Gangland serial slayer James "Whitey" Bulger is back on the move. 
 
 The 89-year-old notorious South Boston mob boss convicted of being complicit in 11 murders in Massachusetts, Florida and Oklahoma has been relocated again by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to its high-security penitentiary USP Hazelton in West Virginia, according to the BOP's inmate locator. 
 
 The facility houses 1,277 maximum-security inmates and is located in Bruceton Mills. 
 
 It is unclear why Bulger, who is serving life, is suddenly being moved around. Though his health issues have been well documented, Hazelton is not a federal medical center for inmates requiring long-term care. 
 
 The Herald reported last week he had been relocated from a penitentiary in Florida to one in Oklahoma, which often serves as a temporary stop for inmates in transit. 
 
 Bulger's dark life story has inspired several films, including "The Departed," which won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2006. 
 
 He was convicted in U.S. District Court in South Boston in 2013. 
 
 He and girlfriend Catherine Greig were captured in 2011 while living in Santa Monica, Calif. 
 
 Greig, 67, remains incarcerated at a federal women's prison in Minnesota. She is scheduled to be released on Sept. 29, 2020. 
 
 Greig pleaded guilty in 2012 to identity fraud and harboring the fugitive Bulger. She pleaded guilty to criminal contempt in 2016 for refusing to cooperate with authorities against him. 
 
 Greig is serving an eight-year sentence. 

 FILE - These 1980s FBI handout file photos show Massachusetts mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - These 1980s FBI handout file photos show Massachusetts mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (FBI via AP, File) (Associated Press) 
 
 BOSTON (AP) — James "Whitey" Bulger, the murderous Boston gangster who benefited from a corrupt relationship with the FBI before spending 16 years as one of America's most wanted men, died in federal prison. He was 89. 
 
 Bulger was found unresponsive Tuesday morning at the U.S. penitentiary in West Virginia where he'd just been transferred, and a medical examiner declared him dead shortly afterward, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Authorities did not immediately release a cause of death but said the FBI was notified and is investigating. 
 
 Bulger, the model for Jack Nicholson's ruthless crime boss in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie, "The Departed," led a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets. He also was an FBI informant who ratted on the New England mob, his gang's main rival, in an era when bringing down the Mafia was a top national priority for the FBI. 
 
 Bulger fled Boston in late 1994 after his FBI handler, John Connolly Jr., warned him he was about to be indicted. With a $2 million reward on his head, Bulger became one of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" criminals, with a place just below Osama bin Laden. 
 
 When the extent of his crimes and the FBI's role in overlooking them became public in the late 1990s, Bulger became a source of embarrassment for the FBI. During the years he was a fugitive, the FBI battled a public perception that it had not tried very hard to find him. 
 
 After more than 16 years on the run, Bulger was captured at age 81 in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living in a rent-controlled apartment near the beach with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. 
 
 In 2013, he was convicted in the slayings, as well as extortion, and money-laundering after a sensational racketeering trial that included graphic testimony from three former Bulger cohorts: a hit man, a protege and a partner. He was sentenced nearly five years ago to two consecutive life sentences plus five years. 
 
 Bulger had just been moved to USP Hazelton, a high-security prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He had been in a prison in Florida before a stopover at a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney had declined to comment on why he was being moved. 
 
 Bulger, nicknamed "Whitey" for his bright platinum hair, grew up in a gritty South Boston housing project and became known as one of the most ruthless gangsters in Boston. His younger brother, William Bulger, became one of the most powerful politicians in Massachusetts, leading the state Senate for 17 years. 
 
 In working-class "Southie," Jim Bulger was known for helping old ladies across the street and giving turkey dinners to his neighbors at Thanksgiving. He had a kind of Robin Hood-like image among some locals, but authorities said he would put a bullet in the brain of anyone who he even suspected of double-crossing him. 
 
 "You could go back in the annals of criminal history and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone as diabolical as Bulger," said Tom Duffy, a retired state police major who investigated Bulger. 
 
 "Killing people was his first option. They don't get any colder than him," Duffy said after Bulger was finally captured in June 2011. 
 
 Bulger was accused of strangling Debra Davis, the 26-year-old girlfriend of his partner, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, and Deborah Hussey, also 26, the daughter of Flemmi's common-law wife. In both cases, Bulger insisted on pulling out the women's teeth so they would be difficult to identify, Flemmi testified. 
 
