Whitey Bulger was ready to die.

That’s according to the former warden of the Florida prison where the 89-year-old crime boss was housed before being shipped off to a West Virginia lockup — where the Boston gangster was found bludgeoned to death less than 12 hours later, NBC News reported Monday.

“Quite frankly, I think he wanted to die,” said Charles Lockett, the former warden of Coleman II, a high-security penitentiary in Sumterville. “I think whatever issues he had, he had come to peace with them.”

Lockett said Bulger was suffering from severe chest pains prior to the transfer, prompting a prison nurse to determine he needed to see an outside physician following a series of tests. But that didn’t sit well with the notorious gangster, who, in turn, refused that suggestion and then threatened the nurse, leading to his fateful transfer to the Hazelton federal prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.

“It’s a tragedy, but I don’t think anyone was deficient in their duty,” Lockett said in his first comments on the matter.

Prison records obtained by NBC News show that Bulger was placed in his cell at 9:53 p.m. after arriving at the West Virginia facility on Oct. 30, 2018. Less than 12 hours later, at 8:21 a.m., he was found beaten to death by prison staffers. He was pronounced dead at 9:04 a.m. of “blunt force injuries to the head,” according to his death certificate.

Bulger was fatally beaten with a padlock wrapped in a sock.

His death has been ruled a homicide but no one has been charged. The killing of the former mob boss — who was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in 2013 of 11 murders, extortion and other crimes — took place as inmates in his housing unit were headed to the dining hall for breakfast, prison staffers told NBC News.

Lockett said the aging gangster’s four years at Coleman were largely unremarkable, except for being cited for masturbating in front of a staffer in 2015. But three years later, Bulger’s heart issues led to a confrontation with a nursing supervisor that ultimately led to his transfer, Lockett said.

“She pressed him to go see the doctor, and he got mad about it,” Lockett said. “He told her point blank, ‘I know people. I still have connections back home.’”

Inmates cannot be forced to receive medical treatment, Lockett said, so staffers closely monitored Bulger, whose chest pains later improved. But the threat still lingered and needed to be addressed, so Bulger was placed in solitary confinement, according to the former warden.

“If you know Whitey Bulger, he does have connections,” Lockett said. “We were in fear for her safety.”

Bulger, for his part, had disputed that account, saying in prison records obtained by the New York Times that the nurse “gave [him] a heart attack due to yelling” at him.

“It was all blown out of proportion,” Bulger said after the incident. “I didn’t threaten her.”

Two months later, officials at Coleman II tried to transfer Bulger to a prison hospital, but that request was denied, NBC News reported, citing prison records. Bulger’s medical care level was then changed to indicate that his health had improved, despite him suffering from aortic stenosis, high blood pressure and prostate and bladder issues, documents show.

Current and former prison employees with knowledge of the medical classification system said Bulger’s care level should not have been changed — a move that made his transfer to West Virginia easier.

But Lockett insisted the move was made simply because Bulger refused to see a specialist for his ills.

“They couldn’t make a decision whether he was sick or not,” Lockett told NBC News. “He didn’t want any medical care whatsoever, which is sad. If he would have agreed to go see a specialist, he probably would have gone to another medical facility. But the fact that he refused to see a medical specialist is what created these issues.”

A spokesman for the inspector general’s office declined comment when asked if an investigation had been launched into Bulger’s transfer. Federal authorities investigating Bulger’s murder also declined to comment, NBC News reported.