A Mass Murderer Asks For Compassion – Is The Fix In?

In the United States it is not uncommon to execute people who commit murder. There are 27 states as well as the federal government and the U.S. military. that authorize the death penalty,   As expected Florida and Oklahoma are among those states.

In Oklahoma the majority of person’s executed murdered only one person. For instance in 2012 Gary Thomas Allen was executed for murdering his girlfriend in 1986 because she was planning to leave him. Didn’t Steven Flemmi murder his beautiful young girlfriend for the same  reason?

In Florida over half of the executions relate to the murder of one person. Eric Scott Branch murdered and raped a Florida coed Susan Morris and he was executed. Eddie Wayne Davis used his fingers to rape the 11-year-old daughter of  a woman he had briefly dated and then smothered her in 1994. He  was executed in 2014. Didn’t Steve Flemmi start having sexual relations with his step-daughter when she was around that age which he carried on for years and after she complained to her mother he murdered her.

Steve Flemmi pleaded guilty to a murder in Florida and Oklahoma. Under pressure from federal prosecutors those state  prosecutors decided not to pursue the death penalty  for him based on the agreement he would do life in prison. He now wants both states to let him get out of prison now. Are they again being pressured by federal prosecutors?

Asking to be released after murdering two women alone  would be a good definition of chutzpah but it is only one-tenth of the story. In an overly fawning article in the Boston Globe, Shelly Murphy, shows us two of his paintings and mentions his extraordinary evil deeds almost in passing.

Thinking that Flemmi – who got to keep most of his criminally gained assets unlike others who cooperated and had done his time in a “confidential location” which sounds pretty much like one of those federal play camps – is asking for consideration can only be equated to Charles Manson asking for the same. Flemmi was actually worse than Manson. But his time in  prison was not under the  direction of the federal bureau of prisons for they never listed him as being in their custody. That, I thought, was strange. It indicated to me he was being give specially treatment.

Flemmi said he murdered 50 people – if so where was his compassion for them. He pled guilty to murdering 10 people – did he show them compassion. He made Whitey Bulger look like an amateur.

He murdered the three Bennett brothers – Wimpy, Walter and Billy. He murdered Punchy McLaughlin at a bus stop at the Dedham/West Roxbury  line; he murdered  Peter Poulos, his friend, in the Las Vegas desert; he murdered Sammy Lindenbaum,  Connie Hughes and his brother Stephen, he dynamited a lawyers’s car at the request of the Mafia causing the lawyer to lose a leg, he gunned down Eddie Connors at a public phone booth, and on and on.

It was not only that he murdered his girlfriend Debbie, he extracted her teeth after murdering her. He murdered Bucky Barrett, John McIntyre. These were real people with friends and relatives. Whether it is 10, 20, or 50 he is a mass murdered and few in the United States have murdered more people. Never mind that he found a thrill in brutalized their bodies after doing  it.

No person with as many murders as Steven Flemmi should ever see the street. But there is something strange about the way his case has  been handled. It deserves watching especially if you observed the closeness of the prosecutor, Fred Wyshak,  with Flemmi as they laughed together in front of the jury when dealing with the death of Brian Halloran. They seemed too close for my comfort and seeing his cushy incarceration and now his attempt to get out – given that the federal prosecutors would not say that they oppose his release -it is hard to escape the feeling the fix is in. While the majority of Americans are executed for killing one person how can it be that one who murdered at least ten times that – including his girlfriend and step-daughter get the slightest consideration for release. Watch this case.

 

@miamiherald, @theOklahoman, @tulsaworld

 

6 Comments

  1. “There are 27 states as well as the federal government and the U.S. military. [sic] that authorize the death penalty, As expected Florida and Oklahoma are among those states.”

    So, a majority of states have the death penalty while a minority of states do not. What compels your expectation that Florida and Oklahoma are among the majority?

  2. WOW!

    Matt
    Where do you come up with these conspiracy theories?

