At night, guards making their rounds were very quiet. They would put felt covers on their shoes—sort of like slippers—to mask the noise. I could smell the guards when they started to count on the flats. As an example, Lewis always smelled of pipe tobacco. Others smelled of powder or aftershave or cigarettes. My sense of smell was powerful back then because of the absence of motor vehicles or fresh air to remove the cigarette smoke from the convicts.
On the yard, Joe Carnes would be down in the areas where guys played chess, checkers, or dominos. During my years, they sat on folding canvas, wooden style chairs in the far right corner of the yard, to the right of the baseball diamond. To us, they looked like a bunch of old guys hunched over concentrating on their games. They seldom moved. I saw the pictures in your book on page 113 [Authors note: see Alcatraz - A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years for reference.] This had to be an old “before” picture because they are sitting on stacked cushions, not the folding chairs, which were real light and not sturdy enough to be used as a weapon. When they were not in use they were stacked up and kept in the covered space underneath the yard stairs leading up to the cellhouse.
I have fond memories of sitting out on the yard bleachers. I used to stand on one high point, a little alcove with room only for one person. I’d stand there and look out at the sail boats on the Bay, and at the Golden Gate Bridge. It was such a wonderful full view of the Bay from Alcatraz. I remember seeing Sterling Hayden’s sailboat the Wanderer, a full-scale replica of the Bounty, and I watched it sail out of the fog and into Frisco. I can also remember seeing the war ships and submarines going in and out of the Bay. We all felt a great sense of pride and patriotism. These were all beautiful sights; they remain forever etched into my memory.
The coveted view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Alcatraz recreation yard bleacher steps.
Bulger would later state that this was his favorite Alcatraz photo; it was taken by a member of the press on closing day. Looking back, he offered that it was a treasured memory watching the small birds from inside his cell on C-D Street. He remembered, “Many of the windows were broken or would be left open. The story goes that the warden didn’t want to fix them because guys kept tossing objects and breaking them. I liked the windows being open as it allowed little sparrows to fly into the cell block and we could feed them bread crumbs.”
In April 1962, Bulger was transferred to USP Leavenworth. In the following year he was transferred to USP Lewisburg. He was released in 1965, after serving a total of nine years in prison.
Bulger’s 1962 USP Leavenworth mug shot photo.
Bulger’s 1963 USP Lewisburg mug shot photo.
RETURNING TO CRIME
After his release from prison, Bulger worked in legitimate occupations before becoming a bookmaker and loan shark with ties to Donald Killeen, the leader of the dominant Irish mob in South Boston. Bulger continued to climb the ranks within Boston’s crime syndicate, eventually rising to the highest echelon in organized crime. While Bulger prospered as the most prominent crime mogul of Boston, his crime partner Kevin Weeks later depicted Bulger in a similar fashion to a fellow Alcatraz alumni, Al Capone. Weeks indicated that Bulger led his crime ventures with a code of ethics that did not allow his criminal ventures to blur the lines of law-abiding people who were not involved in any of the underworld commerce. Weeks remembered:
“As a criminal, he made a point of only preying upon criminals, as opposed to legitimate people. And when things couldn’t be worked out to his satisfaction with these people, after all the other options had been explored, he wouldn’t hesitate to use violence.”
ON THE RUN
According to Kevin Weeks, in 1993 and 1994, before the pinches came down, Bulger and crime partner Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi were traveling on the French and Italian Riviera. The pair traveled all over Europe, sometimes separating for a while. They would rent cars and travel all through Europe. It was more preparation than anything, getting ready for another life. “They didn’t ask me to go, not that I would have wanted to. Jimmy had prepared for the run for years.”
Bulger had established a completely different identity: Thomas Baxter. He had a complete ID and credit cards in that name. He had even joined associations in Baxter’s name, and was building an entire portfolio for the guy. He had always said that you had to be ready to take off on short notice. And he was.
