This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

James “Whitey” Bulger, the notorious Boston gangster who became one of America’s most wanted fugitives, has died in prison.

The 89-year-old Bulger was found dead on Tuesday morning at the Hazelton penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said. Staff attempted “life-saving measures”, but Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston county medical examiner.

The FBI is investigating Bulger’s death.

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The Boston Globe reported that Bulger was killed and a fellow inmate with mafia ties is being investigated.

Bulger was found dead only a day after he arrived at the West Virginia prison. The penitentiary is a high-security facility with 1,270 male prisoners. “No staff or other inmates were injured, and at no time was the public in danger,” the Bureau of Prisons said.

Bulger, who lived a double life as a mobster and as a secret FBI informant, and then became one of the country’s most-wanted fugitives, was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of a litany of crimes, including participating in 11 murders.

Whitey Bulger a 'little sociopath' who caused 'grotesque carnage' – prosecutor Read more

He was also convicted of racketeering, extortion and other crimes for his role in running a wide-ranging criminal enterprise centered in the city’s South Boston neighborhood.

Bulger’s Winter Hill gang terrorized and cultivated friends in the mostly American Irish neighborhood, running gambling rings and extortion and loan sharking schemes and enforcing their dominance through violence and murder.

The gang operated with secret help from inside the FBI, as Bulger helped to rat out the Italian mafia in Boston, his own gang’s main rival and a prized target for federal authorities.

Bulger was played by Johnny Depp in the 2015 film Black Mass. But many elements of his dangerous lifestyle and fellow “Southie” denizens were also closely paralleled in Martin Scorsese’s multi-oscar-winning 2006 film The Departed, starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon.

Bulger evaded authorities for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California. He went on the lam in 1994 after FBI agent John Connolly Jr, who had for years tipped him off about investigations, warned him he was about to be indicted.

During his years on the run, authorities placed a $2m reward on his head and placed him on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list just below Osama bin Laden.

Bulger’s life as a fugitive finally came to an end when a tip from a former Miss Iceland led authorities to find him in Santa Monica, where he had been living with a longtime girlfriend. The former beauty queen, Anna Bjornsdottir, was a neighbor who recognized Bulger from a television report and notified the FBI. She earned the $2m reward.

A cache of weapons and more than $800,000 in cash was found hidden in Bulger’s apartment. He initially denied his identity, but then told authorities: “You know who I am. I’m Whitey Bulger.”

His girlfriend, Catherine Greig, was also arrested and charged with helping him evade authorities.

At a 2013 trial, prosecutors painted the picture of a brutal criminal who strangled two women with his hands and tortured a man for hours before shooting him in the head with a machine gun.

Bulger was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison, plus five years. He had recently been moved from a prison in Florida to a transfer facility in Oklahoma and then moved again to the prison in West Virginia.