    In other theories from the Thorazine wilderness…

    https://thewhistleblowernewsroom.podbean.com/e/the-whistleblower-newsroom-robert-kobus/

    The Whistleblower Newsroom – ROBERT KOBUS
    FORMER FBI OPERATIONS MANAGER ROBERT KOBUS: NINE YEARS OF HELL FOR REPORTING ONE FBI AGENT’S ILLEGAL ACTIVITY: Kobus details how his long, award-winning FBI career took a hellish turn after he told a new agent that allowing his subordinates to take birthday leaves was illegal. When Kobus reported what he saw as a small infraction easily fixed, he had no idea that he would trigger a prolonged response from the FBI’s brutal, self-protective attack machine and expose a bureaucracy with zero tolerance for exposure of its own wrongdoing, no matter how minor.

    Also see

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/07/police-interrogation-illinois-minors-children/

    Illinois Becomes the First State to Block Cops From Lying to Kids
    Interrogators will no longer be allowed to make things up to trick minors to confess.

  3. Matt:
    I think the story was fair. Murphy worked in the fact that Flemmi is, among other things, a child molester. She never would have mentioned this tidbit if she was trying to burnish his image. I was absolutely stupefied by the photo of the Bambi painting. I suppose it’s intended to evoke sympathy, but it only made me cringe. I don’t think daily newspapers should get into irony, but there it is: Elderly mass murderer and child molester
    paints peaceful, woodlands Bambi. Shame on any current or former federal prosecutor who may be quietly pushing for Flemmi’s release.

    • I see the Herald has a story on Bulger’s FBI file. I couldn’t follow the lead sentence in the story, though it’s explained in the body of the story. There’s not a lot here, though it was interesting to read that the Bureau had one of its informants run up gambling debts to see who was dispatched to break the guy’s legs!
      Something about the sanctity of human life crossed my mind as I read this, but maybe it’s just me.

  4. Matt

    The emerging theme of compassionate release was
    started by Zip Connolly, after Flemmi who will be next?

    In other FBI Surrealism Soap Opera Series Episode #9234

    https://www.ticklethewire.com/2021/07/19/newly-released-fbi-files-bring-probe-of-whitey-bulger-to-life/

    Newly Released FBI Files Bring Probe of Whitey Bulger to Life

    James “Whitey” Bulger. Photo: The Boston Police Department.
    By Steve Neavling

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/07/police-interrogation-illinois-minors-children/

    Illinois Becomes the First State to Block Cops From Lying to Kids
    Interrogators will no longer be allowed to make things up to trick minors to confess.

    https://news.yahoo.com/hampton-police-partner-fbi-offer-174600197.html

    Hampton police partner with FBI to offer future-agents camp

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/marquettes-athan-theoharis-used-hoovers-secret-files-to-document-the-fbis-illegal-actions/ar-AALUTRb

    Marquette’s Athan Theoharis used Hoover’s secret files to document the FBI’s illegal actions
    Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 7/8/2021

  5. Hi Matt and thanks for your recent article. I hope that Flemmi doesn’t get out of prison anytime soon after everything he has done.

    1. What do you make of this article about Flemmi in the Boston Globe? It seems that his own son and his former codefendants such as Martorano, Deluca and Salemme turned on him by telling stories about him to the federal prosecutors?

    https://www.newspapers.com/clip/81746458/the-boston-globe/

    2. Why did Wimpy Bennett fall out of favour with the leaders of the Mafia such as Raymond Patriarca and Larry Baione? As page 25 from the Patriarca papers which is redacted below suggests that there was discussion between the LCN that Bennett might be talking to the Boston police.

    http://www.golocalworcester.com/patriarca-papers/cheat-sheet-45-fbi-files-valachi-called-to-be-deposed-in-patriarcas-suit-ag

    3. In your opinion could the only people apart from the FBI who knew about Flemmi’s informant status would have been his brother Jimmy the Bear Flemmi and then years later both Whitey and Sonny Mercurio?

    4. Did Whitey and Stevie see John Morris for who he was and take advantage of his greed and weakness?