it with a video company,
Speaker 4: and then they spent another fifty thousand dollars buying ad
Speaker 4: time around the country and white Bullsrom himself saw that
Speaker 4: when he saw that PSA, he looked at Catherine greg
Speaker 4: and said, this is it.
Speaker 6: They also the fortunate thing about this PSA as well,
Speaker 6: because they had a limited budget, and it had such
Speaker 6: a limited budget that they couldn't afford to run ads
Speaker 6: in the Los Angeles because the ad read revenues were
Speaker 6: so high or the rates were so high. So what
Speaker 6: happened in terms of this fortunate break as a result
Speaker 6: of this unique approach with this commercial to try to
Speaker 6: find Whitey, Well.
Speaker 4: Because they used this innovative tactic, you got a lot
Speaker 4: of media coverage, and that media coverage spread the ad
Speaker 4: into areas that the FBI couldn't afford to buy ads in.
Speaker 4: So the Los Angeles market was one of them, and
Speaker 4: you know, it received pretty widespread coverage in the news
Speaker 4: in Los Angeles. And that's how the ultimate final break
Speaker 4: case came was when one of the residents, a woman
Speaker 4: from Iceland that lived in the Princess Eugenia Apartments next
Speaker 4: door to Whitey and Catherine, who she knew as Charles
Speaker 4: and Carol Gasco, she saw the ad and she called
Speaker 4: the hotline, and that's how the case really unfolded.
Speaker 6: Now you talk about their time, you and Casey chronicle
Speaker 6: their time in Santa Monica, but before that, there was
Speaker 6: a close call. They were in Louisiana. So just tell
Speaker 6: us about this close call and then tell us a
Speaker 6: little bit more about their life in Santa Monica at
Speaker 6: this Princess Eugena apartments.
Speaker 4: Sure. Yeah, So, you know, as I said before that,
Speaker 4: you know, it appears that Bulger was still getting some
Speaker 4: help from law enforcement early in his flight from justice.
Speaker 4: One of the first places they went after leaving the
Speaker 4: Northeast was to Grand Isle, Louisiana, and they lived down
Speaker 4: there in a seaside IU community and they befriended a
Speaker 4: family down there, the Gatrol family, And we have interviews
Speaker 4: with the Gatrol family that you know, they they just
Speaker 4: knew them as this kindly old retired couple that would
Speaker 4: you know, spend time with them. They took them shopping.
Speaker 4: You know, Bulger was very generous. He took their son
Speaker 4: under his wing and and kind of, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: tried to teach him life lessons on how to be
Speaker 4: a man and stay in school and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: And you know, they there was an FBI agent that
Speaker 4: that got some great information that they were in that area.
Speaker 4: And the agent actually made it down to Grand Isle
Speaker 4: and was was staking out the area. He was unable
Speaker 4: to get back up from the FBI and he's actually
Speaker 4: pulled off the case mysteriously. And in that time that
Speaker 4: he was pulled out of there, he was planning to
Speaker 4: put together an operation to try to move in and
Speaker 4: get Bulger. He thought he knew where he was, he
Speaker 4: was in the right town. But Bulger got the tip
Speaker 4: again and got out of got out of town before
Speaker 4: that arrest was made. And you know, as a result
Speaker 4: of that, Bulger continued his flight from justice for another,
Speaker 4: you know, more than ten years, and they migrated west
Speaker 4: and they landed in Santa Monica, which was somewhere that
Speaker 4: he had been familiar with. It's interesting, you know the
Speaker 4: parish in South Boston that he grew up and was
Speaker 4: known as Saint Monica's and he ends up hiding out
Speaker 4: in Santa Monica. And he had some relatives that had
Speaker 4: lived there in the past. His niece lived there, and
Speaker 4: they assumed this quiet life of retirees in a nondescript
Speaker 4: neighborhood and Santa Monica right near Palisades Park, ironically less
Speaker 4: than a mile from the local police precinct, and there's
Speaker 4: surveillance cameras on every corner. And he was literally under
Speaker 4: surveillance the whole time, but no one made him until
Speaker 4: that ps A was put out.
Speaker 6: When we talk about the PSA and also the task
Speaker 6: force with Norien Gleason and company, that they wanted to
Speaker 6: focus on Catherine greg But they got a break when
Speaker 6: we didn't mention this. They got a break from a
Speaker 6: dentist because they had heard that they were are not
Speaker 6: a part of me, another dentist, a person a plastic surgeon. Now,
Speaker 6: what was important about that contact with them, other than
Speaker 6: the information that she had indeed got plastic surgery. What
Speaker 6: was the crucial thing that he provided and why.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the crucial piece was this plastic surgeon that had
Speaker 4: treated Katherine greg and actually gave her breast implants. He
Speaker 4: had multiple pictures of her, and they were very clear,
Speaker 4: up closed photos, unlike anything that the FBI had before.
