NEW YORK--James "Whitey" Bulger, who lived a double life as one of Boston's most notorious mobsters and as a secret FBI informant before going on the run for 16 years, was killed at a federal prison in West Virginia, sources said on Tuesday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was looking into Bulger's death and a prison employee briefed on the matter said it was being investigated as a homicide. A U.S. Bureau of Prisons statement had earlier confirmed Bulger had died and said the FBI was investigating.
Bulger, who was 89, had been transferred a day earlier to the high-security prison in a wheelchair, the prison employee said. Two men were seen on surveillance footage entering his cell, the prison employee said.
Bulger's body was discovered wrapped in a sheet, the employee said, and the notorious gangster had been beaten so badly that blood had come out of his ears. Federal officials did not give a cause of death, but the Bureau of Prisons said no other inmates or staff were injured.
The prisons bureau had said in its statment that Bulger's body was found on Tuesday. The prison employee said it was discovered when he did not appear for breakfast, indicating he was killed early morning or overnight.
Henry Brennan, a defense lawyer for Bulger, said in an email he could not confirm or deny the reports.
Bulger was convicted in August 2013 of 11 murders, among other charges and sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus five years. Prison had been something Bulger had gone to great lengths to avoid - killing potential witnesses, cultivating corrupt lawmen and living as a fugitive for 16 years. It all ended when a tip from a former Icelandic beauty queen led to his capture in June 2011 in Santa Monica, California, where he was living with a long-time girlfriend.
Bulger and his Winter Hill gang had operated for more than two decades in the insular Irish-dominated South Boston neighborhood, engaging in loan sharking, gambling, extortion, drug dealing and murder. They did so with the tacit approval of an FBI agent who looked the other way when it came to Bulger's crimes so that he would supply information on other gangsters.
Bulger, portrayed by Johnny Depp in the 2015 film "Black Mass," was feared for his short temper and brutality. Prosecutors said he strangled two women with his hands and tortured a man for hours before shooting him in the head with a machine gun.
"We took what we wanted," Kevin Weeks, a former Bulger lieutenant who would eventually testify against him, wrote in "Brutal," his memoir. "We made millions through extortion and loansharking and protection. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys."