Bulger had also set up safe deposit boxes containing cash, jewelry, and passports, in locations across North America and Europe. In December 1994, Bulger was informed by retired FBI Agent John Connolly that sealed indictments had come down from the Department of Justice and that the FBI were due to make arrests during the Christmas season. In response, Bulger fled Boston on December 23, 1994, accompanied by his then-girlfriend, Theresa Stanley.
After fleeing Boston, Bulger and Stanley initially spent four days over Christmas in Selden, New York. They spent New Year’s Day in a hotel in the French Quarter in New Orleans. On January 5, 1995, Bulger prepared to return to Boston, believing that it had all been a false alarm. That night, however, Stephen Flemmi was arrested outside a Boston restaurant by the DEA. Boston police Detective Michael Flemmi, Stephen’s brother, informed Weeks about the arrest. Weeks immediately passed the information on to Bulger, who altered his plans. Bulger and Stanley then spent the next three weeks traveling between New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco before Stanley decided that she wanted to return to her children. They then traveled to Clearwater, Florida, where Bulger retrieved his Tom Baxter identification from a safe deposit box. Bulger drove to Boston and dropped off Theresa Stanley in a parking lot. Then he met with Weeks at Malibu Beach in Dorchester. Weeks brought along Bulger’s girlfriend Catherine Greig. Bulger and Greig then went on the run together.
In his memoirs, Weeks describes a clandestine meeting with Bulger and Greig in Chicago, Illinois. Bulger reminisced fondly about his time hiding out with a family in Louisiana. He told Weeks, who had replaced him as head of the Winter Hill Gang, “If anything comes down, put it on me.”
MANHUNT
The last confirmed sighting of Bulger before his capture was in London in 2002. However, there were unconfirmed sightings elsewhere. FBI agents were sent to Uruguay to investigate a lead. FBI agents were also sent to stake out the 60th memorial of the Battle of Normandy celebrations, because Bulger was a patriot and avid reader of military history. In 2010, the FBI turned its focus to Victoria, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island. In pursuit of Bulger, a known book lover, the FBI visited bookstores in the area, questioned employees, and distributed wanted posters.
Following his arrest, Bulger revealed that he had in fact traveled frequently. Also following his arrest, it was clear that he had not been reclusive; witnesses came forward to say that they had seen him on the Santa Monica Pier and elsewhere in southern California. A confirmed report by an off-duty Boston police officer after a San Diego screening of The Departed (a film by Martin Scorsese produced in 2006, based loosely on Bulger) also led to a search in Southern California that lasted “a few weeks”.
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
Bulger and Catherine Greig took daily walks in Palisades Park. He reminisced, “What memories of the Rose Garden. Our favorite place and our favorite bench. We always sat there early in the morning - we’d carry a couple paper towels to wipe off the dew. So peaceful...”
Living on the run with Catherine in Santa Monica was like a sixteen-year honeymoon. They were the happiest years of my life. The years were almost stress-free. The other years were gang wars; friends shot down and ambushed, shootings, knife fights, fights, intrigue, murder, extortion traps set for us. A bomber was paid to blow me up with sticks of dynamite with radio-controlled bombs. I tracked him down and captured him and the bomb, which I dismantled. There were car to car shootings, years of violence. I was shot at many times since the age of fifteen, there were police beatings to make you talk (which I never did and never came close).
We never really looked
over our shoulders. Our attitude was that we were going to live a normal life. If we were captured, then so be it; until then we were not going to live in a state of anxiety. We went everyplace we wanted to. Once in a while I would see or hear the lies and other things on TV and I had a desire to go back for revenge, but I couldn’t move without considering Catherine. I owed her that much, and because of her, I never slipped back.
In the Santa Monica days, all of those years were wonderful by degrees and I started to feel like a human. I felt love, I guess that after so many years of shutting down my feelings I felt like ice and capable of anything. It was hard for me to put my feelings into words. I wish I could’ve let Catherine know how much I loved her, when I can write some day maybe once in those years. I felt so in love. To walk she would put her arm in mine and I felt a real warm calm feeling coming over me.