 During a search of his Santa Monica apartment, agents found over $800,000 in cash and more than 30 guns, many hidden in holes in the walls. A property manager at the building said Bulger and Greig, who used the names Charles and Carol Gasko, had lived there for 15 years and always paid the rent-controlled rate of $1,145 a month in cash. 
 
 They were caught days after the FBI began a new publicity campaign focusing on Greig. The daytime TV announcements showed photos of Greig and noted that she was known to frequent beauty salons and have her teeth cleaned once a month. 
 
 A woman from Iceland who knew Bulger and Greig in Santa Monica saw a report on CNN about the latest publicity campaign and called in the tip that led agents to them. The Boston Globe identified the tipster as a former Miss Iceland, a former actress who starred in Noxzema shaving cream commercials in the 1970s. 
 
 Bulger, a physical fitness buff, had been taken to a Boston hospital from his jail cell at least three times, complaining of chest pains, since being brought back to Boston to stand trial. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report. 

 Within hours of his arrival at a federal prison in West Virginia, gangster James “Whitey” Bulger was beaten to death by inmates Tuesday in an attack that marks the final, brutal chapter in the life of one of Boston’s most notorious villains. 
 
 Two inmates were under investigation in the attack, including Fotios “Freddy” Geas, 51, a West Springfield Mafia hit man serving a life sentence for the 2003 slaying of the leader of the Genovese crime family in Springfield, according to several people briefed on the attack. The men were captured on video surveillance entering Bulger’s cell around 6 a.m., according to one of the people. 
 
 It was about two hours later that Bulger was found beaten, with his eyes nearly gouged out, the people said. 
 
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 Bulger, 89, was convicted in 2013 of participating in 11 slayings while running a sprawling criminal organization in Boston from the 1970s through the 1990s. 
 
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 Authorities provided few details about the killing or why Bulger, who was serving a life sentence, had been transferred to the US Penitentiary Hazelton, just weeks after a Washington, D.C., congresswoman had called for an investigation into conditions at the prison, where two other inmates had been killed this year. 
 
 Hazelton is a high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, W.Va., near the Maryland border, where tall brown grass grows by the side of the road. On Tuesday night, six officers, all of whom wore helmets and bulletproof vests, stood in front of two barriers that blocked off the meandering road toward the facility. 
 
 In a statement, the US Bureau of Prisons said Bulger was found unresponsive at the prison at 8:20 Tuesday morning. 
 
 “Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff. Mr. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston County medical examiner,” the agency said. No staff or other inmates were injured. 
 
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 Bulger had a long history as an FBI informant who provided information about his Mafia rivals to help protect his own violent criminal enterprise. To many, the circumstances of his death raised suspicions. 
 
 “Obviously it is very strange he got moved from one federal prison to another and ends up dead 24 hours after arriving there,” said Michael Von Zamft, a prosecutor in the Miami-Dade State Attorney's office and part of the team that sent Bulger’s FBI handler to prison for murder. 
 
 He said federal authorities’ investigation into Bulger’s death will need to determine “whether this just happens to be a coincidence or there is something more.” 
 
 As of late Tuesday, no charges had been announced in the attack. Geas and the other inmate had been placed in lockdown pending the investigation, according to a person familiar with the investigation. 
 
 Bulger had been sent to the West Virginia facility after a quick stop at an Oklahoma City transfer site. Before that, he had been incarcerated at a Florida prison for several years. His health had been declining, prompting speculation that he was going to be moved to a federal medical facility, according to a person familiar with his situation. 
 
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 Instead, he was sent to USP Hazelton. 
 
 “He was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty,” J.W. Carney Jr., Bulger’s defense lawyer in his federal trial, said in a statement. 
 
 Brian T. Kelly, a former federal prosecutor who was part of the team that prosecuted Bulger, said Bulger “lived a violent life and it’s not surprising that he would ultimately meet a violent death.” 
 
 “Prison is a violent place and informants are not too popular, so these things can obviously happen if proper precautions aren’t taken,” he said. “To suggest it’s a conspiracy of some sort by the government is preposterous. He was in prison for seven years and this would be one slow-moving conspiracy.” 
 
 Relatives of Bulger’s victims expressed little sympathy for the mobster, and some said it was just that Bulger died a violent death. 
 
 “There’s one less scumbag on this earth,” said Patricia Donahue, whose husband, Michael, was gunned down by Bulger along the Boston waterfront in 1982 while giving a ride home to the gangster’s intended target, Brian Halloran. 
 
