James 'Whitey' Bulger was found dead on Tuesday in a federal prison in West Virginia

Wheelchair-bound Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger Jr. has been beaten to death in a savage attack by fellow federal inmates, who reportedly pummeled him with a lock in a sock and tried to gouge his eyes out.

Bulger was found dead by guards on Tuesday morning at USP Hazelton, a high-security federal prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He was 89.

Bulger was in general population when three inmates rolled his wheelchair to a corner out of view of surveillance cameras, beat him in the head with a lock in a sock, and attempted to gouge his eyes out with a shiv, a prison source told TMZ.

The former head of south Boston's 'Winter Hill Gang', Bulger was convicted in 2013 of killing at least 11 people and was serving two life sentences at the time of his death.

It emerged in Bulger's 2013 trial that he had served as an FBI informant as far back as 1975, though he always denied it. The deal gave Bulger virtual impunity to commit any crime he wanted for decades - except for murder.

Law enforcement sources tell DailyMail.com that Whitey had been talking about outing people in the top echelon of the controversial FBI informant program.

The sources said he hadn't even been processed at the West Virginia facility when he was killed. But someone who knew he was being transferred put the word out - the killer or killers had to know he was coming.

James 'Whitey' Bulger, right, is seen after a hearing in 2011 as he is escorted from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to a waiting vehicle at an airport in Plymouth, Massachusetts

These 1980s FBI handout file photos show Massachusetts mobster James 'Whitey' Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday

The entrance to USP Hazelton in West Virginia is seen in a file photo. Bulger had recently been transferred to the facility when he was killed

It may not be a coincidence that US Rep. Stephen Lynch is from Southie, Bulger's old turf.

The Massachusetts Democrat last year introduced the Confidential Informant Accountability Act - which calls for congressional oversight into the selection and use of confidential informants. It's possible that Bulger was set to open up to someone on Lynch's team with claims of abuses in the program.

Bulger's brother John told the Boston Globe on Tuesday that the family had not yet been notified of his death.

Meanwhile, a fellow inmate with Mafia connections is being investigated in the homicide, three sources briefed on the investigation told the Globe.

It is unclear who the suspect might be.

Notably, mobster Paul Weadick, 63, was sent to Hazelton this summer after his murder conviction alongside Francis 'Cadillac Frank' Salemme - Bulger's codefendant in a sweeping federal racketeering indictment in 1999.

Salamme and Weadick were convicted in June of the 1993 murder of Steven DiSarro, a nightclub owner in South Boston.

Bulger's right-hand man, Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi, was the star witness in the prosecution of Salamme and Weadick - though Flemmi also testified against Bulger himself in 2013.

Salamme, 85, is currently incarcerated in Brooklyn MDC.

Boston mobster Paul Weadick, 63, (left) was sent to Hazelton this summer after his murder conviction alongside Francis 'Cadillac Frank' Salemme (right). Bulger's former right-hand man Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi was a star witness against both men

James 'Whitey' Bulger holds John Martorano's youngest son, John Jr., during his Christening ceremony in this undated handout photo

Bulger lieutenant Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi is seen testifying in 1998 to how FBI agents recruited him as an informant and protected him from being indicted for 25 years

INSIDE 'MISERY MOUNTAIN': Whitey was the THIRD inmate murdered just this year at the troubled West Virginia prison Whitey Bulger is the third inmate to be killed in USP Hazelton just this year. In April a 48-year-old inmate named Ian Thorne was killed after he got into a fight with another prisoner. Both used homemade weapons during the altercation. Five months after Thorne was killed, another inmate was murdered. Demario Porter, 27, was killed in September during a fight with another prisoner. He had only arrived at Hazelton days beforehand. USP Hazelton is seen in an aerial shot. Bulger was found dead there on Tuesday Richard Heldreth, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 420, blamed the deaths on understaffing at the prison. He called it part of a 'very disturbing trend with increases in drugs and weapons being found at the complex'. Since January 2018, there have been more than 60 documented violent incidents at the prison, which has also been locked down nine times this year 'due to violence', Heldreth told the Preston County News & Journal. An interior is seen of FCI Hazelton, the minimum security camp attached to USP Hazelton. Bulger was found bludgeoned to death in the higher security facility on Tuesday 'It has become an every day occurrence,' he added. 'For example, there have been at least 11 weapons confiscated at the facility in the last two days that I have seen documentation of.' Heldreth argued that the prison had become far less safe since the Trump administration announced a federal hiring freeze in January 2017 and the Bureau of Prisons was asked to eliminate 6,000 unfilled jobs - including 127 at Hazelton. Advertisement

Buger was one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California.

Bulger arrived at Hazelton on Monday, and was found unresponsive at the prison at 8.20am on Tuesday, the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement

'Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff. Mr. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston County Medical Examiner,' the agency said.

The BOP said that no other staff or inmates were injured and that an investigation was underway.

In a statement, Bulger's lawyer J.W. Carney Jr blasted the prison system over the mobster's death.

'He was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty,' the statement read.

Arrested in 2011 after 16 years on the run, Bulger's life of crime has been the subject of several books and movies including 'Black Mass,' a biopic featuring Johnny Depp as the Irish-American mobster.