CAPTURE
After sixteen years at large and twelve years on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, Bulger was arrested in Santa Monica, California, on June 22, 2011. Bulger was captured as a result of the work of the Bulger Fugitive Task Force, which consisted of FBI Agents and a Deputy US Marshal. According to retired FBI agent Scott Bakken, “Here you have somebody who is far more sophisticated than some 18-year-old who killed someone in a drive-by. To be a successful fugitive you have to cut all contacts from your previous life. He had the means and kept a low profile.”
A reward of US $2 million had been offered for information leading to his capture. This amount was second only to Osama Bin Laden’s capture reward on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Bulger has been featured on the television show America’s Most Wanted 16 times, first in 1995, and last on October 2, 2010. According to the authorities, the arrests were a “direct result” of the media campaign launched by the FBI in 14 markets across the country where Bulger and Greig reportedly had ties.
Authorities received a tip from a woman in Iceland that he was living in a Santa Monica, California, apartment near a beach. A day later, “... using a ruse, agents and other task force members lured Mr. Bulger out of his apartment”, “arrested him ‘without incident,’ then went in the house and arrested Greig.” Bulger was charged with murder, “conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, narcotics distribution and money-laundering.” Agents found “more than $800,000 in cash, 30 firearms and fake IDs” at the apartment.
Bulger was arraigned in federal court on July 6, 2011. He pled not guilty to 48 charges, including 19 counts of murder, extortion, money laundering, obstruction of justice, perjury, narcotics distribution, and weapons violations.
The Princess Eugenia Apartments where Bulger and Greig lived their days on the run in quiet solitude. They lived in Apt # 303, seen on the top right.
Bulger and Greig lived under the alias “Gasko” while on the run in Santa Monica.
I don’t feel like the guy that they say killed so many people, robbed so many banks, was involved in extortion, gang wars, and arson, or who survived shootings, or was shot at so many times from about fourteen years old on. I can remember each time I ran and kept thinking it would get me in the back. Gunfire sounds different, and you feel really vulnerable when you’re a kid and running with nothing to shoot back with. I had that very same feeling in Santa Monica when I was captured in the garage. All the Feds; the Los Angeles SWAT team with machine guns, rifles, and a couple of Glock handguns drawn on me. How did I ever drift into this lane?
The apartment garage area where Bulger was lured and arrested.
On that last morning, my neighbor Josh was asked by the FBI to call my apartment and to say that someone broke into my locker in the basement garage. I went down to check and was trapped. They demanded that I kneel down and I refused to kneel on the oily garage floor. They were screaming “We will shoot,” and it was a very tense moment. I told them that there was a clean place to my right and for him to take two steps to the right to that area and then I’d comply. They screamed really loud and I knew it might be my last step, but I told them: “Here is step number one,” and I took it, and I debated with myself: do I dare chance another step? The tension was rising, but I said, “Fuck it.” I’m not backing down and I said, “Here’s step number two.” They screamed, “Don’t or we’ll shoot!!!” I had that feeling I had as a kid waiting to feel the bullet in the back.
When we went on the lam, Catherine asked me to please not hurt anyone. I kept that promise. I kept that promise to her because of the fear that if I shot anyone she could and would be prosecuted. I felt protective of her and would give my life for her. I offered to plead guilty to all charges in exchange for her freedom, but it was rejected.
Sadly, the months of degrading strip searches and special treatment kind of wiped out the Santa Monica years. They brought me back to hate and anger. All of the things that help to deal with what I call psychological torture used in POW camps to break down prisoners to make them confess ... tactics taught in regimens in Central and South America by our CIA, which is documented.
THE BOOKS, THE LIES, THE MOVIES...
