& # 39; Whitey & # 39; Bulger killed with a "lock-in-the-sock", looked at the mafia killer, according to officials

Federal law enforcement officials say gangster James "Whitey" Bulger was killed by a "lock-in-the-sock" during a gruesome attack on his cell, officials said. law enforcement at NBC News.

Bulger, 89, was repeatedly beaten when several inmates attacked him the morning of his arrival at Hazelton Federal Penitentiary in West Virginia, two sources said Wednesday.

The weapon allegedly used to kill Bulger, a longtime FBI informant, consists of a padlock inside a sock and brandished as a mass.

Officials told NBC News that federal investigators were considering several potential suspects during Tuesday's assassination, including a well-known New England Mafia hitman.

Inmate, Fotios "Freddy" Geas, 51, is serving a life sentence for the 2003 murder of the Genoese crime family leader in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Geas' lawyer, David Hoose, described it as someone who hated turners.

"Freddy has always been a guy standing up," Hoose said. "He would not accept anyone, he did not like or respect anyone who was a rat."

But Geas' father, in a brief phone interview with NBC News, said he doubted that his son was involved in the murder of Bulger.

"I do not believe it," said Fotios Geas Sr. "This is not his kind of thing to do."

Geas Sr. has hung up the phone without further details.

The FBI and the US Attorney's Office in the Northern District of West Virginia are investigating the murder.

Reached Wednesday, the FBI declined to comment. A spokesman for US lawyer Bill Powell did not return a comment request.

It was not clear why Bulger had been transferred from a Florida prison to West Virginia penitentiary, where two other inmates had been killed during violent altercations earlier this year.

Bulger arrived Monday after a brief stop at an Oklahoma transshipment center.

For more than three decades from the 1970s, Bulger controlled the streets of South Boston where he was known for his ruthlessness towards his rivals and his Robin Hood image for local residents.

Bulger also worked closely with the FBI, providing advice to the federal authorities that resulted in the arrest of mobsters who encountered him or her.

Bulger disappeared in December 1994 after a corrupt FBI agent warned him of an imminent indictment.

He remained on the run for 16 years before being finally captured by federal agents in 2011. Bulger was living with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, in a modest apartment stuffed with money and money. an arsenal of more than 30 weapons.

Two years later, he was convicted of having participated in 11 murders and several other crimes, including extortion, money laundering and drug trafficking. Bulger, then 83, was sentenced to two life sentences and five years.