I indicated the other day I may want to reconsider one of my earlier posts on Whitey’s murders. When I was going through them and discussed it I noted that Whitey had no motive to commit the murder. As I continued my examination of others murders it seemed to me that I had seen a pattern develop which I had not focused on before. Whitey was becoming more involved in the murders on a personal level. He went from a distant shooter using a machine gun or similar weapon, which is pretty much going to a carnival and shooting at the ducks as they pass by without getting diried up in the process, to one that made him stand next to a person he intended to murder.
I’ve written before how the murders alleged against Whitey came in bunches. Up until 1973 when he is 44 years old he has not committed any murders. Unlike his associates Salemme, Martoranos, Flemmi, Nee, Winter, McDonald, Sims and even Weeks he is by every standard a late arrival at the game of murder. It would seem that murder for gangsters is usually a younger man’s game when the blood is flowing deep red through the veins and the machismo is pumping away. Time diminishes much of this and the feelings cool and the passions are better controlled.
Whitey was charged with committing eleven murders in a four year period between March 1973 and December 1976. I’ve concluded of those he did not do six; the other five in which he was involved we know of only one in which he fired a weapon and that was the murder of Eddie Connors. He stood off with Flemmi with their distance weapons and fired bullets into him as his body fell in a phone booth. It was more video game type of murder than one involving a nearness.
We have a hiatus of almost four and a half years in which no murders are alleged. There are then eight more in the next four year period between May 1981 and May 1985. After that there are no more murders attributed to him – neither in the ten years he remained in Boston or the 16 years on which he was in flight. I would suggest this is not a typical picture of a gangster: no murders until age 44; a 4 year run until age 48; no murders for another 4 ½ years; a 4 year run from age 52 to 56; no murders the rest of his life.
The murders during the second period of four years in which Whitey has hands on participation start off with the gunning down of Halloran on the waterfront. Again this is firing at people like you do in a video game. No closeness involved. Following that is the Barrett murder where Whitey is right next to the person who is murdered and pulling the trigger. At age 54 he has never done this before. Weeks said after it he went upstairs and lied down to take a rest. Obviously it deeply affected him in some way; in the meantime Weeks and Flemmi buried the body in the dirt floor showing the murder did not bother them in the least.
There would be two more murders after that: John McIntyre who clearly Whitey had nothing to do with and that of Deborah Hussey. It is the latter one I have thought about reconsidering. I excused Whitey from it because he had no motive. Flemmi had all the motive since Hussey had started talking about how he sexually abused her, his step-daughter, when she was 13 years old. She told her mother who was Flemmi’s live-in girlfriend. She threw him out of the house.
As long as Deborah lived Flemmi was in danger of being exposed as a pervert child-abuser. Along with that he had to know every time he saw her or heard about her that her agony caused by having sunk into a life of drugs and prostitution was caused by the man she thought of as her father, himself.
What made me reconsider is that Whitey has slowly gone up the ladder in his murders from being when others murder people, to long distance machine gunnings, and then to standing next to a guy and putting a bullet in his head. What course he took after that depends on how he felt when he went up stairs after the Barrett murder to rest.
Was he revolted by what he did? Was he empowered by his actions? Did he get a thrill out of it or did he get disgusted? With his own hands he looked a man in his eyes and took his life – a man with a wife and family. This was new to him.
If he enjoyed it then that would be his motive for murdering Deborah Hussey a year and a half later; if he found it more than he could handle he would have had nothing to do with her murder. One thing clear is that after Hussey there were no more murders alleged against him.
That could cut either way. It suggests on one hand the Barrett murder was enough to frighten him away from ever doing it again. Or, he was not that appalled by killing Barrett that he joined in the Hussey murder and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back because it was so depraved murdering a young woman that he could never go through with it again.
Does a guy with good long-term relationships with two women and who is never known to murder any women for the first time murder a young woman at age fifty-five? Does Whitey murder a woman 30 years younger by jumping on her and strangling her on the floor? That’s a guy totally out of control which was not the picture I had of Whitey. That all goes too much into psychology which I am told I am not too good at.
