[h=1]‘Whitey’ Bulger killed at federal prison in West Virginia[/h]
Notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger was killed Tuesday at a West Virginia prison, according to two people briefed on the situation.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The WV News website reported that a male inmate was slain overnight at the maximum security prison where Bulger was being held. A union official said a man had been killed, but he didn’t know who.
Bulger, who had been serving a life sentence for 11 murders, had recently landed at the federal prison in West Virginia after a quick stop at an Oklahoma City transfer site.
Bulger, 89, had been listed Tuesday morning as an inmate at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, W. Va. with a minimum security satellite camp, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
He had recently been moved from a Florida prison to the stopover in Oklahoma City.
A person familiar with the matter said Thursday that Bulger’s health had deteriorated, and that he was expected to be transferred to a federal prison medical facility. Hazelton is not a medical facility. Bulger has suffered from a heart condition for decades.
In a statement Tuesday, the BOP said that for “safety, security and privacy reasons, we can not disclose specifics regarding inmate movement or transfers; nor can we disclose an inmate’s health information.”
The former South Boston crime boss and longtime FBI informant was one of America’s most wanted criminals until his capture in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011 after more than 16 years on the run.
In 2013, a federal jury in Boston convicted him of participating in 11 murders in the 1970s and 1980s while running a sprawling criminal enterprise involved in gambling, extortion, and drug trafficking.
Bulger was transferred to US Penitentiary Coleman II in Sumterville, Fla., in 2014 from another high-security penitentiary in Arizona after his relationship with a female psychologist who was counseling him came under scrutiny.
Paul Weadick, another convicted killer with ties to Boston’s underworld, is also serving a life term at the Hazelton prison, records show.
Weadick, 63, was convicted in June of murdering South Boston club owner Steven DiSarro in 1993, in a slaying that involved a former New England mob boss. The ex-boss, Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme, 85, was also convicted of killing DiSarro and sentenced to life.
Salemme remains at a federal transfer center in Brooklyn.
Bulger’s former sidekick and fellow FBI informant, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, testified during the trial of Salemme and Weadick and said that he walked in on the slaying of DiSarro, then hastily left.
Flemmi is serving a life sentence for 10 murders, including one former girlfriend and the daughter of another girlfriend.