“Who Killed Cock Robin” is an English nursery rhyme. It came to mind because both Henry and Maria called my attention to an article in the Daily Mail of London telling about an inmate who is complaining that he has been held in solitary confinement since the death of James “Whitey” Bulger. Unlike Cock Robin where: “All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing, when they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin” there were few jailbirds doing any lamenting when they heard about Whitey Bulger and no bells tolled.
I welcomed the article coming just before St. Patrick’s Day on the 14th of March as it brings back memories of South Boston and the parade and the big breakfast before it full of laughter. Those were the days when Whitey strutted his stuff around Southie under the protection of the FBI reaching his heyday after becoming a top level informant in 1975 until the mid to late 1980s. At that time he had solidified his hold over the criminals dealing in gaming and drugs and settled down into a life of relative leisure in his home neighborhood.
His flight in December 1994 at age 64 bid those days goodbye. It was almost seventeen years after his capture on June 22, 2011, before he returned to Southie at age 81 in handcuffs and leg irons. Seven years later he would be murdered at age 89.
The last 25 years of his life offered him very little: 17 on the run, hiding out, looking over his shoulder; 8 in custody and in prison. To keep in the English vein, one lesson Whitey never learned was set out by Thomas Gray: “The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave, Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”
Whitey as you know was transported out of Florida – where he was in solitary confinement – supposedly on his way to a medical facility in Texas – but ended up at Hazelton federal prison in West Virginia on the evening of the October 29, 2018 and was found murdered at 8:25 a.m. the next day. I wondered why those who murdered Whitey were never prosecuted.
The article tells us the answer. It appears that the federal prison authorities think they know who did it but cannot prove it. The complaining inmate is Sean McKinnon. He is being squeezed by the prison authorities but he insists he saw and heard nothing. Why are they doing a full court press on McKinnon? It is because his cell mate Fotios ‘Freddy’ Geas, 54, is suspected of being one of Whitey’s murderers.
Strangely McKinnon is now in the solitary cell with Boston gangster Paul DeCologero, 46, also suspected in Whitey’s murder. It is not clear who was DeCologero’s cell mate at the time of the murder. Whitey’s cell mate who ended up in solitary, Felix Wilson, was released after six months when his sentence came to an end. As it said in the article: “All men deny involvement with Bulger’s death.” Those who did the murder are naturally going to deny it. Those who witnessed the murder are going to simply say they know nothing about it not wanting to end up like Whitey.
There apparently is no video showing folk entering Whitey’s cell and leaving as reported because that would make things simple. There is no way the prison authorities can without a video show who entered his cell at the time of murder. The union leader of the employees said ‘In general population, you’re in a housing unit with 120 inmates and they have full access to you.”
Yet there must be first of all way to determine how anyone would know Whitey had arrived at the prison? How would anyone know he was going to be put into the general population? Next, there must be a reason why Geas and DeCologero are the prime suspects. Geas serving life had little to lose; DeCologero due to get out in 2026 did. Time will tell but it looks like no one saw nothin so there ain’t going to be no prosecution for Whitey’s killing not that any care.
PS:
If you received your $1,400 from the U.S. treasury and have a spare $300 to throw on top of it you may consider buying a signed Christmas card from Freddy Geas.
If JB was a pain, the BOP would have put him on the bus for a few weeks of diesel therapy. The order for his assassination, although abetted by BOP personnel, came from the outside. His killing was a matter of sending a message. Of course, revenge was a factor, but, sending a message was the primary purpose of his murder. It seems to me that wasting the old man in the fashion they did was an expensive and risky venture. Time will tell.
Thanks for your recent article on your blog Matt.
1. With the deaths of Whitey and Howie Winter and the life sentence of Salemme. Is Flemmi’s career as a professional witness for the government over?