Speaker 4: You know, the pictures that they had of Catherine before
Speaker 4: were like old family photos. They weren't, you know, up
Speaker 4: to date. Some of them were kind of grainy, but
Speaker 4: these were very clear, almost like mug shots, and those
Speaker 4: are the ones that they used in the PSAs. And
Speaker 4: that's really the picture that the woman from Iceland was
Speaker 4: able to recognize. And you know when she called, she said,
Speaker 4: I'm not one hundred percent shorts them, I'm two hundred
Speaker 4: percent sure.
Speaker 6: Right now with this information, of course, they have to
Speaker 6: make sure this is the people, and they find out
Speaker 6: that these people are like ghosts. They don't have any
Speaker 6: background information under the alias that they're using at this apartments.
Speaker 6: So how do they proceed to capture Whitey Bulger and
Speaker 6: obviously reduce any possibility of anybody getting harmed in the process.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, you know, they knew that Whitey Bulger had
Speaker 4: an arsenal of weapons, and they assumed that he was
Speaker 4: ready for war and in fact he was. The fear
Speaker 4: was always that he would take Catherine hostage and use
Speaker 4: her as a human shield so he could escape. So
Speaker 4: when they made the approach to the Princess Eugenia apartments
Speaker 4: there in Santa Monica, they had to come up with
Speaker 4: a ruse to lure Whitey Bulger out of the little
Speaker 4: apartment there on the third floor. And the way they
Speaker 4: did that was they had the manager call him and say, Hey,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry to tell you this, but someone broke into
Speaker 4: your indo a storage locker. Can you meet me down
Speaker 4: in the garage, you know, and I'll help you out.
Speaker 4: And Bulger did not pick up on the suspicious nature
Speaker 4: of that request, and he it's funny. We have a
Speaker 4: great letter in the book that Whitey Bulger, in his
Speaker 4: own words, describes his arrests there in the garage, and
Speaker 4: he talks about being in the elevator going down and
Speaker 4: how quiet it was and he felt like something was off.
Speaker 4: But even though he says that he didn't pick up
Speaker 4: on it at the moment, and he walked right into
Speaker 4: that trap.
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Speaker 6: for the trial of Whitey Bulger and all of the
Speaker 6: security and all the hooplaw and all of the media
Speaker 6: that's poised at this trial in twenty thirteen. Tell us
Speaker 6: a little bit about some of the background before this
Speaker 6: trial and what the media and maybe what the public
Speaker 6: has to say.
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Speaker 6: How about this?
Speaker 4: So you know, this was really the trial of the
Speaker 4: century in Boston. No one expected that this trial would
Speaker 4: have ever happened. It was held at the Joe Moakley
Speaker 4: Courthouse on the South Boston Waterfront, which is named after
Speaker 4: the famous United States Senator Joe Moakley, who grew up
Speaker 4: in South Boston, not far from where White Ball during
Speaker 4: and his brother Billy grew up. So the courthouse is
Speaker 4: a very high security event at the courthouse because it
Speaker 4: was shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings, so the entire
Speaker 4: city was really on a heightened state of alert. And
Speaker 4: Joe Carson, I have the bomber, the Boston Marathon bomber,
Speaker 4: the one who survived and was a waiting trial was
Speaker 4: actually at the courthouse as well when that trial was
Speaker 4: going on. He was he was being held there. Well,
Speaker 4: he was a waiting trial. So it was a pretty uh,
Speaker 4: you know, incredible time in Boston's criminal trial history. The
Speaker 4: harbor was shut down, there were boats that patrolled with
Speaker 4: armed officers on them.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: The perimeter around the courthouse was sealed off with with barricades.
Speaker 4: There were canine units that patrolled the neighborhoods surrounding the courthouse.
Speaker 4: So there was a lot of concern for not only
Speaker 4: terrorism and retaliation against Joe Karsanaya, but also whether or
Speaker 4: not there would be a hit on a guy like
Speaker 4: Whitey Bulge's life.
Speaker 6: Right now, the prosecution team is Fred Whitechek and Brian Kelly,
Speaker 6: but they also have the agent Dan Daugherty, State Trooper
Speaker 6: Steve Johnson, Department of US this investigator Jim Merhra and
Speaker 6: I R. S Agent Sandy Lemansky putting this whole thing together.
Speaker 6: Also a person named Prosecutor Hayfer as well.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 6: Now, the various charges of racketeering, extortion, and the nineteen
Speaker 6: murder charges, how were they, What was the strategy in
Speaker 6: terms of at trial and what were the as you right,
Speaker 6: the cast of characters that were going to make appearances
Speaker 6: and including the star witness against Whitey Bulger.
