Dr. Dabbs – The Sordid Saga of Whitey Bulger

James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger was a cold-blooded killer.

James Joseph Bulger, Jr was born September 3, 1929, to James Joseph and Jane Veronica “Jean” Bulger. He was their first of three children. His father hailed from Newfoundland. The senior Bulger’s parents had both been Irish. Jean was a first-generation Irish immigrant. The younger Bulger’s blood ran green.

America in the 1930s could be a hard place.

James Senior worked as a longshoreman but lost his arm in an industrial accident. There were not quite so many lawyers back then as is the case today. Though the man survived, his family was left destitute. They moved into the Mary Ellen McCormack housing project in South Boston in 1938.

Whitey Bulger came from the factory broken. He was forever in trouble.

James had two younger brothers, both of whom did well in school. By contrast, James Bulger Jr seemed drawn to the streets at a young age. The kid was a born thug.

It was Bulger’s pale blonde hair that earned him the nom de guerre “Whitey.” He hated the name.

To his friends, James went by “Jim”, “Jimmy”, or “Boots.” The latter appellation stemmed from his tendency to wear cowboy boots in which he hid his switchblade knife. When he was young the kid’s hair was blonde to the point of being white. As a result, his chums took to calling him “Whitey.” Though the young man despised the nickname, it nonetheless stuck.

Whitey Bulger cut quite the dashing figure in his youth.

Whitey Bulger’s first arrest was at age 14 for larceny. He ran with a South Boston street gang called the Shamrocks. While with this crew Bulger was eventually arrested for assault, forgery, and armed robbery. He spent time in the juvenile reformatory, but everybody wants kids to succeed. Soon after his release in 1948, Whitey was allowed to join the US Air Force in hopes that a little time in uniform might straighten him out.

Suffice it to say, Whitey Bulger’s stint in the Air Force was not quite this cheerful.

Airman Bulger did not thrive in the service. He spent time in a military prison for multiple assaults and also went AWOL. By 1952 Uncle Sam had given up on Whitey and sent him packing, albeit with an honorable discharge. Four years later Bulger was remanded to federal prison for armed robbery and hijacking. Apparently, the kid just couldn’t help it.

Bulger was subjected to high-dose LSD as part of a classified CIA mind control project. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

As we mentioned earlier, this was a different time with very different rules. While serving time in prison Bulger was used as a test subject for the CIA’s Project MK-ULTRA. This enterprise was pitched as an effort to cure schizophrenia. In reality, the CIA was trying to develop a mind control drug. While Bulger and the eighteen other participants in the program had indeed volunteered in exchange for reduced sentences, they had no idea of the true nature of the program. They received heavy doses of LSD along with several other hallucinogens. Bulger later admitted that the experience was horrifying. He began hearing voices afterward as a result.

Bulger spent a little time on the Rock near San Francisco.

Bulger was later transferred from Atlanta to Alcatraz and then on to Leavenworth. In 1963 he was sent to Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. On his third try, Whitey Bulger was paroled in 1965. He had served a total of nine years. The career criminal would not see the inside of a prison again for another nearly half-century. However, that wasn’t for lack of trying.

Whitey Bulger grew weary of custodial work in short order after his release from prison.

As an ex-con, solid work was tough to find. Bulger toiled as a janitor and construction worker before returning to the only thing he had ever been good at. Under a mob boss named Donald Killeen, Whitey Bulger began working as a loan shark and bookmaker. The Killeen Gang had been a fixture in South Boston for more than two decades.

The Triple O’s Lounge was one of Bulger’s favorite hangouts.

The Killeen Gang was led by three brothers—Donnie, Eddie, and Kenny. Kenny Killeen purportedly shot and injured Michael “Mickey” Dwyer, a player in the rival Mullen Gang, during a fight at the café the Killeens used as a headquarters. There resulted a sprawling gang war that swept across Boston stacking up quite the body count. The Killeens soon found themselves outgunned by the younger, more agile Mullens mob. As part of this fight, Whitey was dispatched to liquidate a Mullens Gang member named Paul McGonagle. In a tragic case of mistaken identity, Whitey accidentally killed Paul’s fraternal twin brother Donald. This was Whitey Bulger’s first proper murder. It would not be his last.

This is Paulie McGonagle. Whitey Bulger inadvertently killed his twin brother Donald while trying to assassinate him. In 1974 Bulger made up for his mistake and whacked Paulie, too.

