Right down the street from the old Brink's garage emerged the headquarters of Mafia underboss Gennaro "Jerry" Angiulo. The FBI bugged the place for three months in 1981 and those tapes eventually led to the downfall of the Patriarca family. In 1981, former FBI supervisor John Morris met Bulger and Flemmi at the Hotel Colonnade and played them one of the 98 Prince St. tapes, a recorded chat between Angiulo and Zannino about killing their associate Nicolo Giso's girlfriend, Eva D. "Liz" McDonough of Revere. Over glasses of wine, Flemmi told Morris that he felt the threat was real. Bulger gave Morris a lift home and Flemmi kept the tape and from then on, Bulger and Flemmi began referring to Morris as "Vino." And Flemmi's hunch turned out to be correct: On March 20, 1984, three years after the murder discussion, a person in a ski mask fired three bullets at McDonough's head in a bar on Commercial Street in the North End. One bullet grazed her head and she fell to the floor unconscious. Courtesy of The Boston Audissey mp3 tour.
The Great Brink's Robbery dominated newspaper headlines for weeks. The Brink's Gang -- Joseph J. "Specs" O'Keefe, Adolph "Jazz" Maffie, Anthony Pino, Thomas F. Richardson, Joseph McGinnis, Stanley A. Gusciora, Vincent J. Costa, Joseph S. Banfield, Henry Baker, Michael V. Geagan, and James I. Faherty -- inspired several books and even a 1978 movie starring Peter Falk. According to the FBI, O'Keefe confessed to the Brink's robbery in January 1956; Gusciora died in July 1956; Banfield died in 1955; and the remaining eight gangsters were tried in August 1956 in the Suffolk County Courthouse. They were found guilty and received life sentences.
The store became a focus of several law enforcement agencies, and was eventually seized by the government. Last year it was turned back over to one of the original owners -- Julie Dammers (she has since remarried).
It was at Flemmi's mother's house that Flemmi's girlfriend, Debra Davis, was allegedly last seen alive in 1981. She was 26. In 2000, authorities unearthed her body from a makeshift grave by the Neponset River in Quincy. A cache of machine guns and sawed-off shotguns was allegedly stored in a backyard shed. Michael S. Flemmi, 66, a retired Boston police officer, was arrested in 2000 and charged with helping move the arsenal from a shed in the backyard before authorities raided the home on Jan. 13, 2000. Michael Flemmi was sentenced in September 2002 to 10 years in prison for relocating the stash of weapons for his older brother. He is currently doing time in federal prison in Butner, North Carolina and scheduled to be released in 2011, according to the US Department of Justice's Federal Bureau of Prisons. Stephen Flemmi is currently serving a life sententce in prison for extortion, money laundering and 10 murders.
Triple O's was owned by Kevin P. O'Neil, who pleaded guilty in 2000 to racketeering, money laundering, and extortion charges. In 1990 Triple O's was raided by the feds, searching for evidence to nail Bulger on charges of trafficking, money laundering, extortion, bookmaking, illegal liquor sales, and tax evasion. In 2000, O'Neil agreed to give up his share of the bar and to cooperate in the investigation of Bulger and Flemmi.
How did this unfold? Damien Clemente and Vincent Perez, who had been sitting in another booth, were allegedly threatened by the Luisi. Damien called his father from his cell phone. His father arrived, an argument turned into a bloodbath. Anthony P. Clemente Sr. and his son, Damien, were later convicted of first-degree murder. Perez was aquitted on murder charges. The elder Clemente, who turns 54 on Sept. 14, is in custody at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, while his son is doing time at the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater.
The high school, central to that part of town, drawing all of South Bostons students was also the epicenter for Bostons race riots in the 1970s as the city was forced to bus black students in from Roxbury to achieve a racial balance, garnering national attention. John Connolly, Whitey Bulger and many of his associates went there though some, like Bulger, didnt finish. When Connolly moved to the Boston FBI office, he took residence in a house across the street from the high school.
Childhood home to both Bulger and FBI agent Connolly, The Old Harbor and Old Colony housing projects in South Boston was the kind of place where you proved your mettle on the playground and, later on, in the streets. Despite his increasingly growing underworld empire and wealth, Bulger continued to base himself out of his childhood home in the Old Harbor project with his mother up until her death in 1980. Setting the seeds for a partnership in the future, Bulger broke up an uneven fight between Connolly and other neighborhood kids, leaving the much younger Connolly in awe.
Boston's beaches are not famous for their powdery sand or splashing waves. But Tenean Beach has a lovely view, a vista that features the colorful Boston Gas tank. In September 2000, investigators trudged over to Tenean to dig up the remains of Paul McGonagle, a rival of Bulger who disappeared in 1974. His body had been buried by a grassy area at the edge of the beach alongside the Southeast Expressway, less than a mile from where three murder victims were unearthed on Hallet Street near Florian Hall. Castle Island is well-known for its historic fort, gravelly beach, and tasty burgers from Sullivan's. During the warmer weather it's a magnet for families and joggers -- and organized crime figures as well. Bulger often strolled along these shores, accompanied by Weeks or Connolly.
Whitey stayed at the Old Harbor with his mother until she died in 1980. In the late 1980s, Whitey Bulger had a condo at 327 West Fourth St. and Kevin Weeks lived next door at 329 West Fourth St. However, Whitey split most of his time between his two girlfriends' places, Teresa Stanley, who lives in Southie, and Catherine E. Greig, a dental hygienist who was living in Quincy.
Where are Whitey and Greig today? That's the nagging question that landed him on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. Authorities are still trying to track the pair down since Whitey went on the lam in 1995 to duck a racketeering indictment. | ||||||||||||










