Whitey Bulger Finally Arrested

Kennebec Journal (AP):

Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger was captured near Los Angeles after spending the last 16 years on the run during an epic manhunt that served as a major embarrassment to the FBI and made the fugitive a global sensation as he constantly found a way to elude authorities.


The FBI finally caught the 81-year-old Bulger Wednesday at a residence in Santa Monica along with his longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig, just days after the government launched a new publicity campaign to locate the fugitive mobster, said Steven Martinez, FBI's assistant director in charge in Los Angeles. The arrest was based on a tip from the campaign, he said.
The FBI had been conducting surveillance in the area where the arrest was made, said police Sgt. Rudy Flores, who gave no details of the arrest.
FBI agents swarmed around Bulger's building late Wednesday, hours after the arrests in a neighborhood of two and three-story apartment buildings.
Bulger lived on the third floor of The Princess Eugenia, a three-story, 28-unit building of one and two-bedroom apartments three blocks from a bluff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Neighbors said the couple did not stand out.
Barbara Gluck, who lives on the same floor as Bulger and Greig, said she didn't know their names but recognized them from photos on the Internet after she heard about their arrest.
Gluck described Greig as "sweet and lovely" and said they would have "girl talk" when they ran into each other in the building. Bulger became angry whenever he saw the two of them talking, and would say, "Stop talking to her," Gluck said.

16 years after being tipped off by the FBI agent working his case, Whitey Bulger is under arrest.  I can't say that spending your early retirement on the lam is in any way worse than being in prison, but I don't think he'll be able to avoid prison now unless he pulls off a jail break or commits suicide.  While the trial will bring into the media a lot of headlines embarrassing to the FBI, at least they finally found him, and can close a long, sordid chapter of FBI and Beantown history.