Much has been written about me, the movies, so much. I could never defend myself. My problem is that I’d have to explain the lies told by past accomplices; two got freedom for their cooperation. It means I’d have to prove them as liars and, in the process, guilty of murder. I’m sick over the thought of having to defend myself against these lies. I’ve offered to plead guilty to crimes I’m innocent of if they would let my Catherine free. I swear I never killed any women and never gave info to the FBI. I bought info from the FBI. The boss supervisor of the FBI was my paid informant.
In the past, I was the last man tried, when all the others had already been tried and convicted. I was on the run and captured; and I agreed to plead guilty to participation in bank robberies. By pleading that way guys already in prison could change their plea and I could always be called by the defense. But it didn’t happen and they got less time than me. Being the last man standing is not so good at times. He usually gets the extra heat, as evidenced by me.
I would take a lie detector test if they would be willing to do the same regarding the truthfulness of what they wrote in their books. Also, I will refuse to testify in court against them. I have no desire to send people back to prison, just prove them liars. I want to reiterate that I never killed a woman or child, I never caused a person to go to prison, and I never gave info. I bought it and can prove it. I traveled in dangerous waters with people who killed their best friends, killed out of boredom, or wanted to up their score.
Back in my early prison days, if I gave up a name in Atlanta, it would have meant no Alcatraz and a positive parole in six years. They put on pressure; sent me to the hole in solitary; even made death threats that couldn’t make me give anyone up. Nor could systematic beatings in police stations, broken teeth, a fractured arm, a gun jammed down my throat and cocked by a drunken cop (McDonough, who was screaming that he would kill me after he fractured my arm by club,) [make me give up a name].
END OF THE TRAIL
While Bulger is not claiming he is innocent to many of the charges, he is steadfast and continues to be emphatic on two issues: he never killed any women, and he never provided information of substance to the FBI. Much like a president of a professional corporation, it is alleged by the media that Bulger was the principle of a large crime syndicate. Like any large outfit, it is contended that numerous criminal activities, including some of the murders, happened outside of Bulger’s direct circle of knowledge. Regardless of any level of guilt or innocence, he will likely never see freedom again. He wrote:
I always feel like that sculpture by James Earle Fraser. It’s an Indian on horseback, weary and tired horse, named the “The End of the Trail.” The horse and rider are bent forward, with a lance and bow.
Story of my life is in extremes: from off to Paris on the Concorde plane at 1,300 miles per hour, three hours and fifteen minutes from New York City or from Boston to traveling cuffed and shackled on a prison bus. From eating in the finest resta
urants and dining rooms in Europe to eating cold food and every meal in this cold cell.
Alcatraz is still a part of me and even while on the lam, I was able to visit and walk the old cellblocks and think back to all of the memories of life inside: the muffled sound of a passing seagull, the bell of the small buoy just off the Alcatraz shore, or the sound of a cell door racking, now by a park ranger rather than a prison guard.
At this point, I must face reality, this is the end of the trail and it ends soon. In some cases I’m guilty, in others it’s the guys who made deals. I was the last man standing when everyone else was arrested. They joined in the chorus of “Whitey’s the Boss” and things like “Whitey told me to do it.”
A lie unchallenged becomes the truth. It is hard to challenge from the position I was in. All of the above is a bad dream. Looking back, I try to come up with the answers of how I evolved into what I became, when the rest of my family so different. I regret that my family became the target of the media.
Prison life is rough. Prisons are populated by society’s killers, thieves, low lifes, losers, and mental cases. Most of these men are dangerous and will be harder to stop the next time around. Prison teaches one thing to perfection: hate. Guys find that it helps to harden and get through the days and nights. And in some cases (most cases) innocent people suffer. I don’t have a solution or answer, and I’m the first to admit prisons are necessary, but know that the tougher the prison, the tougher the convict. He’s much more dangerous when released. Prison life changed me for the worst.
Letters from Alcatraz Page 17