2. What do you make of this article discussing the appeal of Ronnie Cassesso an associate of Barboza and it discusses the affidavit submitted by William Stuart a Boston police officer where he interviews an Edward Bennett and Romeo Martin about the night Teddy Deegan was killed?
https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/supreme-court/volumes/360/360mass570.html
3. In your opinion did the Angiulos, Baione and Raymond Patriarca have police officers on their payroll or was that just a Winter Hill thing with their deal with Schneiderhan?
4. Did Jimmy the Bear Flemmi speak to Rico and Condon about mafia related matters and things to do with the Mclean faction’s feud with the Mclaughlins?
David
Over the last few years I have been working
on a documentary about Maine artist Robert
Shetterly .
Shetterly has painted over 200 portraits in a series
called Americans Who Tell the Truth.
NYPD cop Frank Serpico is one of the people painted by
Shetterly.
https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/frank-serpico
Frank Serpico
Retired Police Detective, Author, Lecturer : b. 1936
A policeman’s first obligation is to be responsible to the needs of the community he serves…The problem is that the atmosphere does not yet exist in which an honest police officer can act without fear of ridicule or reprisal from fellow officers. We create an atmosphere in which the honest officer fears the dishonest officer, and not the other way around.“
https://bangordailynews.com/2021/03/18/politics/maine-lawmaker-wants-to-end-qualified-immunity-for-police/
Maine lawmaker wants to end qualified immunity for police
https://bangordailynews.com/2021/03/18/news/york/maine-state-police-says-2019-trooper-of-the-year-didnt-engage-in-racial-profiling/
Maine State Police says it didn’t award ‘Trooper of the Year’ as rebuke to Black Lives Matter
“The culture of cover up of systemic misconduct within the Maine State Police and our county sheriff’s departments continues unabated,” Evangelos said. “Clearly, we are experiencing a police state in Maine, unaccountable to the rule of civilian law.”
David:
1. There is no one left for Flemmi to testify against. The strange thing about him is he got a life sentence but was never in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.
2. Billy Stewart was believed to be a little too close to some of the gangster types in Boston. His affidavit from information he received from Bennett seems to add little since Bennett would only know what happened from probably Jimmy Flemmi who would be David:
1. There is no one left for Flemmi to testify against. The strange thing about him is he got a life sentence but was never in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.
2. Billy Stewart was believed to be a little too close to some of the gangster types in Boston. His affidavit from information he received from Wimpy Bennett seems to add little since Bennett would only know what happened from probably Jimmy Flemmi who was at the scene of Deegan’s murder who he conveniently leaves out. Romeo “Homerun” Martin was murdered shortly after Deegan. He was there at the time of his murder which he denies yet then again admit. I would not put too much stock in any of these subsequent affidavits.
3. I assume the Mafia had some cops they could reach out to but who they are or were, if any, are lost in history. Boston police officer Billy Stewart was said to be on Wimpy Bennett’s payroll as were some others. The only state cop would have been Schneiderhan as far as I can tell. then again you have John Morris, John Connolly, and other FBI agents who were charged with protecting or keeping safe their informants who were providing information to them.
4. Jimmy Flemmi did not know much about Mafia affairs although he went with Joe Barboza to get Raymond’s approval to hit Deegan. He was known as a wild card and people kept their distance from him. Condon and Rico wanted him to become a top echelon informant which was approved by FBI headquarters even though he wanted to be the top hit man in New England. I’m not sure what the FBI wanted from him – it was already keeping him out of the Deegan murder in cohorts with Barboza. (Keep in mind Barboza was not an informant but a cooperating witness.) Jimmy would not know much more than his brother Stevie who was already and informant.
Jimmy was the reason the Italian gang in Roxbury went against the McLaughlin gang. It relates back to the McLaughlins wrongly believing that Jimmy had killed Harold Hannon when it was actually done by the Mafia guys because he had held up one of their protected bookies. The McLaughlins took two attempts to gun Jimmy down, the latter putting him in the hospital for weeks. That required a response from Stevie Flemmi and Frank Salemme against Punchy McLaughlin who they gunned down at the Dedham/West Roxbury line. The Hughes brothers believing the hit came from Buddy McLean gunned him down less than two weeks later. Some folk have Buddy as an informant for Rico; I don’t buy it.