Speaker 4: Well, there was you know, there certainly was a cast
Speaker 4: of characters that came through. It was almost like an
Speaker 4: episode of this is your life, Whitey Bulger. And I
Speaker 4: think that's how Bulger looked at it. You know, he
Speaker 4: sat at the at the defendant table and watched this
Speaker 4: parade of people from his past come up. You know,
Speaker 4: you had bookies, you had you know, the drug deal as,
Speaker 4: you had the relatives of those that he was accused
Speaker 4: of killing, you had law enforcement folks, you had medical examiners,
Speaker 4: and it was it was really uh uh. You know,
Speaker 4: there were days where it was very arduous and agonizingly
Speaker 4: in depth, and there were days that it was high theater,
Speaker 4: and we describe a lot of that in the book,
Speaker 4: where you know, there was moments where Balder disrupted the
Speaker 4: courtroom with laughter, bellowing out about you know, little anecdotes
Speaker 4: that would come out from different witnesses. There was other
Speaker 4: times where he would trade expletives with his former criminal
Speaker 4: cohorts that had now turned on them. And remember, Bulger
Speaker 4: built a reputation of being this you know kind of noble,
Speaker 4: valiant gangster. But once it was revealed that he was
Speaker 4: in fact an FBI informant, a lot of his his
Speaker 4: criminal partners then turned their back on him and they
Speaker 4: were no longer afraid to testify against him. Those those
Speaker 4: those associates included Kevin Weeks, who was really like a
Speaker 4: son to Whitey Bulger and was his top henchman. John Moderano,
Speaker 4: who we mentioned before, who killed at least twenty people,
Speaker 4: admitted it and served only twelve years for those murders
Speaker 4: and was released in exchange for his testimony against Whitey
Speaker 4: Bulger and Steve Flemy, and then also Steve Flemy who
Speaker 4: also cut a deal to avoid the death penalty in
Speaker 4: exchange for his testimony against Whitey Bulger. So you had,
Speaker 4: you know, really the top three people closest to Bulger
Speaker 4: throughout his criminal life all testified against him in this case.
Speaker 6: And you take the reader right into the courtroom with
Speaker 6: the testimony of John Martrano, Mara Torano and the things
Speaker 6: that he not only had witnessed himself in terms of
Speaker 6: being involved with the murders, but also all kinds of,
Speaker 6: like you say, vivid stories, and regaled the courtroom with
Speaker 6: his gangster tales. But basically he was a star witness
Speaker 6: against for the prosecution against Whitey Bulger, wasn't.
Speaker 4: He He was? Yeah, John Monorano is you know, your
Speaker 4: classic kind of hitman gangster. He's a big, you know,
Speaker 4: big brawny guy that filled up the witness box and
Speaker 4: dark hair and dark eyes and talked very candidly about
Speaker 4: people that he killed over the years for Whitey Bulger,
Speaker 4: talked about shootings that he committed with Whitey Bulger. He also,
Speaker 4: would you know, admitted on the stand that he you know,
Speaker 4: killed over twenty people and and that he received a
Speaker 4: reduced sentence in exchange for his cooperation, which speaks to
Speaker 4: the severity of the case against Whitey Bulger. I mean,
Speaker 4: if they're gonna cut a deal with a guy who's
Speaker 4: killed twenty people, white Bulger must have really gone bad person.
Speaker 4: And that was a loud and clear message to the jury,
Speaker 4: I think. During that case, it was also revealed that
Speaker 4: Moderano sold his life rights for a book that he
Speaker 4: did with a Boston news columnist, and they also tried to,
Speaker 4: I guess make a movie out of it, but it
Speaker 4: never happened, and he received over one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 4: for those projects. I mean, he's a guy that you know,
Speaker 4: served He served only twelve years for twenty murders and
Speaker 4: he got one hundred thousand dollars on top of it.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Some of the most chilling testimony at this trial
Speaker 6: was from him, though, because he talked about the truly
Speaker 6: atrocious murder of Flemy, Steve Flemy's step daughter, Deborah Hussey,
Speaker 6: and also about the murder of his beautiful girlfriend, Debbie Davis,
Speaker 6: and it really demonstrated and illustrated the evil that personified
Speaker 6: Whitey Bulger. What did he have to say say about
Speaker 6: those specific murders that again was sent a chill through
Speaker 6: the jurors and everyone in the courtroom.
Speaker 4: I believe it was Weeks and Flemy that testified about
Speaker 4: those murders, because John Moderano I don't believe was present
Speaker 4: at either one of those murders. I may be mistaken
Speaker 4: on that, but I know that Steve Flemy and Kevin
Speaker 4: Weeks were present for those murders, and you know they
Speaker 4: they both. Kevin Weeks was a little wishy washy about it.
Speaker 4: He just said that she was strangled in the basement,
Speaker 4: that he helped to bury her with regard to Deborah Hussey,
Speaker 4: and he was unclear as to who actually strangled her,
Speaker 4: whether it was Bulger or Flemy, but the Flemy was
Speaker 4: clear that it was Bulger that did it and that
Speaker 4: he was was angry about it. Bulger's contention was that
Speaker 4: Flemy was the one that did it because he had
Speaker 4: more to lose. But you know, the theory was that
Speaker 4: both women knew too much and they were risks, you know,
Speaker 4: for for Steve Flemy with Deborah Hussey. She was the
Speaker 4: daughter of Steve Flemmy's longtime common law wife Mary and Hussy,
Speaker 4: and Steve Flemy started a relationship with that girl when
Speaker 4: she was underage. She was only I believe like sixteen
Speaker 4: or even fifteen, And that was that was something that
Speaker 4: was discussed at length at the trial, and it was
Speaker 4: it was creepy, creepy stuff. And you know, the way
Speaker 4: that she was murdered was very violent. She was strangled
Speaker 4: and then she was buried there, you know, in the
Speaker 4: in the in the basement.
