True story of killer mafia boss in Johnny Depp movie

Crime lord’s former protégé shares memories of the Irish Godfather 

An unrecognisable Johnny Depp in full make-up for new role

JOHNNY DEPP was sitting in his make-up chair being transformed from heart-throb to balding Irish mob boss when a guest was ushered in to his trailer.

John “Red” Shea was a former friend of the real-life gangster being played by the star, and had been brought in to give the actor his memories of the vicious killer. But after seeing James “Whitey” Bulger appearing before him, the ex-con was in no mood to talk.

Speaking exclusively to The Sun Red said: “I had not seen Whitey in almost 20 years and suddenly he is sitting in front of me.

“I knew it was Johnny Depp, but I had this urge to hit him. I could feel all the emotions building up inside me and had to leave the trailer. 

“If I had stayed there I would have hit Johnny. “Outside I was just so angry, I was shaking and felt like punching the trailer.

 That’s how convincing Johnny was. He was Whitey.” Depp, 52, is winning rave reviews for his role as the former leader of the Irish mafia in Boston in new film Black Mass.
Bulger ruled the city’s streets in the Eighties and early Nineties with a combination of murder and fear.
Red, now 50, used to be his protégé and helped him run a vast drug-smuggling operation  but despite their closeness he was scared too.

He recalled: “Whitey was the king of kings, the Irish Godfather and one of the most dangerous and cunning guys around. “Whitey could be very charismatic and a great friend.

He taught me a lot but he could also be very vicious. Once he lost his temper, then mercy on the person he was angry with. They would be lucky to get out alive.

“Whitey had such a fearsome reputation that people were terrified just being around him. “He had got to the top by knowing who to befriend and who to betray.” He had also been helped into the kingpin position by a dodgy local FBI team which ensured he was free to run his empire without trouble from the law, in return for informing on a rival Italian Mafia family.

Violent Boston gangster ... Whitey Bulger

While his enemies were arrested or killed, Bulger and his Winter Hill Gang raked in cash from their illegal activities  some of which he used to ship weapons to the IRA. He was not even bothered by authorities over the many grisly murders he either ordered to be carried out or did himself.

Victims were smashed in the skull with an ice pick, strangled, blasted to death with a shotgun or shot, execution style, in the back of the head.

Boston cops were desperate to bring him to justice but every time they tried to collar Bulger the FBI would shut down the case. Former detective Jim Carr, who ran an organised crime squad with partner Frank Dewan, pursued Bulger relentlessly for years  to no avail.

Crime boss ... in prison uniform

He told The Sun: “It was crushing. Of course we suspected he was being protected by the FBI but we didn’t realise how deep it ran.” Now retired, Jim, 69, continued: “We once stopped Whitey because we received a tip-off that he was carrying a gun that had been used in a murder.


“When we saw him leave a liquor store we pounced. I patted him down and Whitey’s head came up to my neck. His thin, white lips quivered with rage. “He was livid. He told me this was the first time any Boston cop had put their hands on him.” Finally, in 1994, police combined forces with the US Drug Enforcement Agency to launch an investigation into Bulger’s criminal activities.

The FBI was not told anything about it because of suspicions they would tip off Whitey. Then, when an arrest was imminent, a retired FBI agent got wind of the move and told Bulger, who fled along with long-time girlfriend Catherine Greig, 22 years his junior.

The pair ended up on the run for 16 years. Shamed FBI bosses were now desperate to find their former informant, with Whitey listed as the second most wanted man in America behind Osama Bin Laden.

Red, who gained his nickname due to his ginger hair and who ended up serving a 12-year jail sentence for drug smuggling, reckoned his old boss would never be caught. He knew Bulger had stockpiled cash and calculated he would now spend it on plastic surgery to disguise his identity or to set up home far away from the US.

So nobody could have been more surprised when Bulger and his girlfriend were found in 2011, living in a flat in Santa Monica, California  although, admittedly, a flat stocked with 30 guns and £500,000 in cash.
Cunning authorities had begun running TV adverts with computer-generated photos of how the by-then 81-year-old Bulger and Greig, 64, might look. They also mentioned that Greig was thought to love visiting beauty salons.

Greig was recognised by a former Miss Iceland living in Santa Monica, who call the feds.

The pair meekly surrendered as cops raided and Bulger was sent back to his old hunting ground of Boston to face justice. It was the end of a life of crime which had begun on the city’s streets before he was a teen. The son of Irish immigrants, the rest of his family were bright and law-abiding, his two younger brothers excelling at school.

But Bulger became a thief, street fighter, then a gang member, forger and armed robber. The lad’s shock of platinum hair was soon so well known to cops that they gave him the nickname Whitey.

That soon became the name which would inspire so much fear across Boston as he worked his way through the ranks of Irish mafia. In June 2013, with what was left of his hair now pure white, he stood trial on 48 charges including 19 counts of murder.

One of those who testified against him was old colleague Red. He had been appalled to learn that Bulger had been informing on fellow criminals to the FBI.
Red explained: “While I was in prison there were rumours that Whitey was a rat. I didn’t believe them and would have killed anyone who said it. I might have been a criminal but I had a code, and that was a code of silence.
“But when Whitey disappeared and went on the run it all came out that he had been an FBI informant for years.

“It was like being hit with a sledgehammer.” Bulger was found guilty of 11 of the murders and is now serving two life sentences. Aged 86, he refused to talk to Depp about the film, which also stars Benedict Cumberbatch as one of Bulger’s brothers and Dakota Johnson as former lover Lindsey Cyr.

But for the families of his victims, the movie is a welcome chance for the world to find out what they have known for decades. Patricia Donahue, 70, whose husband Michael was shot dead by Bulger in 1982, told The Sun: “I want the film to show what he was, a despicable murderer who ruined lives.”

While many of Bulger’s victims were criminals, several were innocently caught in the crossfire, such as truck driver Michael. The hard-working dad of three young sons was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He had offered a lift to his friend Brian Halloran, who had told the FBI about a murder Bulger had committed.

Bulger was told about Halloran by his corrupt FBI handler and ambushed him  with Michael being murdered simply because he was in the same car. Patricia made sure she was in court when her husband’s killer finally faced justice more than 30 years after the murder

She said: “I wanted to look at the man who had changed my whole life in a blink of an eye. “I had nothing but contempt for the man and hated him for what he did. “He looked pathetic sitting there. He would not even face me.

“I have learned to live with what happened but my sons despise him and even after all these years are still full of anger. They hate him.”