Gangster Bulger meets a violent end

Notorious Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger was killed inside federal prison on Tuesday. Fellow inmates at the Hazelton, W.Va., prison where Bulger was recently transferred beat him to death, officials said. Bulger, a documented FBI informant, led a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling, and drug rackets. He was convicted in 2013 of murder, extortion, money-laundering, and weapons charges. The case exposed FBI corruption that helped Bulger elude justice in 1994 and go on the lam for 16 years.

Several sources and news outlets have identified Freddy Geas, a convicted mafia hitman from Springfield, Mass., as the prime suspect in the slaying. “Freddy hated rats,” or police informants, Ted McDonough, a private investigator who previously worked with Geas, told The Boston Globe. “Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It’s probably that simple.” Geas is serving a life sentence in the assassination of another mafia boss, Adolfo Bruno of Springfield. Bulger was the model for Jack Nicholson’s ruthless crime boss in the 2006 film The Departed.