Why did Billy Bulger suspect that his serial-killing fugitive brother would be murdered if he were captured by the FBI? In this week’s podcast, the former Senate president presciently predicts the future at a Congressional hearing — more than 15 years before Whitey Bulger would be murdered at a federal prison in West Virginia.
As one of the lead prosecutors in Whitey Bulger’s 2013 trial, Brian Kelly gained firsthand insight into the mind of one of America’s most wanted criminals. Kelly faced one of the most notorious serial killers in the courtroom, confronting him with his own past so that a jury could determine his future.
Dirty Rats producer Grace Curley discusses Whitey’s trial and other prolific cases Kelly has had a hand in prosecuting in this bonus episode.
It was June 19, 2003 and Billy Bulger was under oath. The powerful politician would finally have to answer questions on live TV from appalled congressmen about his alleged involvement in the bloodstained career of his fugitive gangster brother Whitey as well as about two generations of corruption in the Boston office of the FBI.
Bulger’s fellow Democrats from Massachusetts would be asking him even tougher questions than the Republicans on the House committee. For once in his life Billy Bulger, the former President of the Massachusetts Senate, was in the hot seat. And the entire nation was waiting to hear what Whitey Bulger’s brother had to say.
The address was 799 East Third Street, where Whitey Bulger set up a murder assembly line. It was the 1980’s and Bulger and his bloodthirsty crew were selling cocaine, running guns, extorting other gangsters and killing young women…and burying the bodies in the basement of a little house in South Boston.
The first of those victims was Arthur “Bucky” Barrett. His murder would go down as one of the gang’s most cruel and unnecessary killings. Even Stevie “the Rifleman” Flemmi later claimed he was shocked by Whitey’s brutality.