I suppose like the jury was unable to come to a conclusion on the Debbie Davis matter I’m unable to feel certain one way or the other on the Deborah Hussey murder as I have been with the others. The jury in my mind remains deadlocked.
Dear Matt, You once expressed interest in the MK-ULTRA mind control program. My federal lawsuit begins with the quote: “There is nothing more frightening that active ignorance.” Although the Canadian government gave settlements and psychiatric help to MK-ULTRA victims (Dr. Cameron ran the main laboratory outside Montreal and some victims became vegetables), not a single American (where most of MK-ULTRA occurred) received any help.
At the time, Walpole State Prison was full of MK-ULTRA guinea pigs and held the nation’s highest prison murder rate. Inmates reported the intensity of murder matched the intensity of MK-ULTRA. Inmates competed for the most gruesome murder scenes – holding razor blades inside match book covers for slicing and dicing usually took top honors.
MK-ULTRA consisted of three phrases: locating suitable drugs; testing these drugs on controlled groups (the military, prisoners, etc.); then unwittingly distributing these drugs to members of the public. Basically, Nixon was trying to punish Vietnam War protesters who were gathering in the Boston Commons. Timothy Leary was quoted saying 99% of MK-ULTRA occurred in the Boston area. Congressional hearing revealed thousands of Boston- area residents were unwittingly given MK-ULTRA drugs and these drugs were “mass produced” in the Cambridge Arthur D. Little Company.
Whitey, part of MK-ULTRA’s phase two (testing the drugs), received extremely high doses of LSD. Weeks said killing was like a Valium to Whitey.
Holy Toledo. I clearly need to do more reading about MK-ULTRA. It’s been whitewashed, tremendously. I had no idea that there was lasting damage to some-to the point of brain failure. This is terrible – extremely high doses of LSD, eh? That might be enough to permanently turn the cognition of one so young as Whitey was then. **Please note that I am not excusing Whitey – I think his punishment should be far worse than it is. He should receive the best medical care money can buy so that he lives as long as possible in the worst conditions we can cage him in.
Thank you for shedding some light on this program. It is astounding the things a powerful federal government can get away with, isn’t it?
Jon:
Whitey did participate in the MK-ULTRA program. You will write to me later that Weeks lied so when Weeks says that killing was like Valium to Whitey it is another lie. If it were why would Whitey not have murdered anyone for the last 25 years he was on the street or the years immediately after he got out of prison. Whitey’s disciplined life = working out, avoiding abuse of alcohol and drugs, not exposing himself unnecessarily, shows a guy who was not damaged by the LSD.
Matt,
Just for the sake of being thorough, there is one non-O.C. murder that has been speculated on, as being the work of our old friend Jim …..”The Lady of the Dunes” down the Cape.
Evidently, he was a regular in P-town, and was traced to have been in the area when she disappeared.
Any thoughts?
Rather:
You are getting into Howie Carr territory with that comment.
Matt,
You say there is a 4 1/2 year gap after December, 1976. What about Louis Litif? Bulger is alleged to have murdered him in 1980. What about Donald McGonagle in 1970 or 1971? What makes you so sure Bulger was still a rookie in 1973?
Phil Gulla
Phillip:
Whitey did not murder Litif. I wrote about it before. Check prior post. Had there been evidence that he did he would have been indicted for it. I suggest the government knows who murdered him but has not pressed charges because they like leaving it out there that Whitey may have done it.
Donald was murdered by Billy O’Sullivan. Why do you think that Billy O’Sullivan was murdered by Paulie McDonagle and other Mullin Gang guys in Savin Hill?
“One thing clear is that after Hussey there were no more murders alleged against him.”
Why didn’t “Jim” murder anyone after January 1985? It’s almost as if he was laying low or hiding out somewhere. Strange isn’t it?
