Connolly won’t get parole until he’s 98 years old
The widow of a Bay State man murdered by James “Whitey” Bulger’s gang decades ago said she can finally rest knowing the disgraced ex-FBI agent tied to the slaying won’t be up for parole until 2039.
“We’re very relieved. Maybe we can finally get some closure,” Mary Callahan told the Herald after the Florida parole board announced John J. “Zip” Connolly will be nearly 100 years old by the time he’s eligible to get out.
“He didn’t get away with it. He’s going to stay in jail for a very long time,” the 77-yearold Callahan said yesterday. “It will now be much easier to answer my grandson’s questions about the man he’s named after.”
Connolly, who also turns 77 Tuesday, was given a presumptive parole release date of June 26, 2039, even after his brother James Connolly testified before the panel on his behalf and “a lot of people” submitted letters in his support, acting commission spokeswoman Laura Tully told the Herald.
Connolly was convicted of second-degree murder in Miami in 2008 and sentenced to 40 years for tipping off Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi in 1982 that John Callahan was going to implicate the South Boston serial killers for the 1981 execution of World Jai Alai President Roger Wheeler in Oklahoma.
Wheeler was killed while investigating Callahan for theft.
Callahan’s body was found stuffed into the trunk of his Cadillac at Miami International Airport.
Tully said Connolly’s circumstances were aggravated by his federal conviction for racketeering, for which he received a 10-year sentence.