Speaker 6: It was strange that you write that some of the
Speaker 6: people that went to testify against Whitey Bulger he seemed
Speaker 6: to be friendly with and and even instructed his attorney
Speaker 6: to do what on there when they testified. This was unusual.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, some of them. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 4: It was almost like Bulger was the puppeteer with his
Speaker 4: defense team and would kind of instruct which witnesses to
Speaker 4: go hard at and which to leave alone. And there
Speaker 4: were some that Balger would nod and say, hey, good morning,
Speaker 4: you know, and these guys would go up there and
Speaker 4: testify about all the stuff that Whitey Bulger did illegally,
Speaker 4: and Balger would basically call off the attack dogs with
Speaker 4: his lawyers and just you know, tell them, you know what,
Speaker 4: don't worry about him, you know, basically because he felt
Speaker 4: that some of the witnesses against him were people that
Speaker 4: he liked, frankly, and he didn't really have a problem
Speaker 4: with them. They would just answer the questions that they
Speaker 4: were asked, but they didn't go out of their way
Speaker 4: to to cross Whitey Bulger. But there were others that
Speaker 4: he did feel that way about, and he, you know,
Speaker 4: he made that known in the courtroom.
Speaker 6: Sometimes you write that he seemed disinterested in the people,
Speaker 6: certain people's testimony and the proceedings in general. But there
Speaker 6: were times when there were outbursts at trial. Tell us
Speaker 6: about a couple of those outbursts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one occurred with with with Kevin Weeks. You know, again,
Speaker 4: Kevin Weeks was like a son to Whitey Bulger. And
Speaker 4: at one point they had a stare down in the
Speaker 4: courtroom and they swore at each other, explained, exchanged expletives
Speaker 4: and actually Weeks appeared to challenge him to a fight
Speaker 4: and and said what are you going to do? You know,
Speaker 4: And and this was in the middle of the court,
Speaker 4: in front of the jury. It was certainly a very
Speaker 4: explosive moment in the trial to see these two criminal
Speaker 4: partners who built this criminal empire that resulted in so
Speaker 4: much death and destruction in Boston for so many years,
Speaker 4: and now they're sitting having a head to head in
Speaker 4: the courtroom. It was striking, you know, high theater, as
Speaker 4: I discussed. And there was other times that there was
Speaker 4: a bookie that took the stand and told the story
Speaker 4: about how Bulger was extorting another bookie in a hotel
Speaker 4: room and threatened to kill him and uh and it
Speaker 4: may you know, made some colorful comments about what he
Speaker 4: was going to do, and Bulger got a real kick
Speaker 4: out of that. He laughed very loudly, he bellowed and
Speaker 4: pounded his fist on the table. He just thought it was,
Speaker 4: you know, the funniest thing he had heard, and it
Speaker 4: disrupted the court room and the judge was pretty mad
Speaker 4: about that. But you know, that's the kind of guy
Speaker 4: he was. You know, he was brazen when he wanted
Speaker 4: to be, and he was just mysterious and creepy at
Speaker 4: other times. But during that trial we saw at all.
Speaker 6: With the testimony of a person like Kevin Weeks and
Speaker 6: others at this trial, what was also established and what
Speaker 6: we didn't go into, is the connection between Billy Bulger
Speaker 6: being this very prominent and influential politician in Massachusetts, and
Speaker 6: also Norma and Gleason and other agents hounding the family
Speaker 6: at least trying to embarrass the family and trying to
Speaker 6: find out he get any evidence that Billy and brother
Speaker 6: Jackie or any family members were in contact with Whitey
Speaker 6: on the run. So at the trial there is quite
Speaker 6: a bit of this established by witnesses. Then embarrassment and
Speaker 6: an involvement by Bulger's family.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, Well, his brother Jackie Bulger was
Speaker 4: a court clerk magistrate at one point in his life,
Speaker 4: and he was actually convicted of aiding and abetting as
Speaker 4: his brother when he was a fugitive. Billy Bulger was
Speaker 4: never charged, but you know, a lot of these FBI
Speaker 4: agents that we interviewed for the book were very clear
Speaker 4: with us that they wished that he had been and
Speaker 4: they think that he should have been. Billy Bulger testified
Speaker 4: before Congress that he and that he did receive a
Speaker 4: call from his brother while his brother was a fugitive,
Speaker 4: at least once. You know, there's a lot of information,
Speaker 4: you know, from the folks we interviewed that that there
Speaker 4: was more than just that one call. You know, that
Speaker 4: that they think that Billy was in touch with his
Speaker 4: brother more regularly than he would ever admit. You know,
Speaker 4: Billy Balger when we interviewed him, was evasive on that topic,
Speaker 4: but certainly yes, during the trial, there was a lot
Speaker 4: of testimony that Billy Balder was close with John Connolly
Speaker 4: and was kind of instrumental in forging that relationship between
Speaker 4: the corrupt FBI agent John Connolly and his brother Whitey.
