[1]
JUNE 22, 2011
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
[2]
I first learned
my neighbor was Whitey Bulger
[3]
on Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011.
[4]
Taking a nap on my couch,
[5]
I got a phone call from the front desk
at the hotel I was managing at the time.
[6]
And my co-worker put me on the phone
with an FBI agent
[7]
who needed to ask me about
a tenant at the apartment building
[8]
I managed across the street.
[9]
I went in to look for the manager
of the Princess Eugenia apartments
[10]
and asked him to come over.
[11]
A little reluctance at first,
but understandably.
[12]
I asked him a few general questions.
[13]
Then I slid him some pictures,
photos of Catherine and Whitey,
[14]
and there was an immediate reaction,
[15]
which led me to believe
I was on the right track
[16]
when the manager
put his hands on his head.
[17]
It was pretty surreal. It was...
[18]
I was shocked.
[19]
You don't really find out
somebody you know,
[20]
or somebody who's kind of
in your peripheral or your neighbor
[21]
is a fugitive.
[22]
You're talking once again about
[23]
a person with probably six decades
of criminal behavior.
[24]
And I mean, it's...
[25]
Anyone does anything for six decades,
they're probably gonna be good at it.
[26]
And he was a master criminal.
[27]
I think what makes Whitey Bulger
so fascinating
[28]
SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE OF BULGER, 1979
[29]
is his psychology as a supreme narcissist,
a psychopath.
[30]
Everything is always about him.
[31]
And his ability to adapt to situations
[32]
and wear what I would call various masks.
[33]
Masks of Whitey Bulger,
so that he can move almost seamlessly
[34]
from a crime boss and killer in Boston,
[35]
who for years
was on the top of his profession.
[36]
And then suddenly, he has to switch
[37]
into the life of a fugitive from justice
and emerge in Santa Monica, California,
[38]
hiding in plain sight as retiree,
Charlie Gasko.
[39]
How does he do that?
How does he flip that switch?
[40]
A lot of other people without
his kind of makeup and discipline
[41]
would after a while, need a fix.
[42]
Whether it was the thrill of a kill,
[43]
or the recognition that came with being
on top of the underworld here in Boston,
[44]
the power, the money...
[45]
And I think all those things
mattered to Whitey.
[46]
I think he enjoyed killing,
[47]
I think he enjoyed ruling the underworld
and having that power.
[48]
But for him,
I think he got the most satisfaction
[49]
from this sense of control.
[50]
He was always out front.
[51]
"Catch me if you can."
Free and clear of his pursuers.
[52]
"The circumstances have changed,
but the game has not.
[53]
"Catch me if you can."
[54]
THE MANHUNT FOR
WHITEY BULGER
[55]
JANUARY 5, 1995
[56]
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
[57]
Every time I think about that night,
I think about it almost with goosebumps.
[58]
Because we were right outside.
[59]
We, the Boston media, some reporters,
and certainly I was there
[60]
DAVID BOERI
REPORTER - WCVB TV, 1991-2007
[61]
outside the Federal Courthouse,
in Post Office Square in Boston,
[62]
and we were waiting for the arrival
of a guy named John Salvi.
[63]
It was arctic, absolutely arctic.
[64]
We were jumping up and down,
stomping our feet,
[65]
trying to keep warm,
waiting for his arrival.
[66]
All of a sudden, I get the word
that Stephen Flemmi has just been arrested
[67]
three blocks away from us.
[68]
And that's how that story broke.
[69]
The whole case centered around the fact
[70]
that he was one of
the most dangerous individuals
[71]
in the Boston area for so many years,
[72]
but what complicated
the whole investigation at the time
[73]
was the fact that he had been
an FBI informant for so many years.
[74]
THOMAS J. FOLEY
COLONEL/SUPERINTENDENT (RET.)
[75]
MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE
[76]
So, during our investigation, we were
constantly running into road blocks
[77]
where the FBI
would more or less try to protect
[78]
Bulger and his partner
Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi.
[79]
And to the point where, eventually,
we were able to find
[80]
a couple of US attorneys
that were trying to do the right thing.
[81]
Fred Wyshak, Brian Kelly initially,
teamed up alongside us.
[82]
When we were eventually able to bring
in the information before the grand jury,
[83]
to get an indictment on them,
[84]
we were running into a lot of road blocks
at that time.
[85]
From not only the FBI,
[86]
but also some people
within the US Attorney's Office.
[87]
We felt very strongly that this was
our opportunity for the first time
[88]
to get indictments on Bulger and Flemmi.
[89]
And that if we missed him now,
we might never get another chance.
[90]
And we questioned, we really questioned
what their intent was here.
[91]
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
[92]
The FBI did not want to go down
with this indictment.
[93]
They didn't want it to happen,
they fought it.
[94]
And they only reluctantly signed on
to one count of it.
[95]
After Foley said he'd go public
if they didn't join in.
[96]
BOSTON
[97]
Based upon our insistence
that he be indicted,
[98]
we were pretty happy
to even get the go ahead
[99]
to go out and
serve those warrants on that group.