 “They say you die the way you live, you know?” Donahue said. “I’m glad that he’s dead, and I’m glad that he died the way he did.” 
 
 Bulger was being held in the general population housing unit of the prison, according to the head of the union who represents workers at the prison. Billy St. Croix, whose sister was killed by Bulger and St. Croix’s father Stephen Flemmi, said he was surprised that authorities would place Bulger in the general population at a prison where Mafia members and associates were incarcerated. 
 
 “He obviously made a lot of enemies,” he said. “I get it, but it doesn’t give me or my family any comfort. It doesn’t bring my sister back.” 
 
 St. Croix said he and his mother felt sorry for Bulger’s family. 
 
 “I take no pleasure in his death. None.” 
 
 The prison has come under scrutiny in recent months. An inmate was killed in a fight in September, and another inmate was killed in a fight in April, according to the Associated Press. 
 
 Richard Heldreth, president of Local 420 of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents union workers at the prison, said the prison usually averages one murder a year, but problems have been getting worse. 
 
 “This facility is severely understaffed,” he said. 
 
 Earlier this month, District of Columbia Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton called for Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz to investigate “the alleged appalling conditions inmates are facing” at the prison. 
 
 “Serious allegations have been raised concerning brutal treatment of inmates housed in the Special Housing Unit,” Norton wrote in a letter to Horowitz. “Based on the evidence presented to my office, I believe that the federal employees serving in this facility have likely received inadequate training, are under-supported, and are being compelled to perform duties outside the scope of their positions and their training, which is leading to these horrific and entirely unacceptable outcomes.” 
 
 After a federal jury convicted Bulger in 2013, he was sent to a high-security penitentiary in Arizona but soon ran into trouble because of an inappropriate relationship with a female psychologist who was counseling him. In 2014, he was transferred to US Penitentiary Coleman II in Sumterville, Fla. He remained there until last week, when the recent transfers began. 
 
 It’s unclear why he was moved. One person familiar with the situation said Bulger’s health had declined, but another said he had also had disciplinary problems in Florida. The West Virginia prison is not a medical facility. 
 
 Bulger fled Boston just before his January 1995 racketeering indictment and was a fixture on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list until his capture in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011. He and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, had spent 16 years, passing themselves off as a retired couple, living in a rent-controlled apartment blocks from the beach. 
 
 Enrique Sanchez, who was maintenance supervisor at the Princess Eugenia complex where Bulger lived, said he was saddened by the news of Bulger’s death. 
 
 “I feel bad,” said Sanchez, now 70, in Spanish. “I’m going to remember him as a friend because that’s what he always was to me. Everyone is going to remember him according to the experiences they had with him. Those he [hurt] will be happy. But he was always good with me.” 
 
 Sanchez said he last heard from Bulger when Bulger wrote to him from prison in Arizona, saying he had been stabbed by other inmates, Sanchez said. 
 
 “ ‘I have to defend myself or they’ll kill me,’ ” Sanchez recalled Bulger writing. “I told him to take care of himself because there is not a lack of people who want to kill you.” 
 
 Sanchez said he tried writing him several times after that but the letters always came back. On Tuesday, Sanchez learned from his son that Bulger had died. 
 
 “This closes the chapter,” Sanchez said. “It’s the end of the novel.” 
 
 Brian MacQuarrie, Maria Cramer, John R. Ellement, Travis Andersen, Emily Sweeney, Matt Rocheleau, Martin Finucane and Jess Bidgood of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com . Follow her on Twitter @shelleymurph . Kevin Cullen can be reached at kevin.cullen@globe.com 

 BOSTON (CBS/AP) — Notorious Boston mobster Whitey Bulger was killed in a West Virginia prison Tuesday, sources told WBZ-TV I-Team chief correspondent Cheryl Fiandaca. He was 89 years old. 
 
 Read: Whitey Bulger Timeline: A Life Of Crime 
 
 Bulger had just been moved to USP Hazelton, a high-security prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Bruceton Mills. 
 
 The FBI is investigating the death and law enforcement sources tell CBS News that it appears Bulger was severely beaten by one or more of his fellow inmates shortly after his arrival at the federal prison in West Virginia on Monday. 
 
 In a statement Tuesday afternoon, the prison would only say Bulger was “found unresponsive” at 8:20 a.m. and that “life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff.” He was pronounced dead by the local medical examiner. 
 