Speaker 4: And also there was some pretty clear testimony that that
Speaker 4: some of these agents thought that Billy Balder had a
Speaker 4: lot more to do with his brother's life was a
Speaker 4: fugitive than was ever really acknowledged, and they, you know,
Speaker 4: many of them think that he should have been charged.
Speaker 6: Also with for the media and the public, they heard
Speaker 6: about the FBI disgraced former members Paul Rico, John Morris.
Speaker 6: So the media and the public and the jurors got
Speaker 6: to hear about the Chickane every going on in the
Speaker 6: FBI and all of these disgraced agents and including a
Speaker 6: state trooper named Schneiderham. So this is what for the
Speaker 6: first time Boston and residents in the world got to
Speaker 6: hear the actual truth about this mythological almost folk hero.
Speaker 6: And it was quite the opposite of the myths, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. You know, he was showering these agents and law
Speaker 4: enforcement offices with gifts over the years, paying them off,
Speaker 4: bribing them, you know, hanging out with them at fancy dinners,
Speaker 4: buying them Christmas gifts. Whitey Bulge had is saying that,
Speaker 4: you know, Christmas is for cops and kids, you know,
Speaker 4: and he would give them envelopes filled with cash. It
Speaker 4: was disturbing stuff to hear for anyone that likes to
Speaker 4: believe that law enforcement is above reproach. It was not
Speaker 4: the case in Boston in the seventies and eighties and
Speaker 4: even into the nineties, when you know these corrupt rogue agents,
Speaker 4: you know, we're cutting devil's deals with people like white Bulger.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: It was Honestly, I think the prosecutors on the case
Speaker 4: and the young, newer FBI agents that helped catch Whitey Bulger,
Speaker 4: I think for them it was cathartic to air it
Speaker 4: publicly once and for all, get all the facts on
Speaker 4: the record and clear the air and let people know, Yeah,
Speaker 4: this happened, and it was unacceptable and despicable and criminal,
Speaker 4: and we're not going to let it. We're not gonna
Speaker 4: let it go. We're going to expose it and make
Speaker 4: sure that everyone's held accountable to Canby. And I think
Speaker 4: that was a big part of the trial. The other
Speaker 4: pieces from Bulger's side. His attorneys absolutely wanted to turn
Speaker 4: this case into putting the FBI on trial. In fact,
Speaker 4: they went so far as to try to insinuate that
Speaker 4: Bulger had immunity from prosecution because of his arrangements with
Speaker 4: the US Attorney's Office and the FBI. And they also
Speaker 4: tried to create a fictional narrative that Whitey Bulger was
Speaker 4: not an informant. You know, they tried to put out
Speaker 4: there that Bulger never gave the FBI anything of substance.
Speaker 4: All he gave them was rumor and innuendo and tips
Speaker 4: that he had heard from other people, and you know,
Speaker 4: tips of information that they already knew anyway. So it
Speaker 4: was just really a ruse to try to appease their client,
Speaker 4: to make him feel like he wasn't the rat that
Speaker 4: he was.
Speaker 6: You talked about that contention, because that was a big
Speaker 6: part of the potential or their planned defense, was to
Speaker 6: say that this Jeremiah O'Sullivan had granted him immunity, so
Speaker 6: they were hedging their bets. But Judge Casper, I believe,
Speaker 6: shot that down early. So that was when that was defeated.
Speaker 6: There wasn't much they could do with that because they
Speaker 6: could not provide any evidence, any documentation whatsoever of that,
Speaker 6: and the judge ruled on it accordingly, didn't he Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's right.
Speaker 4: So you know, Bulger's attorneys put forth again this narrative
Speaker 4: that Bulger met with Jeremiah O'Sullivan. He's deceased now, but
Speaker 4: he was the district attorney. I'm sorry the US attorney
Speaker 4: at the time in Boston, and he claims that he
Speaker 4: cut a deal with Bulger saying, keep feeding us information
Speaker 4: on the Italian Italian mob and I won't prosecute you
Speaker 4: for anything. There's no evidence to that agreement. There's there's
Speaker 4: no paper trail, there's nothing. It was just simply the
Speaker 4: words of his attorney. They put in a motion, but
Speaker 4: there was, you know, no way to ever prove whether
Speaker 4: or not it was true or not. And ultimately the judge,
Speaker 4: you know, threw it out as an invalid defense because
Speaker 4: of that reason, because there was no corroborating evidence that
Speaker 4: that it was true.