Why do skeptics believe Jim had nothing to do with McIntyre’s murder, but believe he WAS involved with the murders of Barrett and Hussey, even though the modus operandi is nearly identical in all three murders? All three murders involved Stevie, and all three were at the same location, but Jim was only present during two of the murders? Or was it just one?
Why do skeptics believe Jim had nothing to do with the murder of Debbie Davis but believe he was involved in shooting Tommy? Yet Debbie Davis was buried not 25 yards from Tommy under the Red Line.
Anybody wanna guess who Tommy beat up that night? Almost choked him to death on the floor.
There is an old saying…”The best place to hide a lie is between two truths.”
Mr Cooney,
Here’s another old saying by Ben Franklin….
“Three can keep a secret,…if two of them are dead.”
John:
Whitey did not murder anyone after January 1985 because he was not as he is portrayed as in the media as an out of control killer. I do not think he enjoyed murdering people as his associates did. Of course part of the time he was on the lam but he had the weapons in his apartment that enabled him to murder people but no one suggests he did that.
I eliminated him from McIntyre because he had no motive. Two guys at the scene did: Kevin Weeks and Pat Nee. As for Barrett I can see him being there with Flemmi and Weeks shaking him down. I figured he killed him because up to this point he had never murdered anyone up close and he had to show Flemmi he was capable of doing it. It is just as likely Flemmi murdered him as it is Whitey did but I thought for once Whitey would have to show he was as bad as the others. Hussey I put on Flemmi since he had the motive. I originally eliminated Whitey but if he murdered Barrett for the reasons I mentioned he may have beeen more active with Hussey.
We only know for sure Whitey was present at Barrett’s murder. He could have been put there by Weeks and Flemmi at the other two. Debbie clearly falls on Flemmi who told Martorano he strangled her. Whitey had no motive. Tommy was murdered by Martorano but set up by Whitey who felt him a threat to him as he did Buddy Leonard and Paulie McGonagle. Nee was at all the burials and perhaps Whitey was also but that was after the fact helping out his buddy Flemmi.
Good observation about hiding a lie between two truths. That is the best way to do it. It was an old cop trick to take down a person’s statement that was 99% accurate but just add in a little lie to put the person in the jackpot. Then the DA could argue that everything set out in the officers statement is absolutely true so why would this one little part be a lie. The answer was that it was only the little part that mattered but the juries had trouble figuring that the lie hidden among the truths can be very effective.
File under
Whitey never went to Woodstock
If we look back at the 1960’s we
know some of that generation
had taken LSD-Mescaline-Peyote
The metaphor that remains is they were
called the flower children-hippies, etc
With a few exceptions like the Unabomber
and Charles Manson most people who
ingested psychedelics were into
peace and love not serial killing.
It might be instructive to look at
the 1962 MCI Concord Psilocybin
experiment conducted by Dr Timothy
Leary at Harvard University with the
Mass Department of Corrections.
Roughly 30 inmates were given
the psychedelic psilocybin in
an attempt to reduce recidivism
by giving inmates a cosmic consciousness
experience.
Two of the inmates taking the drug were
Donald Paiten and Jimmy Kerrigan.
Both career criminals like Whitey Bulger.
Neither men killed after their release
from prison.
It is my understanding no inmate in this
program went on to commit murder.
So the smart criminal justice consumer
would ask
1.
was whitey a flower child?
2.
did whitey become a serial killer
because he took LSD?
3.
was whitey given LSD by the CIA
in a covert experiment to see if
they could create a Serial Killer?
4.
Was whitey influenced by
Jimi Hendrix performing
the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock?
see
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Prison_Experiment
Hi Matt and what age did Salemme, Flemmi and Winter start killing people?
What is your understanding of Billy Barnoski ? As I heard that he was a part of Winter Hill Gang?
David:
They were involved in the gang wars of the 1960s and started murdering people back then.
I do not know much about Banoski. Here’s a article on him http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_24067681/mobster-who-killed-lowell-bookie-jackie-mcdermott-meets The one thing wrong in the article is it suggests the race fix case was a state police case; it wasn’t.