Bulger also provided the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's Irish-American mob boss character in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning 2006 gangster film 'The Departed.'

Bulger is pictured left and right in undated photos. He was one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California.

Whitey Bulger: Life and crimes of a mob kingpin Sept. 3, 1929: James Bulger is born to Irish immigrant parents living in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. He is the second of six children. His shock of platinum blonde hair earns him the nickname 'Whitey.' 1956: Whitey Bulger is sentenced to federal prison for bank robbery. After he's suspected of plotting an escape from one prison, he's transferred to Alcatraz. 1960: Bulger's younger brother, William, is elected to the state House of Representatives. John Connolly, a childhood friend from South Boston, works on the campaign. 1965: Bulger is released from prison returns to Boston. He becomes a top underling to local mobster Howie Winter, boss of the Winter Hill Gang. 1970: William Bulger is elected to the state Senate. 1975: Bulger cuts a deal with Connolly - now a Boston-based FBI agent - to provide information on the Italian Mafia in exchange for protection. 1978: William Bulger becomes president of the state Senate. 1981: Roger Wheeler, owner of World Jai Alai, a gambling enterprise from which Bulger was skimming money, is shot between the eyes in the parking lot of his country club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1982: Bulger and Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi gun down a former henchman in broad daylight on a South Boston street to silence him over the Wheeler murder. Connolly files a report with the FBI saying rival gangsters made the hit. July 1982: Flemmi and Bulger order a hit on John Callahan, the former president of World Jai Alai. January 1995: Bulger disappears on the eve of his indictment on racketeering charges. 1997: The FBI, under court order, admits that Bulger was a 'top echelon' informant launching a federal probe into the agency's corrupt ties to its mob informants. June 22, 2011: Bulger is arrested in Santa Monica, CA, with girlfriend Catherine Grieg. Aug 12, 2013: Bulger is found guilty of a raft of racketeering charges, including his role in 11 murders. Nov 13 2013: Bulger, aged 84 , is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus five years. Before announcing her sentence, the judge tells Bulger that the 'scope, callousness and depravity of your crimes are almost unfathomable.' She says they are made 'all the more heinous because they were all about money.' Oct. 30, 2018: Bulger is found dead inside USP Hazelton at 8.20am, the day after he was transferred to the federal prison in West Virginia. Advertisement

Boston-based reporter Michele McPhee was the first to break news that Bulger had been killed.

Richard Heldreth, the president of the corrections officers' union at Hazelton, told WVNews that a male inmate had been slain there overnight, but was unable to immediately confirm the inmate's identity.

Bulger had recently been moved Hazelton from a prison in Florida after a stint in a transfer facility in Oklahoma City.

Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined last week to comment on why he was being moved.

In the past seven months, there have been three homicides at Hazelton, with the officers' union blaming chronic under-staffing.

'This facility is severely understaffed,' the union president told the Globe.

Bulger was born in Boston on September 3, 1929, the son of a longshoreman and his first-generation Irish immigrant wife.

These 1953 Boston police booking photos shows James 'Whitey' Bulger after an arrest

A police evidence photo shows a car riddled with bullet holes in connection with one of the 19 murders Bulger was charged with. He was convicted of 11 murders

Bulger poses for a mugshot on his arrival at the Federal Penitentiary at Alcatraz on November 16, 1959 in San Francisco, California. Reports have emerged the gangster was slain in prison

The young crook was arrested as young as age 14, in 1943, when he began running with a street gang called the Shamrocks and was charged with larceny.

Police gave young Bulger the nickname 'Whitey' early in his criminal career, a reference to his blond hair. Bulger is said to have hated the monicker, but it stuck.

Bulger (above) ruled the South Boston underworld for 30 years with an iron fist

Following a stint in the Air Force, Bulger served his first federal prison sentence starting in 1956 on armed robbery and truck hijacking charges.

Bulger went on to rule the Boston underworld with an iron fist for nearly 30 years while also working as an informant for the FBI.

His deal with the FBI gave him virtual impunity to commit crimes - FBI agents later testified that Bulger had been allowed to commit any crime except for murder in exchange for information.

By 1995, his FBI protection wasn't enough to protect him from a sweeping federal indictment on obstruction of justice, racketeering, drug dealing and extortion charges.

After his FBI handler John Connolly tipped him off that the indictment was about to drop, Bulger went on the run with his girlfriend Catherine Grieg.

The pair ended up in Santa Monica, California, where they posed as married retirees from Chicago.

After al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011, Bulger succeeded him as No. 1 wanted fugitive on the FBI's 'Ten Most Wanted' list.