Speaker 6: It's very interesting exciting moment in this trial is that
Speaker 6: a person named Stephen Rakes, one of Bulger's extortion victims,
Speaker 6: and you say, a potential witness and he'd been tending
Speaker 6: the trial. What happens to him? And what does it
Speaker 6: lend people to think about what might have happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, so here we are in the middle of
Speaker 4: the trial of the century in Boston, where you know,
Speaker 4: there's all sorts of witness intimidation, accusations, and you know,
Speaker 4: people being killed, you know, bodies being on earthed and
Speaker 4: lo and behold in the middle of the trial, one
Speaker 4: of the witnesses and one of the people that a victim,
Speaker 4: actually someone that Whitey had extorted, a guy named Stipo Rake.
Speaker 4: Stephen Rakes, turns up dead and Stephen Rakes was a
Speaker 4: He was murdered. He was found on the side of
Speaker 4: a road in a suburb of Boston during the trial.
Speaker 4: And when that happened, it sent shockwaves through the media
Speaker 4: and through the general public, and it just had everyone
Speaker 4: saying there for a couple of days, jeez, does Whitey
Speaker 4: Ball just still have the reach? Can he still you know,
Speaker 4: get outside of the prison and reach out for me
Speaker 4: on the walls and have someone killed, because Rakes was
Speaker 4: set to testify in the trial. But it quickly was
Speaker 4: investigated by the police, and to their credit, they shot
Speaker 4: that down pretty quickly during the trial and said this
Speaker 4: is unrelated to the trial. What actually happened was Rakes
Speaker 4: had a dispute, a business dispute with another gentleman, and
Speaker 4: the guy actually had poisoned Rakes's coffee and and that's
Speaker 4: how he was murdered. And it was it was put
Speaker 4: out there pretty quickly that it had nothing to do
Speaker 4: with the Bulger trial, and.
Speaker 6: That guy was that guy was convicted that life.
Speaker 4: You know, it was a crazy story. It was a
Speaker 4: really it really was a wild couple of days there
Speaker 4: in the trial when that happened, and I think it
Speaker 4: scared some of the jurors for a few minutes.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, Yeah, absolutely. Now the prosecution has a difficult time
Speaker 6: getting convictions on all of the murders despite all this
Speaker 6: eyewitness to themoni from Flemy and Weeks and other testimony
Speaker 6: that seemed to corroborate those indictments. But tell us what
Speaker 6: happens in terms of the actual indictments that were successful
Speaker 6: out of those nineteen murders.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So they ended up convicting Balger on eleven of
Speaker 4: nineteen murders, and then there were two that there was
Speaker 4: no finding, one of them being Debbie Davis, which was
Speaker 4: very upsetting to the Davis family because at the very
Speaker 4: least Bulger was there and commissioned that murder, which should
Speaker 4: be enough for a murder conviction. Is as you know,
Speaker 4: your listeners know that you don't have to actually be
Speaker 4: the person that kills the person in order to be
Speaker 4: convicted of murder. If you participate or facilitate the killing,
Speaker 4: then you are guilty of murder if that can be proven,
Speaker 4: and the Davis family certainly thought at least that was proven,
Speaker 4: but beyond that, they believed that it was proven that
Speaker 4: Bulger was the one that actually strangled her. So that
Speaker 4: was a real and the prosecutor taught to us about
Speaker 4: that for the book. The prosecutors found that to be
Speaker 4: very disappointing as well, that the jury did not find
Speaker 4: him guilty of that murder because they believed that they
Speaker 4: proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. But you know, the
Speaker 4: jury spoke.
Speaker 6: What was the end result in terms of the sentencing
Speaker 6: and where does Whitey Bulger head to in terms of prison.
Speaker 4: So he was convicted of those eleven murders and also
Speaker 4: you know, a slew of gun and racketeering charges, extortion,
Speaker 4: drug trafficking, all sorts of stuff, and he got multiple
Speaker 4: life sentences without parole per the law. He sent off
Speaker 4: first to be classified and then he's sent to a
Speaker 4: prison out in Tucson, Arizona, where you know, he walks
Speaker 4: into this prison and he's suddenly, you know, the most
Speaker 4: notorious inmate in there. He had a target on his
Speaker 4: back from day one, and in fact, we report in
Speaker 4: the book for the first time that there wasn't a
Speaker 4: tempt on his life. I don't want to get into
Speaker 4: too any details on it. I think people will get
Speaker 4: a lot out of reading that part of the book.
Speaker 4: And then after that happens, he's he's moved to a
Speaker 4: prison in Florida where he has more troubles.
Speaker 6: What about Catherine Greg? What's her sentence and where does
Speaker 6: she go?
