Dead Before It Began- George E. Joynt “Ox”

George E. (Ox)  Joynt, was found in a shallow grave on July 2, 1962, in a clay-filled area behind the Wellington Circle shopping center. One article said he had been forced to dig his grave by himself although it is difficult to see how anyone would know that. He had been shot in the left temple. The Medford police chief surmised he was probably killed somewhere else and dumped into the grave.

A Wikipedia entry said his parents came to the United States from Limerick, Ireland, and that he was born into their blue-collar poverty-stricken family. It stated he was an: “Irish-American mobster and associate of the Winter Hill gang. It went on to say he was the first to be murdered as a counterattack by the Charlestown mob in revenge for murdering Bernard McLaughlin.”

The article continued: “The Charlestown Mob had Joynt killed as the best way to ensure the current gang leader Howie Winter’s vulnerability. It was Joynt’s murder that would cause repercussion from James J. Bulger and the Winter Hill Gang and the Irish Mob War that would claim many associates of both the Charlestown Mob and the Winter Hill Gang.”

If ever you want to rely on Wikipedia, let Ox’s murder demonstrate it can be poor resource. Bernard McLaughlin was murdered on October 31, 1961.  Joynt was found on July 2, 1962 and was from Somerville.  Because of when he is found and where he lived, the authors on Wikipedia suggest Joynt was killed because of the McLaughlin murder. The insurmountable problem with the Wikipedia analysis is that the medical examiner estimated that Ox had been in the shallow grave between 18 to 24 months. That would have put Ox’s murder back to between July and December 1960, long before the Labor Day 1961 incident and Bernard McLaughlin’s death. Joynt’s murder had nothing to do with the McLaughlin – McLean feud.

Other problems with the Wikipedia article are: the Winter Hill gang did not exist in 1961 or 1962; if it had existed Howie Winter wouldn’t have been its leader; Buddy McLean was the top guy in Somerville then; James Bulger was in federal prison; James Bulger had no connection with the Somerville gang until 1972. The Irish Mob war claiming many associates as we will see is a total fiction.

What is true is that George Joynt was a hoodlum who according to police records committed his first crime in 1949 when he was 17. He broke into an American Legion Hall. He also did a small bit at State Prison for assault and battery with intent to rob. At age 26 and living in Somerville, he and another hoodlum broke into a café in the early morning on March 14, 1958. They were discovered by the police, they fled, the police fired shots at them.  Joynt was hit in the calf.

He got away. His companion was captured. Joynt tendered to the bullet wound in his leg on his own. He surrendered to the police after he learned they were looking for him. Later that year on December 23, 1958, he pulled a man from his car who was stopped at a traffic light at 2:00 a.m. in Somerville. He drove the man’s car to Central Square in Cambridge and crashed into a taxi. He was arrested for operating under the influence.

Joynt was just a hang-around type criminal who drank too much. He was destined to be in and out of State Prison. That is, until he ran afoul of whomever murdered him. His murder was not part of any gang war because none existed at the time. He crossed the wrong gangster.  The gangster had a gun and shot him in the head.

I’m sure all the Wikipedia “facts” are repeated in many of the unreliable books about the Irish Gang Wars.  However, the total number of gangsters murdered in the First Irish Gang is three. You would never know that from what has been publicized.  You will see that many of the murders are said to be connected with that war are in fact related to a different battle where the McLaughlins fought the Italians from Roxbury. That was an Italian war on the Irish.  Few Italians died.