Notorious Gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger Killed After Being Transferred to West Virginia Prison
‘James “Whitey” Bulger, a notorious gangster who was captured in Santa Monica and convicted in 2013 of various crimes, was killed after being transferred to a prison in West Virginia, the Boston Globe and other media outlets reported Tuesday. He was 89.’
Awwww… thoughts and prayers, eh.
Good riddance to rubbish.
Is “to croak” a transitive verb in American English? I’ve only ever seen it used as an intransitive verb previously.
A while ago there was a thread about trivia questions with two answers. I’m not sure I like murder as trivia, but this is another example. Here’s the murder of the other James Bulger (a much more appalling affair by the way):
Murder of James Bulger - Wikipedia
j
Spoil the details for me. My internet is wonky and I can only load The Dope.
Or is my internet* Perfect?* 
I once saw a movie or TV show that was made in, or took place in, the '50s or '60s. A young boy asks, ‘Did you croak him?’
Who murders an 89 year old? Would one actually boast about offing an old man?
Which one? The US one was a 89 year old criminal; The US one was a child murder performed by children. You may not want the details of that.
j
The UK one was a child murder performed by children. You may not want the details of that. Sorry.
j
Could have been an old score, could have been gang-related. Gang members have reputations to make. This was an old man who’d lived a life of broad corruption and still had power on the outside to help or hurt people. Now he can do neither.
Why was he transferred?
Here is a very amusing story told by a guy who serendipitously helped the FBI capture Bolger.
That was excellent! Thank you very much for linking it! Not at all the sort of thing I would have found on my own, but I’m oh so glad I spent 15 minutes listening!
Thanks man! that was a great story.
I heard that he was involved in the theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and my only regret is that he never told the authorities whatever he knew about what happened to the art.
Glad you liked it! I listen to The Moth almost every week and some stories you just never forget.
NYT is reporting he was beaten to death by two people that might have been affiliated with the Mob. But it’s all unconfirmed based on anonymous sources at this point.
Whitey survived 3 years in Alcatraz. Alcatraz for Pete’s sake!
Didn’t last 2 days in Hazelton a.k.a. “Misery Mountain”.
It seems that there are still two ex-Alcatraz prisoners on Wikipedia’s list of famous ones (known to be) still alive: Morton Sobell and Rafael Cancel Miranda.
I believe you mean “Who murders a vicious, sadistic killer who evaded paying for his crimes for decades?”
he helped the FBI take down the mafia in Boston so the mob was certainly no fan of him. In return for helping the Boston FBI an agent tipped him off to skip town when he was about to be arrested. That agent and other FBI agents were sent to prison for some murders they were involved in.
I’ve been aware of that since it happened but I never made the association with the names. Most likely because the American gangster was always referred to as ‘Whitey.’
The murder of little James Bulger still cuts deeply in the UK. In the US, there have been too many appalling crimes for one stand out above all the others in that way.