Catherine Greig and Whitey Bulger are seen in June 1998. They were on the run for 16 years, and posed as a retired couple from Chicago in Santa Monica

Who was Whitey Bulger's girlfriend Catherine Greig? Catherine Grieg was arrested alongside Bulger in Santa Monica in 2011 Catherine Greig was the longtime girlfriend of notorious Boston kingpin James 'Whitey' Bulger who was killed behind bars at the age of 89 on Tuesday. Greig, now 67, helped Bulger, who was wanted by the FBI, evade capture for 16 years and was arrested with her lover in Santa Monica, California on June 22, 2011. Prosecutors said that Greig had numerous opportunities to leave Bulger or report him, but she never did. Instead the couple posed as married retirees from Chicago. She was sentenced to eight years in jail in June 2012 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to harbor a fugitive, identity fraud, and conspiracy to commit identity fraud. Greig and Bulger started dating in the 1970s and lived together in Boston. She was 24 when they met - 22 years younger than Bulger. The couple are seen together in an undated photo which was used as evidence by Bulger's defense team in court in 2013 They went on the run in early 1995 and the two maintained their romance even as they were both arrested in 2011. In a heart-felt letter to his attorney after the arrest, Bulger wrote: 'My 16 years on the run were the happiest years of my life and hers. Memories sustain me.' 'If I met Catherine at a younger age I would have had a better life. She was the best thing that ever happened to me,' he added. In her plea deal she admitted she used aliases, unlawfully obtained identification documents and repeatedly helped Bulger obtain prescription medication from a pharmacy by claiming to be his wife. She was given eight years behind bars, and is currently detained at a minimum-security facility in Waseca, Minnesota with a projected release date in 2019. Advertisement

One of the many aliases Bulger used while on the run was that of James Lawlor, a man who Bulger found living on the street in the Los Angeles area.

The two men resembled each other so much that Bulger could use Lawlor's driver's license and other identity papers. In return, he paid Lawlor's rent, according to the Boston Globe.

Miss Iceland of 1974 was responsible for Bulger's capture. Anna Bjornsdottir, who had acted in U.S. television shows and commercials under the name Anna Bjorn, had lived near Bulger and girlfriend Catherine Greig in Santa Monica, California.

While she was visiting Iceland, she saw a news report about the authorities' hunt for Bulger. She recognized him as the quiet retiree she knew from Santa Monica and called the FBI, which arrested him in June 2011. Bjornsdottir later claimed a $2 million reward.

When police raided his Santa Monica apartment, they found several fiction and non-fiction books about criminals, including 'Escape From Alcatraz.'

View of the door of the apartment 303 of the Princess Eugenia building in Santa Monica, California on June 23, 2011, where James 'Whitey' Bulger was arrested the day prior

A 2011 photo shows bundles of cash seized from Whitey Bulger's apartment in Santa Monica, California, following his arrest after 16 years on the run

A cache of weapons (above) including a number of handguns, an assault rifle and a sawed-off shotgun, and bundles of cash were found during the search of his apartment in 2011

Police also found some $800,000 in cash and an arsenal of weapons in the modest apartment where Bulger and Greig had lived for years as Charles and Carol Gasko.

In his 2013 trial, Bulger was convicted of 11 murders, including the strangulation of a woman. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on a charge that he strangled a second woman. A witness said Bulger insisted that the women's teeth be pulled to obscure their identity.

Bulger refused to testify at his trial claiming he had been given immunity from prosecution by federal agents.

He steadfastly denied being an FBI informant, but close links between some FBI agents in Boston and Bulger's Winter Hill Gang in the 1970s and 1980s have been well documented.

James 'Whitey' Bulger sits at his sentencing hearing in federal court in Boston in this courtroom sketch from 2013. He received life in prison for his crimes

Former FBI agent John Connolly was sentenced to prison after being convicted in 2002 of effectively becoming a member of the gang.

His trial, which featured 72 witnesses and 840 exhibits, produced chilling testimony worthy of a pulp novel.

It heard harrowing tales of teeth being pulled from the mouths of murder victims to foil identification and the strangulation of a mobster's girlfriend who 'knew too much.'

A 12-person jury found Bulger guilty in Boston in 2013 of 31 separate charges.

'The scope, the callousness, the depravity of your crimes, is almost unfathomable,' Judge Denise Casper said at his sentencing.

Grieg was sentenced separately to eight years for aiding and abetting him.

Johnny Depp (above) portrayed James 'Whitey' Bulger in the 2015 film Black Mass

Johnny Depp portrayed Bulger in the 2015 movie 'Black Mass,' but the mobster's lawyer said Bulger had no interest in seeing it and he refused to meet or correspond with Depp while the actor was preparing for the role.

Mob films inspired by Whitey Bulger Black Mass: Johnny Depp portrayed Bulger during his years as an FBI informant. The Departed: Jack Nicholson's character Frank Costello was loosely based on Bulger Advertisement

Frank Costello, the character played by Jack Nicholson in the 2006 Academy Award-winning movie 'The Departed,' was based loosely on Bulger.

Bulger was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of a litany of crimes, including participating in 11 murders.

The son of one of Bulger's victims said he was glad to hear the news of the gangster's death.

'I'm surprised and pleased. I didn't think anyone was going to get to kill him. I thought he would die an old man in jail,' Tommy Donohue told Newsweek.

'This is happy news for our family.'

Michael Donahue's widow, Patricia Donahue, told CBS Bulger's murder brought relief to her family.

'We're very happy that the man is not here any longer because we don't have to hear his name again,' she said.

'Myself? I'd like to open up a champagne bottle and celebrate.'