One of the players named Kevin Weeks later said, “Although [McGonagle] never did anything, he kept on stirring everything up with his mouth. So (Whitey) decided to kill him…(Whitey) shot him right between the eyes. Only…it wasn’t Paulie. It was Donald…(Whitey) drove straight to his mentor Billy O’Sullivan’s house (who was cooking at the stove top at the time)…and told O’Sullivan…’I shot the wrong one. I shot Donald.’ Billy…said, ‘Don’t worry about it. He wasn’t healthy anyway. He smoked. He would have gotten lung cancer. How do you want your pork chops?”

This is the Grease Gun that was used to murder Donnie Killeen, likely by his friend Whitey Bulger. The cops found the gun abandoned in a nearby ditch the day after the hit and incorrectly labeled it a Reising. This particular weapon remains in the evidence collection of the Framingham police department to this day. Killeen was hit with fifteen .45ACP rounds. Note that the buttstock has been removed.

Sensing that time was running out on the Killeens, Bulger supposedly approached Howie Winter, another mob boss who led the Winter Hill Gang, and offered to end the war. In May of 1972, the eldest Killeen was gunned down outside his home. While there remains some controversy, Bulger was rumored to have been the triggerman. The remnants of both the Killeen and Mullens gangs were subsequently absorbed into the Winter Hill mob.

Whitey Bulger was a born killer.

Bulger was a cold-hearted murderer, but he was also smart. In this chaotic world, his steady leadership and ruthless demeanor brought him great success. Kevin Weeks also had this to say, “As a criminal, he made a point of only preying upon criminals…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…Tommy King, in 1975, was one example…Tommy, who was a Mullens, made a fist…(Whitey) saw it…A week later, Tommy was dead. Tommy’s second and last mistake had been getting into the car with (Whitey), Stevie, and Johnny Martorano…Later that same night, (Whitey) killed Buddy Leonard and left him in Tommy’s car on Pilsudski Way in the Old Colony projects to confuse the authorities.”

Bulger altered his appearance and adjusted his allegiances as needed to serve his purposes.

Whitey’s allegiances shifted with the winds to his maximum advantage. Along the way, he worked as an informant for the FBI while continuing his overt criminal enterprise. In September of 2006, federal judge Reginald Lindsey ruled that the FBI’s botched management of Bulger as an informant had contributed materially to the 1984 death of a government snitch named John McIntyre. The judge awarded McIntyre’s family $3.1 million in damages as a result.

The suppressed MAC-10 was a popular assassination weapon in the sorts of circles that attracted Whitey Bulger.

In 1982 Bulger and an associate approached a well-known local cocaine dealer with the street name of “Balloonhead” while he was traveling in a car with a friend. Bulger packed an M1 carbine, while his fellow hitter was armed with a full auto sound-suppressed MAC-10. The two men liberally sprayed the coke dealer’s vehicle at close range. Balloonhead and his buddy died on the spot.

This is an IRA operator running an AR-180 in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Bulger and his associates helped keep these guys supplied.

Whitey thrived throughout by threatening and killing competitors and turned enormous profits through his sundry criminal enterprises. It was estimated that he made some $30 million solely by charging local drug dealers fees for operating on his turf. Bulger and his buddies also shipped, “91 rifles, 8 submachine guns, 13 shotguns, 51 handguns, 11 bullet-proof vests, 70,000 rounds of ammunition, plus an array of hand grenades and rocket heads,” along with substantial quantities of C4 plastic explosive to IRA terrorists in Northern Ireland.

Lots of folks talk about professional assassination, Whitey Bulger actually did something about it.

With the Law Enforcement heat becoming unbearable, Bulger fled Boston in 1995. He traveled widely in the US and Europe before finally being arrested in Santa Monica, California, in 2011 at age 81. He had been on the run for sixteen years and had been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for twelve of those. The details of those years as a fugitive would require another couple of columns to fully explore. At the time of his arrest, Bulger had 30 firearms, several fake IDs, and $800,000 in cash in his apartment.

Bulger’s personal stash of hardware included quite a few 1911 pistols.

What spawned this project was a photograph of Bulger’s arsenal that was released after his capture. Bulger apparently had an affinity for 1911 pistols as there were several in attendance. He also had half a dozen fully automatic weapons. Dissecting his arsenal lends insight into the man and the brutal nature of his crimes.

These are some of the weapons seized from Whitey Bulger.

