Dirty Rats

The St. Patrick's Day breakfast in South Boston was Billy Bulger's annual tribute to himself. Whether it was presidents, governors or corrupt FBI agents, attendance was mandatory. But despite the music and the corned beef and cabbage, there was always an unmentioned presence in the hall-- Whitey.

Det. Mike Huff was quickly realizing that the murder of Roger Wheeler was unlike any case he had ever covered in Tulsa.

Mike Huff was a 25-year-old cop from Tulsa, Oklahoma. His career had barely begun when he embarked on a case that would change the trajectory of his entire life. It all started with the brutal murder of a millionaire tech-company CEO in the parking lot of the most exclusive golf club in the state.

John Callahan was getting closer to the gangsters from Boston. He was constantly searching for excitement in his life and these were the kind of guys he had always seen in movies.

John Callahan had a loving wife and two children. He was a successful businessman who worked everywhere from Ernst & Young to Arthur Andersen. And yet, even as his family grew and his career excelled, John was restless. And that restlessness would cost him dearly.

Joe Malone was the reform candidate elected treasurer of Massachusetts in 1990, just as the story of Whitey and Billy  Bulger's  sordid deeds was beginning to become public.

Why did Billy Bulger suspect that his serial-killing fugitive brother would be murdered if he were captured by the FBI? In this week's podcast, the former Senate president presciently predicts the future at a Congressional hearing -- more than 15 years before Whitey Bulger would be murdered at a federal prison in West Virginia.

As one of the lead prosecutors in Whitey Bulger's 2013 trial, Brian Kelly gained firsthand insight into the mind of one of America's most wanted criminals. Kelly faced one of the most notorious serial killers in the courtroom, confronting him with his own past so that a jury could determine his future.

It was June 19, 2003 and Billy Bulger was under oath. The powerful politician would finally have to answer questions on live TV from appalled congressmen about his fugitive brother, Whitey.

The address was 799 East Third Street, where Whitey Bulger set up a murder assembly line. It was the 1980's and Bulger and his bloodthirsty crew were selling cocaine, running guns, extorting other gangsters and killing young women...and burying the bodies in the basement of a little house in South Boston.

John "Zip" Connolly was perhaps the most corrupt special agent in the tawdry history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

At age 17, Deb Davis made the mistake of hooking up with the bloodthirsty underworld partner of Whitey Bulger -- Stevie "the Rifleman" Flemmi -- and it would cost her her life.

Billy Bulger will be largely remembered for something mostly out of his control: his brother, Whitey. Dirty Rats begins with the story of two brothers who grew up in the Old Harbor Village housing project in South Boston, but it certainly doesn't end there...