Whitey Bulger Killed In West Virginia Prison
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BOSTON (CBS/AP) — Notorious mobster Whitey Bulger was killed in a West Virginia prison Tuesday, sources told CBS Boston's Cheryl Fiandaca. He was 89 years old.
Bulger had just been moved to USP Hazelton, a high-security prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Bruceton Mills. The facility houses 1,270 male offenders.
The prison is located approximately 100 miles south of Pittsburgh and 30 miles from Morgantown, West Virginia.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons online inmate log had listed Bulger as an inmate there early Tuesday morning, but by the afternoon he was no longer there.
According to the United States Department of Justice, Bulger was found unresponsive around 8:20 a.m. Officials attempted life-saving measures, but Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead.
No other staff or inmates were injured and the FBI is now investigating.
Bulger had recently been moved from a prison in Florida to a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined last week to comment on why he was being moved.
#BREAKING: Official confirmation from the Bureau of Prisons on the death of Whitey Bulger. pic.twitter.com/I828nHx812
— WBZ | CBS Boston News (@wbz) October 30, 2018
Bulger was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of a litany of crimes, including participating in 11 murders.
He was one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California.
Bulger was born in South Boston during the Depression, who got the nickname "Whitey" growing up for his blonde hair. A high school dropout, Bulger began a life of crime that eventually led to prison stays at Alcatraz and Leavenworth.
But Whitey made it back to Boston where he slowly resumed a career in crime that led him to Somerville's Winter Hill Gang, a rag-tag band of thieves that dabbled in stolen goods, bookmaking, extortion and drugs.
Bulger would eventually become an informant for the FBI, something he always denied, giving up information on his so-called friends that put them in jail while Whitey rose in the ranks of Boston's organized crime. Even the city's most powerful crime family, the Angiulos, would go to prison, based on information Bulger gave to the FBI.
FBI agents overseeing Bulger as an informant later testified that Bulger could commit any crime, except murder, in exchange for information. With that, it's believed Bulger made millions of dollars selling drugs and extorting drug dealers, all while staying out of jail while he ratted out other mobsters to his FBI handlers.
But by 1995, even Bulger's friends in high places couldn't keep him from an indictment – this time for obstruction of justice, racketeering, drug dealing and extortion. On the eve of the indictment, Bulger was tipped off by his FBI handler John Connolly.
He went on the run with his girlfriend Catherine Greig, ending up in Santa Monica, California. She was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping Bulger evade the law.
While he was on the run, Bulger was indicted for more than a dozen murders that prosecutors say happened during his reign of terror in Boston.
Investigators say Bulger stashed millions in bank accounts around the country before he fled.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)