Bulger’s handguns included a Walther P38, a Ruger .22 pistol, and a variety of revolvers. In addition to his weapons, police seized Law Enforcement badges and assorted carry gear along with fighting knives. However, it was the machine guns that were the most fascinating.

It would be curious to know how Bulger and his associates got their hands on modern factory machine guns like this .45ACP MAC-10.
Bulger likely used this custom “paratrooper” M1 carbine to kill a cocaine dealer named “Balloonhead.”

Bulger had a .45ACP MAC M-10 with an original WerBell-designed two-stage sound suppressor. There was also an M1 carbine with a civilian sliding “paratrooper” stock. His SP1-style AR15 included the original 20-inch rifle barrel and triangular handguards but had been fitted with a collapsible CAR-15 buttstock.

Bulger was clearly partial to Grease Guns. This is an early M3 with the manual cocking lever.
Bulger’s MP40’s were undoubtedly GI bring backs from World War 2. They had seen a fair amount of mileage.

Whitey had a fascinating M3 Grease Gun that appeared to include an original GI OSS sound suppressor. These customized Grease Guns were some of the first operational sound-suppressed SMGs to see service alongside the Mk IIS suppressed Sten. We can only imagine where that particular weapon had been. The stash also included three well-worn 9mm German MP40 submachine guns.

By the time Bulger was finally captured he was an old man.

Bulger was convicted in short order. He had been charged with a total of nineteen different murders. His first prison stop was the US Penitentiary in Tucson. Soon after his arrival a fellow prisoner nicknamed “Retro” stabbed the elderly criminal in the head and neck with a homemade knife, putting him in the prison infirmary for a month.

This is the West Virginia prison where Whitey Bulger finally met his gory end.

Bulger was subsequently moved to the US Penitentiary in Hazelton, West Virginia, on October 29, 2018. By this point, he was wheelchair-bound. The following day Whitey Bulger was beaten to death by multiple inmates armed with a padlock wrapped in a sock and a homemade blade. His eyes were all but gouged out and his tongue was nearly severed. In August of 2022 three inmates named Paul DeCologero, Sean McKinnon, and Fotios Geas were indicted for Bulger’s death. Their cases are winding through the legal system as I type these words.

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  • alan May 16, 2023, 6:51 pm

    The fact that a white man can executed by the criminal justice system wo actually being sentenced to death shows the corruption in our judicial system. he was assaulted once and then put back into gen pop after being transferred in a wheel chair? yeah the guy was a ruthless criminal but didnt deserve to be murdered by fellow prisoners just for bragging rights. he should have been isolated. it took 4 years to indict the perps and they still have not been convicted. i guess there is no systemic racism either.

  • Rollin L May 15, 2023, 3:22 pm

    Accounts that Bulger was protected from prosecution during his time as an informant, while continuing to commit murders would make for an interesting study. Not sure if that can be documented, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they let him get away with much so long as he informed on others. It’s rumored that an innocent man was left languishing in jail for Bulger’s crimes, with the DOJ/FBI being fully aware of the fact.

  • Kane May 15, 2023, 2:29 pm

    Whitey Bulger was and is the legacy of the CIA (Criminals In-charge of America). The CIA and OSS like their British counter parts are/was one of the evil organizations in the annals of guilty man. These are Occultist that ingnore the Nuremberg Doctrine established by the evil Allied victors like the accomplished war criminal and Soviet suck up Eisenhower.

  • W May 15, 2023, 1:55 pm

    He didn’t deserve an end any better than what he received. He finally felt what it was like to be one of his victims… And then he met GOD!
    He probably didn’t like the way that turned out either.

  • william glover May 15, 2023, 9:19 am

    DR. Dabs has lived an exciting life. I read some of his stories in guns magazine every month. he sounds like a person I would like to know.

  • Dang Vorbei May 15, 2023, 9:02 am

    I never understood why the SAS held off on killing these Boston thugs supplying the IRA to the extent they did. Yeah, the neighborhood culture in Boston makes it tough to infiltrate, but a couple of object lessons would’ve gone a long way.

    • Kane May 15, 2023, 2:32 pm

      Bulger was probably a British informant, that’s why it is so hard to figure.

    • Kane May 15, 2023, 2:48 pm

      BTW, the Jewish terrorists that founded Israel targetted British troops that overran concentration camps. That’s gratitude after the British and the Belfour Doctrine backed the establishment of the modern state.

