Good Riddance

Wheelchair-bound Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger Jr. has been beaten to death in a savage attack by fellow federal inmates.

Bulger was found dead by guards on Tuesday morning at USP Hazelton, a high-security federal prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He was 89.  Bulger was in general population when three inmates rolled his wheelchair to a corner out of view of surveillance cameras, beat him in the head with a lock in a sock, and attempted to gouge his eyes out with a shiv.

The former head of south Boston's 'Winter Hill Gang', Bulger was convicted in 2013 of killing at least 11 people and was serving two life sentences at the time of his death.

It emerged in Bulger's 2013 trial that he had served as an FBI informant as far back as 1975, though he always denied it. The deal gave Bulger virtual impunity to commit any crime he wanted for decades - except for murder.  Jack Nicholson's character in the 2006 film "The Departed" was based on Bulger.

Law enforcement sources say that Bulger, at the time of his death, had been talking about outing people in the top echelon of the controversial FBI informant program.  The same sources claim he hadn't even been processed at the West Virginia facility when he was killed. But someone who knew he was being transferred put the word out - the killer (or killers) had to know he was coming-- and they were obviously prepared.