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This photo provided by Urban Culture Auctions in West Palm Beach, Florida, shows a handwritten letter from the late gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, an envelope and a greeting card depicting his 1959 Alcatraz photograph, which Bulger has mailed to the federal government. Coleman Prison, Florida, 2015. These items are among those offered by the auction house on Sunday, February 24, 2019. Bulger was found dead in a wheelchair on October 30, 2018, killed by detainees in an hour of his transfer to a Hazelton prison, WV He was 89 years old. (Darin Rone / Sales to urban cultures via AP)
BOSTON – Blocked for life after 16 years of flight, Boston's murderous gang leader, James "Whitey" Bulger, could not stand how much the world around him had changed.
The prison was nothing like his days in Alcatraz, with his "magnificent view" and well-defined rules, said Bulger. And the former Irish Catholic bastion south of Boston that he had terrorized was now filled with "affluent college students living in luxury condos".
"The world has changed … everything is different, even the neighborhood," wrote Bulger to a friend encountered in the blockage in new public letters.
The letters, which are auctioned Sunday, give a glimpse of the mundane life behind bars of the once dreaded and feared gangster, before he was beaten to death by fellow inmates last year. Bulger wrote about the small emotions of life in prison: "Tonight we had an ice cream cone!" – and his treatment by other inmates.
"Almost every time I go anywhere, guys ask me" Hey old, you want a push "… or you just grab the handles and start pushing," Bulger wrote in a letter bearing the Postmark in February 2015. "One advantage is that we can go to the front of the shock line if in a wheelchair".
Authorities said two Massachusetts gangsters were under investigation for the murder of Bulger, 89, but no one was charged. His death, a few hours after his transfer to a troubled prison in West Virginia, raised questions as to why the known "snitch" was placed in the general population rather than in more protective dwellings.
Authorities said Bulger had criticized the New England mob at the FBI, although he insisted throughout his trial that he was not an informant but that he was not an informer. He was paying the FBI for his actions against his enemies.
The auction house received letters from a man who says that he became friends with Bulger when the geriatric gangster was briefly detained in a federal prison in Brooklyn after being convicted in 2013 of To have participated in 11 murders, among other crimes.
This man, Timothy Glass, said that he had taken Bulger under his wing and that they had bonded over their criminal past. Glass recalled how Bulger would sign autographs for detainees who asked him, but who tended to give a "death gaze" to guys he did not like.
"I thought to myself," This guy is a very cold killer, he's about 80 years old. "It was wild," said 55-year-old Associated Press Glass.
Glass was incarcerated for theft and other charges when he met Bulger after spending more than ten years in a New York State prison for separate crimes, he said. Detainees were not allowed to write. So, after Bulger's transfer to a different prison, he would send the letters to a friend outside, who would bring them to Glass, he explained.
In the letters, Bulger complained about the cost of books ("32 dollars for the book!"), Cold Weather ("All Liberals like VP Gore made a fortune with his scary men talking about" global warming "" ) and the media, which he described as "an integral part of corruption instead of" watchdogs "of society" ".
He murmured about his trial, criticized the prosecutors for the business they had made with his old friends and promised that his appeal would "create a stir." He also lamented what he saw as the unfair treatment inflicted on his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Grieg, sentenced to eight years in prison for helping Bulger avoid capture.
"I played a tough game and I accepted rough treatment, but I feel that Catherine has been treated too harshly," wrote Bulger.
He spoke at length about his stint at "The Rock" – Alcatraz – where the rules were "clear and understandable" and where the inmates were allowed to take Christmas to buy chocolate, which they would share with prisoners who n & # 39; 39 were not supposed to have candy.
"Here they," the "inmates" would sell you chocolate! At the time, nobody was trying to make a profit on another convict, "he wrote." I look at these years and this place with nostalgia. Everything is gone. "
In some letters were pictures of Bulger in his youth or Alcatraz. On the back of one of the photos – a photo taken in 1965, the year Bulger was released from prison and returned to South Boston – he scribbled: "the good old days".
In another letter, Bulger included a greeting card that he had apparently fabricated in 2015 with the message to the golden text: "I wish you peace and joy for the New Year." Next to the gay greeting is Bulger's mughothot on Alcatraz, his piercing blue eyes narrowing and his brows frowning.
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Follow Alanna Durkin Richer at http://www.twitter.com/aedurkinricher
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