Patrick Nee wrote a book, A Criminal & An Irishman, released on March 27, 2007. He was born in Ireland and moved to Southie in 1952, joined the Marines in 1962, served in combat in Vietnam, came back to Southie and rejoined the Mullens gang that ended up in a gang war with the organized crime gang from Southie the Killeens. That war ended after a few killings with a truce between himself and Whitey Bulger. They become partners and split the proceeds of the rackets in Southie. Stevie Flemmi shows up as Whitey’s friend. Nee gets involved with the IRA, tries to ship arms to Ireland, the plan blows up and he is indicted and sent to prison for four years.*
The two things that stood out in Nee’s book: first, the people who he identifies as having been involved in murders were dead at the time he wrote his book. Because there is no statute of limitations on homicide, Nee was careful not to implicate anyone who was alive especially, himself. (Although he probably did.) Word on the street was that he was involved in killing the leader of the Killeen gang and Billy O’Sullivan its top gunman. He puts other people, now dead, as the killers.
The other thing is effusive praise for Kevin Weeks who admits to assisting in five murders and a life of vicious criminality. He writes,“Kevin was a great kid; he was young and loyal. Whitey, twenty-eight years his senior, had recruited him right out of high school. Kevin had no criminal background; he was just a kid who’d gotten sucked in by Bulger’s ego and loved being the guy next to Whitey. Who could blame him? Whitey was a legend in Southie, make no mistake about that. There were dozens of kids who would have killed — yes, quite literally — to be where Kevin was, I liked Kevin a lot.”
You’ve all heard the expression “you protest too much;” there’s another one that should be kept in mind, “you praise too much.” The only other people who Nee came close to praising like that were either Marines or IRA. Out of no where he smothers Weeks in praise. What’s going on?
I suppose one way to find out is to read Kevin Week’s book, Brutal which was released on March 13,2007, two weeks before Nee’s book. Kevin said he was in his thirties when he began taking karate lessons “with Pat Nee, a friend of mine . . . “ and how they did this for a year and entered some tournaments until Whitey told him a gun belt will always beat a black belt. He mentions Nee one other time when he shows up with Whitey to complain about an all night party. That’s it. You’d never know Weeks was Whitey’s right hand man and Pat Nee was one of Whitey’s Southie partners.
Maybe it is his absence of mentioning Nee that is significant. Weeks tells us how they killed John McGonigle: “McIntyre go into the car with Murray and another individual.” After Murray was dropped off, “the other guy said he had to drop some beer off for a party at” East Third Street. “Around noon, the other guy walked into 799 East Third Street with a case of Miller light. . . “ The other guy then left and McIntyre walked into the trap they set for him. After McIntyre was killed by Whitey, Weeks writes, “I was digging the hole for the grave . . . .”
Obviously the other guy must be someone Weeks doesn’t know or he’d have named him like he identifies everyone else. If he knew him and didn’t name him it was because he wanted to protect him by not putting him at the scene of McGonigle’s murder. The other guy is Pat Nee.
He told us that himself in his book. He admits that he drove John McIntyre to East Third Street. He said he knew nothing about the planned murder and left before McIntyre was immediately set upon by Whitey and Weeks (want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?). He wrote that he stayed away long enough to return in time to help Weeks bury McIntyre in the basement.
Weeks tried to hide Nee’s identity so as not to jam him into the murder. Because their books were written so close in time Weeks had no idea Nee would put himself there. Weeks tried to keep Nee out of one killing. Did he do it more than once?
I knew of another mystery man in Weeks’s tales. This is the man who was in the back of the so-called Tow Truck — a blue souped-up 1975 Chevy Malibu that was used to gun down Brian Halloran and Michael Donohue. Whitey was driving it. Weeks was going to call in the hit when Halloran left the Pier Restaurant. The mystery man rode in the back seat of the car with a fully automatic Mac-10 to join in the killing. This man waved at Weeks. Weeks said he didn’t know who it was because he was wearing a blue ski mask. (You sure you don’t want that bridge?) At Connolly’s trial he said he figured it was either Pat Nee or Jimmy Mantville, the latter not the type of criminal Whitey would trust in a hit.
Obviously, Weeks suggestion that he’s involved in a hit with two others and he doesn’t know one of them wouldn’t rank too high on the truth meter. Weeks is covering up for the guy because the truth puts the guy in jeopardy of being indicted for murder. I suppose we’ll have to wait until J. W. Carney gets his shot of Weeks on cross-examination for us to learn the truth. But in the meantime I’ve got a pretty good idea who it was.
* (An aside: Nee got four years. Catherine Greig got eight — close to if not the most time any of the gangsters Southie got. She never killed anyone, beat up anyone or sold guns or drugs. Her crimes were non violent. Strange as it may seem, the only one from Southie who was not a rat is this woman.)