3 years after killing of ‘Whitey’ Bulger: No charges, still questions
BOSTON >> He was one of the most infamous criminals to be killed behind bars. And investigators narrowed in on suspects immediately after his shocking slaying in a West Virginia prison.
Yet three years later, no one has been charged in the beating death of murderous Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger. Questions such as why the well-known FBI informant was put in the troubled lockup’s general population alongside other New England gangsters — instead of more protective housing — remain unanswered.
Federal officials will say only that his death remains under investigation. Meanwhile, the lack of answers has only fueled rumors and spurred claims by Bulger’s family that the frail 89-year-old was “deliberately sent to his death” at the penitentiary nicknamed “Misery Mountain.”
“This was really a dereliction of duty,” said Joe Rojas, a union representative for the correctional staff at the Florida prison where Bulger was held before being transferred to USP Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. “There’s no way he should have been put in that institution.”
Some of the families of Bulger’s victims, however, feel differently.
Steven Davis said holding someone accountable in the killing of the man accused of strangling to death his 26-year-old sister, Debra Davis, in 1981 doesn’t change anything for him and other families.
“He had what was coming to him and it didn’t come soon enough,” the 64-year-old Bostonarea resident said. “He’s where he should have been a long time ago — in the dirt.”
Bulger was found dead on Oct. 30, 2018, hours after arriving at Hazelton from the Coleman prison in Florida, where he was serving a life sentence for participating in 11 killings.
Federal officials have never officially publicly identified any suspects and have said only that they are investigating his death as a homicide. But shortly after the killing, a former federal investigator and a law enforcement official who insisted on anonymity because of the ongoing probe identified two Massachusetts organized crime figures as suspects: Fotios “Freddy” Geas and Paul J. DeCologero.
Geas, a Mafia hitman serving life behind bars for his role in the killing of a Genovese crime family boss and other violent crimes, has been in a restricted unit at the West Virginia prison since Bulger’s killing even though no charges have been filed, said his lawyer, Daniel Kelly.
DeCologero, meanwhile, was moved earlier this year to another high-security penitentiary in Virginia. A member of a Massachusetts gang led by his uncle, DeCologero was convicted in 2006 of racketeering and witness tampering for a number of crimes and is scheduled to be released in 2026.
Brian Kelly, one of the federal prosecutors in Bulger’s 2013 murder trial in Boston, said the delays may indicate prison officials don’t have any witnesses or video evidence to support charges.