Trial Diary: The wife's debut

September 17, 2008 06:01 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Dick Lehr, Globe Correspondent

MIAMI – Former FBI agent John Connolly’s wife, Liz, has made her debut at her husband’s trial for murder, arriving on the third day in time to hear Whitey Bulger’s principal hit man accuse her husband of helping the Bulger gang to commit murder.

“John’s innocent,’’ Liz Connolly said in the hallway during a break, dismissing the gruesome account by John Martorano of the 1982 murder of John Callahan. Martorano testified Connolly tipped off the Bulger gang that Callahan might implicate them and had to be killed “or we’re all going to jail.’’

“I have to support him,’’ she said about her husband, explaining her arrival in Miami from Boston.

The former agent’s wife drew everyone’s attention when she first entered the courtroom at the start of the day. Reporters and court watchers were wondering why she wasn’t here when the testimony began on Monday. During Connolly’s 2002 federal racketeering trial in Boston, Liz Connolly was almost always by her husband’s side.

She declined to say when she last saw her husband. “It’s been a long time,’’ she said. But they have talked on the telephone, she added.

When Liz Connolly walked into court, she and her husband kissed each other on the cheek. With her blonde hair flowing onto her shoulders, dressed in a white blouse, black skirt and black high heels, the 48-year-old cut a striking figure.

“I really don’t have much to say,’’ she said later in the hallway. Soft-spoken, she added she plans to “come back and forth as need be. I have three boys.’’

During testimony, Liz Connolly sat in court two rows behind her husband and next to her husband’s brother, Jim Connolly, a retired federal drug agent. She sat stoically while Martorano provided chilling testimony that her husband’s corrupt protection of Whitey Bulger led to the Callahan murder in Miami.

Once court was done for the day, she said she planned on visiting her husband in the prison where he’s been held since his murder indictment in 2005. Referring to Connolly’s confinement to his cell for 23 hours a day, she said, “He’s a strong man.’’

Dick Lehr is the co-author of the national bestseller “Black Mass: The True Story of the Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob.’’ He wrote for the Boston Globe from 1986 to 2003.