A feared gangster known as “The Rifleman” detailed for a jury on Friday a grisly string of nine killings he says reputed Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger ordered, approved or carried out with his own hands, including the strangling of the witness’ own girlfriend.
Stephen Flemmi said he set his girlfriend’s killing in motion when he blurted out to her something he should not have: that he and Bulger were FBI informants.
Bulger decided Debra Davis knew too much and strangled her in front of Flemmi, the once-loyal Bulger associate told a rapt jury at Bulger’s racketeering trial in federal court.
In rapid succession, the mob turncoat described Bulger’s alleged role in eight other killings during the 1970s and 1980s, when the two men were leaders of the Winter Hill Gang, Boston’s Irish mob.
On Thursday, when Flemmi began his testimony, he and Bulger snarled obscenities at each other in a staredown in court. However, on Friday, Bulger looked straight ahead and took notes on a legal pad during Flemmi’s testimony and did not appear to look at him.
In one of the slayings he recounted, Flemmi said he and Bulger sprayed a telephone booth with gunfire in 1975, killing bar owner Edward Connors, because he was “telling people Winter Hill business,” including details about an earlier murder committed by the gang.
Flemmi said another member of the gang had lured Connors to the telephone booth by telling him he would receive a call there at a certain time. Bulger and Flemmi were waiting for him, Flemmi said.
“We just stepped out from the side of the building — the garage — and shot him,” Flemmi said, matter-of-factly. “We just fired on him.”
Flemmi said Bulger emptied a double-barreled shotgun and a pistol, while Flemmi fired seven or eight shots.
As for the strangling of his girlfriend, Flemmi said he initially refused to go along with Bulger’s plan to kill Davis, whom he had been dating for years. He said Bulger told him to bring Davis to a house Flemmi had bought in South Boston. As soon as they walked in, Bulger grabbed her by the neck and strangled her as he carried her downstairs, Flemmi said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not