Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Alcatraz a Fond Memory in Whitey Bulger's Letters
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 6 years ago on
February 23, 2019

Share

BOSTON — Locked up for life after 16 years on the run, murderous Boston gang boss James “Whitey” Bulger couldn’t stand how much the world around him had changed.

“Almost every time I’m going anywhere, guys ask “hey old timer, want a push” … or just grab handles and start pushing. One advantage is we can go in the front of chow line if in wheelchair.”James “Whitey” Bulger
Prison was nothing like his days at Alcatraz, with its “great view” and clear-cut rules, Bulger said. And the former Irish Catholic stronghold of South Boston he once terrorized was now filled with “rich college kids living in expensive condos.”
“World has changed … everything different, even the neighborhood,” Bulger wrote to a friend he met in the lockup in newly public letters.
The letters, which are being auctioned Sunday, provide a glimpse into the once powerful and feared gangster’s mundane life behind bars before he was beaten to death by fellow inmates last year. Bulger wrote about the little excitements of prison life — “tonight we had an ice cream cone!” — and his treatment by other inmates.
“Almost every time I’m going anywhere, guys ask “hey old timer, want a push” … or just grab handles and start pushing,” Bulger wrote in a letter postmarked in February 2015. “One advantage is we can go in the front of chow line if in wheelchair.”
Authorities have said two Massachusetts mobsters are under investigation for 89-year-old Bulger’s killing, but no one has been charged. His death hours after he was transferred to a troubled West Virginia prison has raised questions about why the known “snitch” was placed in the general population instead of more protective housing.

Bonded Over Their Criminal Pasts

Bulger ratted on the New England mob to the FBI, authorities said, though he insisted throughout his trial that he wasn’t an informant but was actually paying the FBI for the scoop on his enemies.
The auction house got the letters from a man who says he became friends with Bulger when the geriatric gangster was briefly held at a federal lockup in Brooklyn after being convicted in 2013 of participating in 11 murders, among other crimes.
That man, Timothy Glass, said he took Bulger under his wing, and they bonded over their criminal pasts. Glass recalled how Bulger would sign autographs for inmates who asked but had a tendency to give a “death stare” to guys he didn’t like.
“I was like, ‘this guy is a stone-cold killer at like 80 years old.’ It was wild,” Glass, 55, told The Associated Press.
Glass was locked up on robbery and other charges when he met Bulger after spending more than a decade in New York state prison for separate crimes, he said. Inmates weren’t allowed to write to one another, so after Bulger was transferred to a different prison, Bulger would send the letters to a friend on the outside, who would get them to Glass, he said.
In the letters, Bulger complained about the cost of books (“$32 for the book!”), the cold weather (“All the liberals like VP Gore made a fortune with his scaring people with talk of ‘planet warming”’) and the media, which he called “part of and parcel of the corruption instead of society ‘watchdogs.'”

He Talked Longingly About His Time at ‘The Rock’

He grumbled about his trial, slammed prosecutors for deals they made with his former friends and promised his appeal would “create quite a stir.” He also bemoaned what he saw as the unfair treatment of his longtime girlfriend Catherine Grieg, who was sentenced to eight years for helping Bulger avoid capture.

“Here, ‘they,’ the ‘inmates,’ would sell you chocolate! Back then no one ever looked to make a profit on another convict. I look back at those years and place with nostalgia. It’s all gone.” — James “Whitey” Bulger
“I played a rough game and accepted the rough treatment. But feel Catherine was treated too harshly,” Bulger wrote.
He talked longingly about his time at “The Rock” — Alcatraz — where the rules were “plain and understood” and inmates were allowed at Christmastime to buy chocolate, which they would share with prisoners who weren’t supposed to have candy.
“Here, ‘they,’ the ‘inmates,’ would sell you chocolate! Back then no one ever looked to make a profit on another convict,” he wrote. “I look back at those years and place with nostalgia. It’s all gone.”
Tucked into some of the letters were pictures of Bulger as a young man or Alcatraz. On the back of one of the photo — a mugshot taken in 1965, the year Bulger was released from prison and returned to South Boston — he scribbled: “the good old days.”
With another letter, Bulger included a holiday card that he apparently made in 2015 with the message in gold script: “Wishing you peace & cheer in the New Year.” Next to the cheery greeting is Bulger’s Alcatraz mugshot, his eyes piercing blue eyes narrowed and brows furrowed.