Speaker 4: So Catherine Greg had a separate trial and she was
Speaker 4: convicted of harboring a fugitive and aiding in a betting
Speaker 4: a fugitive. So she was given I believe the sentence
Speaker 4: was eight years, and she was sent to a female,
Speaker 4: a women's prison, federal prison out and I believe it's
Speaker 4: in Wisconsin. I'm pretty sure. But she, you know, she
Speaker 4: served her time and actually she's she's since been released
Speaker 4: and she was she was transferred to a halfway house
Speaker 4: here in Massachusetts last year, and then she was subsequently
Speaker 4: released and now she's out. He's living just south of Boston.
Speaker 4: Was actually a member of Bulger's family.
Speaker 6: Incredible, what was the They had an opportunity to correspond
Speaker 6: and communicate through the help of a first or attorney
Speaker 6: and then later a psychologist and you were maybe to
Speaker 6: some of that information and some of that correspondence tell
Speaker 6: us about their relationship once they're incarcerated, what does that
Speaker 6: look like.
Speaker 4: So Bulger was clear when he was arrested that he
Speaker 4: said he would accept the death penalty if it meant
Speaker 4: that he could have Catherine released. He tells people in
Speaker 4: the letters that we have in the book that you know,
Speaker 4: she didn't deserve to be punished. She didn't do anything
Speaker 4: wrong all. Her only crime was loving him, you know.
Speaker 4: And he said that she didn't do anything to keep him,
Speaker 4: you know, to to facilitate his criminal career. So you know,
Speaker 4: once they get into their separate prisons, you know, they
Speaker 4: obviously they had been on the run, spending every waking
Speaker 4: moment together for sixteen years. He missed her frankly, and
Speaker 4: his lawyer felt bad for him and allowed him to
Speaker 4: write letters to Catherine and allowed Catherine to read them
Speaker 4: and send them back and forth. And the lawyer provided
Speaker 4: that cornduit for them, and he said that, you know,
Speaker 4: Bulger was very emotional when he was reading these letters.
Speaker 4: I mean, he you know, one thing's clear from our
Speaker 4: research and the letters that we have was that Bulger's
Speaker 4: love for her was was very profound, you know, and
Speaker 4: he expressed that frequently in these letters.
Speaker 6: You talk about. By the time he gets the Coleman
Speaker 6: Correctional Complex, there is Hollywood buzzing again. Hollywood had made
Speaker 6: a movie Martin Scorsese called it Departed, which is the
Speaker 6: fictionalization of the Irish mob in Boston. Yes, you could
Speaker 6: call it that. And but there was Hollywood making a
Speaker 6: movie with Johnny Depp I believe, called Black Mass. Maybe
Speaker 6: Matt Damon was involved. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: this venture from Hollywood and who participated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, Bulger talked in letters that we
Speaker 4: have in the book about the Black Mass process, and
Speaker 4: he talked about, uh, you know, Johnny Depp wanting to
Speaker 4: meet with him and play him in the in the movie.
Speaker 4: But I you know, he mentions Ben Affleck and having
Speaker 4: some involvement, and you know, but Bulger did not want
Speaker 4: to participate with that project because he didn't like the
Speaker 4: Boston Globe, which is the newspaper where the writers of
Speaker 4: the book Black Mass were employed. He hated the Globe,
Speaker 4: He hated the writers who wrote Black Mass. He he
Speaker 4: trashed the book in his in his letters, said that
Speaker 4: you know it was fiction and they got it all
Speaker 4: wrong and all this stuff. But so it's kind of
Speaker 4: funny that, you know, Johnny Depp wanted to meet with
Speaker 4: him and Bulger refused to take that meeting.
Speaker 6: What age is Whitey Bulger? Once he gets the Coleman
Speaker 6: Correctional Complex and you talk about the care level just
Speaker 6: the categorization of inmates, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: care level three and how is he considered in terms
Speaker 6: of risk.
Speaker 4: So when Bulger gets to Coleman, he by that time
Speaker 4: he's had multiple heart attackses on multiple medications. He's actually
Speaker 4: using a respirator, He's in a wheelchair frequently, if not
Speaker 4: all the time. He required daily nursing attention, not quite
Speaker 4: round the clock, but pretty close. So he was in
Speaker 4: the highest risk category as far as health classifications go
Speaker 4: in the federal prison system. He had some difficulties with
Speaker 4: a nurse there at at Coleman in Florida, where he
Speaker 4: threatened her, and after that happened, Bulger's health classification was
Speaker 4: oddly reduced. He suddenly was deemed that he was healthier,
Speaker 4: even though his age was advancing and nothing had changed.
Speaker 4: And because that classification was reduced, that permitted the prison
Speaker 4: system to allow him to be moved, and rather than
Speaker 4: move him to a prison medical facility where he probably
Speaker 4: should have gone, they sent him Hazelton, West Virginia, to
Speaker 4: a prison called Misery Mountain that was riddled with violence
Speaker 4: and was in the middle actually of a of a
Speaker 4: of a real crisis with staffing because of budget cuts,
Speaker 4: and you know, there had been a couple of inmate
Speaker 4: murders there, there was some guard attacks. So it was
Speaker 4: really a powder keg that Bulger was being sent to.
