He Quit Whitey Bulger's Gang And Almost Didn't Live To Tell

Howie Carr, author and columnist for the Boston Herald, is covering the Whitey Bulger trial.

Billy Shea is the hood who got away — from prison, from the cops and, most of all, from Whitey Bulger.

Or maybe Whitey Bulger is the guy who got away from Billy Shea.The two gangsters met yesterday for the first time in almost 30 years, the 74-year-old Shea on the witness stand just a few feet away from his old boss, to whom he often addressed his answers, starting with, “Jim ...”  

Shea was a self-described paranoid ex-con when he met Bulger in 1977. Less than a decade later, he was running Whitey’s multimillion-dollar drug operation.

But then Shea wanted out, and relations deteriorated to the point where he found Whitey, Stevie Flemmi and Kevin Weeks knocking on his front door at 262 E Street.

“This is the first time I’ve ever talked to Jim with someone else around, and now he’s got Stevie Fleming — that was his street name — who’s just as dangerous as Jim. I ran upstairs and got a gun.”

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/howie_carr/2013/07/carr_he_quit_whitey_s_gang_and_almost_didn_t_live_to_tell

Note: The above photos of James "Whitey" Bulger were released by the FBI.