Notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger was reportedly killed at a West Virginia prison on Tuesday.
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday morning that Bulger had just been moved to a new prison in West Virginia. The Federal Bureau of Prisons online inmate log on Tuesday listed Bulger as an inmate at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Bruceton Mills.
The 89-year-old Bulger had recently been moved from a prison in Florida to a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Prior to that, he was held at a prison in Tucson, Arizona.
Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined last week to comment on why he was moved.
Bulger, the head of Boston’s Irish mob and an FBI informant, was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of a litany of gangland crimes in the 1970s and ’80s, 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.
His case became an embarrassment for the FBI as corrupt agents accepted bribes and protected him. The story was the basis for the 2015 Johnny Depp film “Black Mass.”
In October 2016, the Supreme Court turned away Bulger’s appeal of his racketeering convictions and life sentence.
