|
Fox show on Bulger depicts cuddly animal-lover
By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff, 4/16/2004
Just in case the photographs on the FBI wanted posters don't do justice to fugitive gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, the FBI is showing America a new array of photographs that offer a different glimpse of the former South Boston crime boss: animal lover.
The elderly gangster is hugging a goat in one of the photographs, to be broadcast nationally for the first time tomorrow night on a segment of Fox's "America's Most Wanted." A second pose shows a smiling Bulger in a blue jogging suit on bended knee as he snuggles up to his girlfriend's black poodle.
FBI officials said both photographs were taken in the early 1990s, before Bulger fled to evade a January 1995 federal racketeering indictment in Boston.
A third photograph shows a dapper Bulger in a white suit and red tie and was taken in July 1990, when he attended a banquet in Washington, D.C., with numerous dignitaries, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the US Army Airborne.
Bulger was a guest of his longtime sidekick, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, a paratrooper who served in Korea, someone who attended the banquet said.
Kim Newport, a spokeswoman for "America's Most Wanted," said Fox decided to air its 12th episode on Bulger after receiving the new photographs from the FBI, noting, "We want to give our viewers every possible clue."
But if the photographs suggest that Bulger is an animal lover, they might be deceiving. When Bulger and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, went on the run together in 1995, the couple abandoned her two poodles, Niki and Gigi.
After caring for the dogs for several years, Greig's sister, Margaret McCusker, of South Boston, had them euthanized in 1999, according to law enforcement officials, after McCusker was indicted on perjury charges for lying about telephone calls with her sister, who is wanted for allegedly harboring a fugitive. McCusker was sentenced to six months home confinement and probation.
This story ran on page B12 of the Boston Globe on 4/16/2004.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
|
 |
|