      Even worse, the daughters of the Soviet troops that overran concentration camps had generations of their women sold into sexual slavery on the “Holy Land’s” streets of Tel Aviv. The King David Hotel was well named since the Jewish terrorists that blew up British soldier’s betrayed their benefactors. Just like King David, they all know a bit about betrayal.

      Since the Rothschildes count Britain among their many possessions, there were no consequences. Jewish terrorism is celebrated where the Irish struggle for over 800 years is villified.

      • Frank May 16, 2023, 1:05 pm

        Antisemitic much? Be sure to keep a thorough list of complaints against God’s chosen people. One day, you’ll be able to deliver it in person.

        • Kane May 16, 2023, 10:25 pm

          Define “God’s chosen people.”

          Who the made the “list of complaints” in the Book of Revelation against those from the “Synogogue of Satan”? You best worry about your own pending “in person” interviews.

          That said;

          Why don’t you at least point out any factual errors, if you can. Prove me wrong and tell me that the Jewish terrorists (Irgun) did NOT kill British soldiers, the very same Army that overran concentration camps. Prove me wrong and tell how Jewish terrorists were NOT resposible for the bombing of the King David Hotel. Prove me wrong tell me that the Rothschild family does NOT have a more elaborate Coat of Arms than the Royal family and are the real longstanding power behind “The City of London” (hint no quite the samething as the city of London or just London). Prove me wrong and tell how for generations girls who decended from the ranks of the Soviet Army were NOT sold into sexual slavery in Israel.

          BTW, who bombed the USS Liberty? Betcha don’t care.

          So, can the truth be “antisemetic”?

          When it comes to antisemitism, where do you rate the Zwi Migdal?

          I doubt you know or care the first thing about the truth.

          • Frank May 18, 2023, 11:29 am

            I care deeply about the truth. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. So for as your real or imagined charges against the Jewish people, God is the only Judge who matters. He has judged His chosen people repeatedly throughout history when they ignored His Law. They will continue to have difficulties until such time when they finally accept Jesus as the Messiah. To wit, the seven years of trial and tribulation are also referred to as “The time of Jacob’s trouble”.

            Moving on… if you really want to find out how His chosen people are defined, I suggest a thorough reading of the Pentateuch. It will provide you with much more clarity and detail than I can in this forum. So far as the “synagogue of Satan”, it’s mentioned only twice “The Revelation”. I have included the verses below for your reference. Look closely at the capitalized text.

            Revelation 2:9…
            I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, AND ARE NOT, but are the synagogue of Satan.
            (emphasis mine)

            Revelation 3:9…
            Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, WHICH SAY THEY ARE JEWS AND ARE NOT, BUT DO LIE; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. (emphasis mine) The text is quite clear. The “synagogue of Satan” does NOT refer to Jews.

            Lastly, I don’t have to worry at all about meeting my Creator… not because of anything that I have done, but because of everything that Jesus Christ did for me! He willingly took my punishment and death sentence, and everyone else’s who places their faith in Him. He invites everyone… but it’s up to the individual him/herself.

          • Kane May 19, 2023, 1:32 pm

            I responded to your short two worded question, not to over look the two follow up sentences where you surely make a guess on the fate of my soul. You did NOT answer or even try to answer my questions. You could NOT disprove one statement. Instead you tried to assign some reading and posted info that you have to know I was aware and could easily find. I wanted to see your definition of a term you appropriate to try to throw in my face.

            I suspect that most Jewish people would resent some of the “list of complaints” that are your religious beliefs. You say of thos you admit “ignored His Law” that the “text is quite clear. The ‘synagogue of Satan’ does NOT refer to Jews.” If NOT the Jews themselves then who? Is this the words of a Sephardic Jew casting out the Ashkenazi Jews? Who is a Jew? The Zwi Migdal surely attended the Synagogue and donated heavily while still considered part of the Tribe. Whoever the reference is directed toward, they are surely a member of the Synagogue and your interpretation is lacking.

            I remember you now “Frank.” This is NOT the first time you wrote the same thing then “Antisemitic much?” The last time was concerning a thread on the assasination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani who was in route to a conferance. Many of the people commenting then were like you, Judoephiles. People that believe the evil done by one certain race is ordained by God. On this much we can agree, “God is the only Judge who matters.”

            My guess, God loved General Soleimani as much as any other person including members of the IDF

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