Speaker 6: Why do you think, and you you speculate here or
Speaker 6: you theorize why he shouldn't have been sent to this
Speaker 6: prison specifically, and that there are prisons that somebody in
Speaker 6: his condition and somebody that's considered an informant would go to. Now,
Speaker 6: why would he be transferred to Hazelton? And what do
Speaker 6: you think about Hazelton and some of the inmates there
Speaker 6: in terms of why he wasn't they shouldn't have been
Speaker 6: sent there.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, there's three prisons in the federal prison
Speaker 4: system where they send high risk inmates, especially informants. There's Tucson,
Speaker 4: There's Coleman, and there's Terre Haute, Indiana. It's known as
Speaker 4: the Triangle in the Bureau of Prisons. Misery Mountain is
Speaker 4: not one of those three prisons. Misery Mountain at Hazelton
Speaker 4: is somewhere where an informants should not be sent. It's
Speaker 4: somewhere where informants will be targeted and killed. And you
Speaker 4: know when when they sent Bulger into that prison, they
Speaker 4: sent him into a prison that was filled with organized
Speaker 4: crime figures, including many from the Italian mafia, including many
Speaker 4: from Massachusetts, who were well versed in Whitey Bulger's lore.
Speaker 4: And to put him into that prison under those conditions,
Speaker 4: at his advanced age, with his health problems and knowing
Speaker 4: all that they know was was nothing short of a
Speaker 4: catastrophic error, if not outright uh negligence and incompetence. And
Speaker 4: I think that you know, no matter what one person
Speaker 4: thinks of Whitey Bulger, you know, we live in a
Speaker 4: civilized society and we should not be intentionally putting prisoners
Speaker 4: into harm's way, and they should be the prison system
Speaker 4: should be taking steps to make sure that you know,
Speaker 4: the piece is kept and putting Bulger into that situation
Speaker 4: was not in line with those ideals.
Speaker 6: And in October twenty ninth, twenty and eighteen, you chronicle
Speaker 6: what happened, and we will just leave it at that
Speaker 6: for people to discover all the details. And I know
Speaker 6: some people are clamoring. I've seen the just clamoring for
Speaker 6: those details. So needless to say, he was killed in prison,
Speaker 6: as we all know. October twenty ninth, twenty and eighteen.
Speaker 6: Did you succeed with this book in what you wanted
Speaker 6: to convey and what you wanted to demonstrate?
Speaker 4: I think we did. You know, our goal with this
Speaker 4: book was, as I said, to tell the end of
Speaker 4: the story, you know, the final chapter in this twisted
Speaker 4: criminal saga that has really riveted you know, true crime
Speaker 4: officionados for decades, and certainly it's been a massive part
Speaker 4: of the media reporting here in Boston. For de k
Speaker 4: It's you know, forty years plus. So we really wanted
Speaker 4: to put the exclamation point to the end of this story.
Speaker 4: We also wanted to dispel the myth in the notion
Speaker 4: that Whitey Bulger was this benevolent, good guy gangster, you know,
Speaker 4: a Robin Hood type figure. He was not that at all.
Speaker 4: And I think in the book people will get a
Speaker 4: good sense, a better sense than ever before, of what
Speaker 4: type of a person Bulger really was because you know,
Speaker 4: we have some of the most insightful letters that anyone's
Speaker 4: ever seen that reveal his character and it's right from
Speaker 4: his own words, and that's really why I think. You know,
Speaker 4: this book gets to the heart of the matter like
Speaker 4: like none other before it.
Speaker 6: And you also have included some fantastic, fantastic photos as
Speaker 6: well that the audience will get to see. Is the
Speaker 6: reader will get to see credible?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's never before. You know, the last known pictures
Speaker 4: of Whitey Bulger they were taken in prison, and we
Speaker 4: have those in the books, So I think people really
Speaker 4: like to see that.
Speaker 6: Absolutely. I want to thank you very much, Dave Wedge
Speaker 6: an incredible interview Hunting Whitey, the inside story of the
Speaker 6: capture and killing of America's most wanted crime boss. I
Speaker 6: know people will go to Amazon, and I know this
Speaker 6: will be an audiobook as well. Is there a website
Speaker 6: or a Facebook page that people might take a look
Speaker 6: at this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean people can go to the HarperCollins website
Speaker 4: and just do a search for the book Hunting Whitey,
Speaker 4: and they can get more information. They ere they can
Speaker 4: track Casey and I down on Facebook just by our names,
Speaker 4: and we try to respond to everybody that reaches out.
Speaker 6: It's been fantastic speaking with you, Dave Wedge, thank you
Speaker 6: very much for this interview. Hunting Whitey, The inside story
Speaker 6: of the capture and killing of America's most wanted crime boss.
Speaker 6: Incredible book. Thank you very much, Thank you. I have
Speaker 6: a great evening.
Speaker 4: Thank you you two.
Speaker 6: Good night, True