who knows; we’ll find out tomorrow...
column ping sorry for delay
Rifleman’s ‘Fifth’ toll rises
By Howie Carr | Sunday, July 26, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Nine murders - that’s how many “unsolved” slayings serial killer Stevie Flemmi has been asked about in this latest mob trial in U.S. District Court here.
And nine times the wrinkly 75-year-old archfiend has replied in the same way.
“I’ll take the Fifth,” or words to that effect.
The mobster’s already doing life-plus for at least nine other murders. But he wouldn’t cop to any additional killings in this civil trial, where the families of some of his victims are suing the feds for coddling mass murderers, including the Rifleman and his dear pal Whitey Bulger.
So let’s go down this up-to-date account of the murders Flemmi refuses to discuss, lest he, ahem, possibly incriminate himself.
We begin with Punchy McLaughlin, Charlestown plug ugly. By the fall of 1965, Stevie had fallen in with crooked FBI agent H. Paul Rico, who was offended more than somewhat when he heard Punchy on an illegal wiretap referring to him and his G-man boss J. Edgar Hoover as “fags.”
Rico knew where Punchy was hiding out and how he was getting into Boston every morning for his brother’s murder trial. Punchy was taking the bus, because he hadn’t been able to drive since his right hand had been shot off in Brookline by gangsters dressed as rabbis a few months earlier.
One morning two guys caught up with Punchy on a bus in West Roxbury. Punchy had a revolver in a brown sandwich bag, but it’s tough to grab a gat quickly enough when you only have one meat hook. Sayonara Punchy.
Asked about the hit the other day, Stevie took the Fifth.
A year later, in October 1966, the McLaughlin gang was down to one capable hitman, Stevie Hughes . A car full of shooters caught up with Stevie and another hood, Sammy Lindenbaum, on Route 114 in Middleton. (Quite a gruesome photo of the sanguinary aftermath resides in the archives. Discretion keeps us from printing it here.)
Flemmi then reported back to FBI agent Rico that with Hughes dead, “the entire city is much more at ease.” When asked about the double murder this month, he took the Fifth.
Flemmi got his start in organized crime working for an older Roxbury hoodlum named Wimpy Bennett . Wimpy disappeared in January 1967 and Stevie alerted Rico that there was “absolutely no chance” that Bennett would be found alive.
In court when he was asked about Wimpy, Flemmi mentioned the Bill of Rights. Ditto with Wimpy’s older brother Walter, who according to Stevie’s report to his FBI cohort-in-crime was “ ‘taken out of the picture’ Monday evening 4/3/67.”
That left Billy Bennett . Just before Christmas 1967, Billy Bennett was picked up by a friend from Southie named Richard Grasso . A few minutes later Bennett was dead, shot in the head, his body up against a snowbank in Mattapan. A week later, Grasso’s body turned up in the trunk of his 1967 Buick Wildcat in Brookline, shot two times in the head.
Stevie Flemmi took the Fifth twice more.
Next to go was one Thomas Timmons, age 47. Rico reported in May 1968: “The reason that STEVIE FLEMMI had killed and buried TOMMY TIMMONS was that TIMMONS was very anti-Italian and indicated that he was going to blow up LANGONE’s funeral parlor when they were all at some ‘connected’ Italian wake.”
Stevie took the Fifth.
In September 1969, Stevie went on the lam to the West Coast with Frank Salemme and another member of the old Bennett gang named Peter Poulos, who had the misfortune of being a witness to Wimpy’s murder two years earlier. Two months later, Poulos’ bullet-riddled body was found in the desert outside Las Vegas. Salemme has since denied murdering Poulos. The other day, Stevie took the Fifth.
The lawyers probably could have asked the Rifleman about a few other murders from a few other decades, but nine are enough to make the point, don’t you think?
In Boston, until well into the 1990s, the F and the B in FBI stood for Flemmi - and Bulger.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1187139
At the start of HC’s show yesterday they played an intro with old(er) news bits and it ended with “oh where oh where has Howie gone, oh where oh where can he be?” I thought,
uh oh, maybe he isn’t coming back today after all and we’re
about to get Col. Hunt or a rerun. But no, they just played the wrong intro.
Remember the case of the 18 yr old in Saugus who ran over an elderly woman while driving drunk after the “alcohol free” prom?
>>But according to the four defendants’ statements to police, they decided to continue partying. After driving to Vokey’s house, where Baldwin picked up nearly a case of beer, the four headed to Nahant Beach. At the beach, Vokey’s girlfriend arrived and picked him up, leaving Baldwin, Palomba, and Caruso with the beer.
>>According to their statements, Baldwin and Palomba each consumed about five beers, and Caruso drank as many as six. The three were at the beach for about two hours. When they got into Caruso’s car, Baldwin asked Caruso if he was “good.’’ Caruso responded, “Ya.’’
>>Moments later, police said, Caruso hit Carol Marean, who had been walking her dog with her daughter, Charlotte, 41, near Essex and Grove streets in Saugus. Marean was killed, and her daughter has since recovered from critical injuries.
Caruso told authorities at the scene that he had been drinking and that he had probably fallen asleep at the wheel.
>>According to statements Baldwin made to police, which were entered into court records, Caruso looked up immediately after the accident and said, “What happened, not a problem.’’ Baldwin said he told Caruso he had just hit two people and Caruso responded, “No way, really?’’