[100]
A day before the indictment
was really gonna come out,
[101]
they were looking for them
to make the arrests on the warrant,
[102]
which had not yet been made public.
[103]
I was supervising the
State Police investigators
[104]
that were gonna be doing
the warrants that night.
[105]
They were gonna be out there
seeking Bulger and Flemmi
[106]
and a number of Mafia individuals also.
[107]
The US Attorney's Office wanted
the FBI involved also at the time.
[108]
We separated the individuals
[109]
and put teams of troopers and agents
on certain individuals.
[110]
So, we targeted Flemmi.
[111]
The FBI insisted
that they had Bulger in pocket,
[112]
that they were able to pick him up
any time they needed to.
[113]
FRANCIS P SALEMME
[114]
And there was a third individual,
the Mafia captain Frank Salemme,
[115]
which we both teamed up to target him,
to bring him down.
[116]
The plan was, once we found Flemmi,
we would notify the FBI,
[117]
and they would pick up Bulger.
[118]
The FBI assured the State Police,
"Bulger's in pocket, we got him."
[119]
"Bulger's in pocket, we got him."
[120]
So, the Feds went after Salemme,
they lost him.
[121]
The day goes on, no Bulger, no Salemme.
[122]
Flemmi hasn't shown up either.
Now, they're getting nervous.
[123]
The guys with Foley want to know
whether they go home.
[124]
Foley had a particular instinct.
He said, "Let's give it an hour more."
[125]
Within an hour,
Flemmi shows up with his sons
[126]
at a property he was developing
as a restaurant
[127]
close to the Federal Courthouse,
where we were waiting.
[128]
And they get him.
[129]
First thing he wants to do,
he wants to talk to the FBI.
[130]
Well, he was a secret informant.
[131]
He expected the FBI
was going to protect them.
[132]
We knew once the word got out
that one of them was arrested,
[133]
that was gonna wake up
this whole community in the Boston area.
[134]
And the word was gonna be out there,
so, we knew we had to get him fast.
[135]
This is exactly what happened.
[136]
The night we went out
and we arrested Flemmi,
[137]
the word all of a sudden,
once you get on the phone
[138]
making a phone call,
it got out there.
[139]
It was like, Boston all of a sudden,
[140]
lights were going on
all over that community down there.
[141]
We called the FBI, and we said,
"Okay, you can take down Bulger now."
[142]
And, you know, the fact of the matter
is that Bulger had already fled the area,
[143]
that they didn't have Bulger in pocket,
[144]
and he was long gone.
[145]
And we started scrambling,
find out and see if we could find him.
[146]
And actually, the FBI was parked on
the South Boston address
[147]
that his girlfriend Teresa Stanley
lived at.
[148]
And they were looking at the wrong house
when we pulled up.
[149]
They'd been sitting
outside the wrong house all day long.
[150]
This gives you an idea of our FBI
at work in Boston.
[151]
And it gives you an understanding
why people were suspect of the FBI
[152]
and had so little regard for them,
[153]
and so little faith that they were
gonna be able to do anything right.
[154]
At the end of the day,
the guy that they had in pocket
[155]
long gone, as we know, for 16 years.
[156]
At the end of December,
before Christmas in 1994,
[157]
John Connolly, who was
Bulger and Flemmi's FBI handler,
[158]
who was retired,
but kept close contacts with the Bureau,
[159]
because he was a prince of the city.
[160]
Connolly had found Bulger's sidekick
and surrogate son Kevin Weeks,
[161]
who had no idea
that Bulger was an informant.
[162]
Suspicious of Connolly,
[163]
"What do you want?"
"I need to talk to you."
[164]
"I need to tell you, you need to get
to Bulger and Flemmi and tell them.
[165]
"Bulger has been secretly indicted
along with Flemmi and Salemme."
[166]
That was the tip that,
[167]
it was claimed that Bulger always wanted.
[168]
A heads up.
[169]
Weeks found him. He was Christmas shopping
with Teresa Stanley.
[170]
He told him indictment's coming down,
and boom, they took off.
[171]
The thing about Whitey, again, goes
to his brain power and his discipline.
[172]
He had been planning for the possibility
[173]
that someday
he would have to hit the road.
[174]
And he did that in a way that
I think it distances and illustrates
[175]
the difference between him and Flemmi.
[176]
DICK LEHR - REPORTER
THE BOSTON GLOBE, 1985-2003
[177]
Flemmi hid money in his mother's house
[178]
in South Boston,
in the chimney, or what not.
[179]
Whitey, who enjoyed traveling,
enjoyed vacationing,
[180]
always had work on his mind on some level,
[181]
because he deposited money
around the country and around the world
[182]
in the event that someday
he would have to be on the run.
[183]
As it turned out, he had started
getting aliases in the 1970s.
[184]
Go to an old newspaper morgue,
[185]
HOWIE CARR
BOSTON RADIO TALK SHOW HOST
[186]
1929, find a baby who had died in 1929,
[1