Anniversary today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft
Was Jimmy involved?
Henry: I forgot it was the anniversary. Jimmy was not involved nor did he know who was involved. Neither were any of the local hoodlums the FBI chased for years. No one knows who did it but it was a professional job looking for one or two things and taking others to throw off the scent. I have to get back to it someday. 31 years since – FBI relied on its old lazy trick of dealing with informants who gladly provide it with information even though they have not idea what they are talking about.
Wa-llahi! Some Trump appointee at Justice put his finger in this pie.
FOIA REQUEST?
https://www.rightsanddissent.org/news/does-the-fbi-spy-on-foia-requesters/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9f53ba8d-4f2a-42c2-9035-9f14b077e735
Does the FBI Spy on FOIA Requesters?
Wa-llahi! Who signed off on JB’s transfer to Hazelton? There’s a paper trail. Geas was only the tool. Somebody shelled out the dough to get things rolling? Who reached out to Springfield? There was an SIS guy on duty at Hazleton, when, JB arrived. What did he have to say in his report about the killing? A FOIA request for lot’s of BOP paper is in order.
JB’s assassination seems a rather intricate operation that had to corrupt BOP personnel at multiple levels. The higher ups had to facilitate the transfer. The Hazelton hacks were, then, bribed to disable the cameras, and, look the other way, during lock-in-a-sock time. That’s a lot of people knowing about too many things.
Fluctuations in certain individuals’ bank balances, immediately, before, and, after, the murder, might, give hint to motivations.
Lawerence of Suburbia
Here is some grist for your mill …
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/16/fbi-brett-kavanaugh-background-check-fake
FBI facing allegation that its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh was ‘fake’
https://theintercept.com/2021/03/17/intercepted-mariame-kaba-abolitionist-organizing/
HOPE IS A DISCIPLINE: MARIAME KABA ON DISMANTLING THE CARCERAL STATE
Organizer Mariame Kaba talks about her new book “We Do This ’Til We Free Us.”
Intercepted
March 17 2021, 6:01 a.m.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-letitia-james-erie-county-sheriff-sexual-misconduct-jails-20210317-zw3gh2glibedber2viqfvt3idy-story.html
‘Inexcusable’: New York Attorney General sues Erie County sheriff for ignoring sexual misconduct claims at two jails
By CHELSIA ROSE MARCIUS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
MAR 17, 2021 AT 1:35 PM
https://nypost.com/2021/03/16/jesuit-order-pledges-100mil-in-reparations-to-slave-descendents/
Jesuit order pledges $100 million in reparations to descendants of slaves
Khalid:
When those in charge know the answer but don’t think others should know then you need a thorough investigation. I would think it would be easy to come up with a half-dozen names who were interested in doing in Whitey. Start in Florida where he was a pain in the butt to everyone – who changed his destination from Texas to West Virginia – how did folk know he was there. The family of Whitey has sued on this. It would be interesting to see what the results of that have been.
Matt
The Bulger family may want to review
The Trentadue case as a cautionary tale
of what to expect in their case on behalf of
James Bulger.
http://www.kennethtrentadue.com/
This was a cowardly crime ‐- an 89-year-old man beaten to death in his wheelchair. Bulger’s slaying underlines the criminal incompetence of the Bureau of Prisons. Jeffrey Epstein’s guards were sleeping. or surfing the Web when he checked out forever. Their only sign of energy was to falsify the forms that claimed they were regularly checking his cell. Evidently there is no surveillance video in Bulger’s case. Were the cameras turned off, broken or perhaps stolen by the guards? What a mess ….
DanC:
I suppose because the Bureau of Prisons is such a mess – the prisoners are treated like animals being moved around on bus chained to seats from one prison to another – a bunch of sadists seem to be in charge – even Steve Flemmi made a deal that he would not have to go into the custody of the Bureau of Prisons – I don’t know how that worked but he got life and never set foot in one of their prisons.