 “The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified and an investigation has been initiated. No staff or other inmates were injured, and at no time was the public in danger,” the statement read. 
 
 According to the Boston Globe, a “fellow inmate with Mafia ties” was being investigated for Bulger’s death. 
 
 U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling said his office had received word of Bulger’s death and “our thoughts are with his victims and their families.” 
 
 Bulger had recently been moved from a prison in Florida to a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined last week to comment on why he was being moved. 
 
 Bulger was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of a litany of crimes, including participating in 11 murders. 
 
 “I’d like to open up a champagne bottle and celebrate,” Patricia Donahue told WBZ-TV Tuesday. Bulger was convicted of killing her husband Michael in 1982. 
 
 #WhiteyBulger and his thugs ruthlessly lured my dad’s friend Eddie Connors to a phone booth and shot him because he refused to pay protection money for his bar. Justice has been done, a little late IMO. — Priscilla Pilon (@PriscillaPilon) October 30, 2018 
 
 He was one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California. 
 
 Attorney J.W. Carney Jr. said he was proud to represent Bulger in his 2013 trial. “He was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions made by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty,” Carney said in a statement. 
 
 Bulger was born in South Boston during the Depression and got the nickname “Whitey” growing up for his blonde hair. A high school dropout, Bulger began a life of crime that eventually led to prison stays at Alcatraz and Leavenworth. But Whitey made it back to Boston where he slowly resumed a career in crime that led him to Somerville’s Winter Hill Gang, a rag-tag band of thieves that dabbled in stolen goods, bookmaking, extortion and drugs. 
 
 Photos: Bulger Through The Years 
 
 Bulger would eventually become an informant for the FBI, something he always denied, giving up information on his so-called friends that put them in jail while Whitey rose in the ranks of Boston’s organized crime. Even the city’s most powerful crime family, the Angiulos, would go to prison, based on information Bulger gave to the FBI. 
 
 Watch: Whitey Bulger Obituary 
 
 FBI agents overseeing Bulger as an informant later testified that Bulger could commit any crime, except murder, in exchange for information. With that, it’s believed Bulger made millions of dollars selling drugs and extorting drug dealers, all while staying out of jail while he ratted out other mobsters to his FBI handlers. 
 
 But by 1995, even Bulger’s friends in high places couldn’t keep him from an indictment – this time for obstruction of justice, racketeering, drug dealing and extortion. On the eve of the indictment, Bulger was tipped off by his FBI handler John Connolly. 
 
 Read: Keller: Whitey Bulger Poisoned Every Life He Touched 
 
 He went on the run with his girlfriend Catherine Greig, ending up in Santa Monica, California. 
 
 While he was on the run, Bulger was indicted for more than a dozen murders that prosecutors say happened during his reign of terror in Boston. Investigators say Bulger stashed millions in bank accounts around the country before he fled. 
 
 During 16 years on the run, Bulger was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. He was finally captured in June 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., where he had been living in a rent-controlled apartment near the beach with Greig. She was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping Bulger evade the law. She is currently being held in Minnesota and is due to be released in 2020. 
 
 “I think that at the end of the day the truth and justice caught up with him,” said Carmen Ortiz, former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. “I hope this is the end of a really sad chapter in Boston’s history.” 
 
 (© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
– Boston mobster Whitey Bulger has been found dead in prison at age 89. How he died remains unclear, but both the Boston Herald and Boston's WBZ report that he "was killed" shortly after being transferred to a prison in West Virginia. The Boston Globe spoke with three sources who said an inmate with links to the Mafia is being looked at for the murder. The official word is this: "The US Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of West Virginia and the FBI will be conducting an investigation into the death of James Bulger. No other information will be released at this time." Bulger had previously been imprisoned in Florida, and it was unclear why he'd been moved. Bulger, who was serving a life sentence, spent 16 years on the lam as a fugitive before his capture in 2011; the AP notes he appeared on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" criminals list just below Osama bin Laden. "My memory of him is anybody, good or bad, who had anything to do with him got hurt," a widow whose husband was murdered by Bulger's gang tells the Herald. "But he's a legend. Like Al Capone and Billy the Kid. He will always be remembered but in a bad way." Bulger gained notoriety leading the Winter Hill Gang, and his life of crime inspired movies including The Departed, an Oscar winner in 2006. (Bulger's girlfriend remains locked up.)