DON'T MISS

What to Know About Pam Bondi, Trump’s New Pick for Attorney General

DON'T MISS

North Korean Leader Says Past Diplomacy Only Confirmed US Hostility

DON'T MISS

Democrats Strike Deal to Get More Biden Judges Confirmed Before Congress Adjourns

DON'T MISS

Newsom Gaslights on Potential Gas Price Hikes in Fresno Visit

DON'T MISS

Automakers to Trump: Please Require Us to Sell Electric Vehicles

DON'T MISS

President Biden Welcomes 2024 NBA Champion Boston Celtics to White House

DON'T MISS

Ohtani Makes History With 3rd MVP, Judge Claims 2nd AL Honor

DON'T MISS

Trump Chooses Pam Bondi for Attorney General Pick After Gaetz Withdraws

DON'T MISS

Average Rate on a 30-Year Mortgage in the US Rises to Highest Level Since July

DON'T MISS

Cutting in Line? American Airlines’ New Boarding Tech Might Stop You at Now Over 100 Airports

UP NEXT

Bomb Cyclone Kills 1 and Knocks Out Power to Over Half a Million Homes Across the Northwest US

UP NEXT

Volunteers Came Back to Nonprofits in 2023, After the Pandemic Tanked Participation

UP NEXT

New Study: Proposed Trump Tariffs Could Cost US Consumers $78 Billion a Year

UP NEXT

Riders Stuck in Midair for Over 2 Hours on Knott’s Berry Farm Ride

UP NEXT

Shouting Racial Slurs, Neo-Nazi Marchers Shock Ohio’s Capital

UP NEXT

More Logging Is Proposed to Help Curb Wildfires in the US Pacific Northwest

UP NEXT

Scientists Fear What’s Next for Public Health if RFK Jr. Is Allowed To ‘Go Wild’

UP NEXT

Warren Slams Biden Admin for Failing to Hold Israel Accountable on Gaza Aid

UP NEXT

Suicides in the US Military Increased in 2023, Continuing a Long-Term Trend

UP NEXT

New FDA Rules for TV Drug Ads: Simpler Language and No Distractions

Newsom Gaslights on Potential Gas Price Hikes in Fresno Visit

3 hours ago

Automakers to Trump: Please Require Us to Sell Electric Vehicles

3 hours ago

President Biden Welcomes 2024 NBA Champion Boston Celtics to White House

3 hours ago

Ohtani Makes History With 3rd MVP, Judge Claims 2nd AL Honor

4 hours ago

Trump Chooses Pam Bondi for Attorney General Pick After Gaetz Withdraws

4 hours ago

Average Rate on a 30-Year Mortgage in the US Rises to Highest Level Since July

4 hours ago

Cutting in Line? American Airlines’ New Boarding Tech Might Stop You at Now Over 100 Airports

4 hours ago

MLB Will Test Robot Umpires at 13 Spring Training Ballparks Hosting 19 Teams

5 hours ago

Death Toll in Gaza From Israel-Hamas War Passes 44,000, Palestinian Officials Say

5 hours ago

Jussie Smollett’s Conviction in 2019 Attack on Himself Is Overturned

5 hours ago

What to Know About Pam Bondi, Trump’s New Pick for Attorney General

NEW YORK — Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general, was chosen Thursday by Donald Trump to serve as U.S. attorney general hours after...

1 hour ago

1 hour ago

What to Know About Pam Bondi, Trump’s New Pick for Attorney General

2 hours ago

North Korean Leader Says Past Diplomacy Only Confirmed US Hostility

2 hours ago

Democrats Strike Deal to Get More Biden Judges Confirmed Before Congress Adjourns

3 hours ago

Newsom Gaslights on Potential Gas Price Hikes in Fresno Visit

President Joe Biden with Mary Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, at the Detroit Auto Show, Sept. 14, 2022. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to erase the Biden administration’s tailpipe rules designed to get carmakers to produce electric vehicles, but most U.S. automakers want to keep them. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)
3 hours ago

Automakers to Trump: Please Require Us to Sell Electric Vehicles

3 hours ago

President Biden Welcomes 2024 NBA Champion Boston Celtics to White House

4 hours ago

Ohtani Makes History With 3rd MVP, Judge Claims 2nd AL Honor

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally at First Horizon Coliseum, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Greensboro, NC. (AP/Alex Brandon)
4 hours ago

Trump Chooses Pam Bondi for Attorney General Pick After Gaetz Withdraws

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend