Whitey Bulger merchandise gets bump with Black Mass

BOSTON— There’s a mug shot from Alcatraz, an autographed prison shirt and poker chips featuring his photo.

Memorabilia related to Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger is being peddled on eBay to coincide with the release of the new Johnny Depp movie on Bulger’s life, Black Mass.

Some relatives of Bulger’s victims aren’t happy about all the hawking.

Patricia Donahue, whose husband was killed by Bulger and an associate in 1982, said she doesn’t understand why anyone would want to buy or sell anything that belonged to Bulger.

“People just can’t seem to get enough of this man, who’s a psychopath,” she said.

Bulger, now 86, was one of the most notorious gangsters in Boston, running a violent criminal organization from the 1970s into the 1990s after serving time in Alcatraz, among oth- er prisons, for armed robbery and truck hijacking. He fled Boston on the eve of a racketeering indictment in 1995 and remained one of the nation’s most wanted fugitives until he was captured in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011.

He is serving life in prison for 11 killings and other crimes.

A memorabilia store in Peabody, Mass., is auctioning off an orange jail-issued shirt supposedly worn by Bulger at the Plymouth County jail. Store owner Phil Castinetti said he has received a $25,000 (U.S.) bid from a Boston restaurant owner for the shirt.

Even one of Bulger’s most vocal critics is selling two Bulger items on eBay, depictions of Bulger drawn by a courtroom sketch artist.

Steve Davis, the brother of a 26year-old woman Bulger was accused of killing in 1982, said he decided to sell the sketches to raise money for the families of other Bulger victims.