Rot in Hell, You Animal

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at the final hours of Whitey Bulger.

This latest report from the inspector general of the Justice Department officially deals with the events leading up to the mass murderer’s brutal killing in a West Virginia prison cell in October 2018.

But the most interesting parts of the story are the quotes from the various Bureau of Prison (BOP) employees – screws, if you will – about what was on the serial-killing cocaine kingpin’s mind in the final days and hours of his bloodthirsty life.

Call the report “The Last Will and Testament of Whitey Bulger.”

Full disclosure: I’m merely reporting Whitey’s last words, but not because I hold any grudge against the late archfiend simply because, according to reports by others, he sought out corrupt FBI agents to obtain C4 explosives that he planned to use to blow me up in the driveway of my own home.

Despite my lack of malice, it did bring a smile to my face when I read on page 29 that less than a month before he was bludgeoned beyond recognition, he complained to his case manager that he had “lost the will to live.”

Whitey elaborated:

“I have no quality of life. My health is gone. I get chest pains when I eat. Chest pains when I lay (sic) down. I feel lethargic all the time. I have memory problems. I’m deteriorating.”

Hey Whitey, here’s a quarter. Call someone who cares!

He was 89 years old. How did he expect to be feeling? And whatever his health, Bulger was still doing a lot better than all the people he’d murdered over the decades.

Remember, he was convicted of 11 murders instead of 19 only because a female juror with a hyphenated last name fell head over heels for him in the courtroom. And that figure of 19 victims was a lowball number too – under oath in 2018, his longtime partner-in-crime Stevie Flemmi admitted to at least 50 murders. Fifty!

Whitey ended up in Hazelton because he’d become a problem at his Florida prison, Coleman, just as previously he’d been transferred from the Tucson pen because he was a troublemaker – “just another old gangster,” as he’s referred to on page 60.

Bulger’s alleged mistreatment by the BOP is another irony, considering his deluxe accommodations during his first Club Fed stint, in 1956-65. Back then he was a BOP VIP – he was being personally watched over by his powerful Congressman John McCormack, as well as by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who had several interests in common with the confirmed-bachelor gangster.

In March 2018, Whitey had a run-in with a female nurse (Whitey always had problems with women – go figure). He had asked her for a long-sleeve shirt. Bulger didn’t like her response, and while she ultimately didn’t get the same treatment the Mob hitman gave a couple of 26-year-old women named Deb (namely, strangulation), he did start yelling at the woman.

“You’re treating me like a dog, doing all this to me! You will have your reckoning and will pay for this. I know people and my word is good!”

Yeah, Whitey knew people. Too bad for him they were all dead, even the ones he hadn’t gotten around to murdering before he was lugged in 2011.

That was on page 20 of the report. On the next page, the inspector general quotes from his disciplinary hearing about that run-in, at which time Whitey elaborated about his female nemesis’ day of reckoning:

“I told her… I’ll expose her for giving me a heart attack. She gave me a heart attack due to yelling at me. It was all blown out of proportion. I didn’t threaten her.”

I recall Johnny Martorano being asked at Whitey’s trial in 2013 about what the defendant’s role in the mob was.

“Intimidation, mostly,” Martorano said.

But at the end, a prison nurse yells at Whitey and he takes a heart attack?

In the report, I could have used a few more quotes from Whitey, including from the 2015 disciplinary hearing where he was accused of… pleasuring himself, shall we say.

Did he ever talk to any of the guards about his longtime moll, Catherine Greig? It would be nice to have some of his thoughts on their bizarre relationship, such as how it began. I’d like something like this on the record:

“Did you know that I personally murdered two of Catherine’s brothers in law? It was love at first sight.”

At Coleman, he was in an SHU – Special Housing Unit – which was basically solitary confinement. The BOP assessment was that inmate #02182-748 was someone who “threatens the safety and security of the institution and the safety of the staff member.”

Whitey wanted out of Coleman. He didn’t want to die in solitary. He wanted back in General Population. When he arrived in West Virginia, he told the intake screener, “I got two life sentences. I want to go to the yard.”

That surprised the BOP screw, who was familiar with Whitey’s c.v.

“You sure (you want) to go to the yard, man?” he asked Bulger. “I saw the movie.”

“Don’t believe everything you see,” Whitey scoffed.

Then Whitey was wheeled off to get his new mugshot.

“When Bulger was being photographed he stated, ‘Who knows, this might be my last picture.’”

Asked what he meant, Whitey said, “I’m old and will not have too many more transfers in me.”

Very prescient, wasn’t he? You might even say, eerily prescient.

But on the last full day of his life, Whitey kept reiterating that he had no desire to go back into solitary.

“I don’t want to go to the SHU. I love everybody and I’m good with everybody.”

That wasn’t quite so prescient of Whitey, was it? A few hours later, at dawn on Oct. 30, 2018, he was beaten to death in his cell, allegedly by two Mob jailbirds from Massachusetts.

In other words, not everybody loved Whitey. Who knew?

You can purchase Ratman, Howie’s book about Whitey’s 2013 trial. Also available is Plug Uglies, a scrapbook of Boston organized crime. Find them at the Howie Carr Show Store.