(CNN) Notorious mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger was brutally beaten in the fatal attack Tuesday at the Hazelton prison in Bruceton Mills, according to law enforcement officials. 
 
 The South Boston mobster, 89, died a day after he was transferred there from another facility -- the victim of the kind of brutality he once handed out. 
 
 At the time of the killing, Bulger was in the general prison population, which gave inmates easy access to him, according to a federal law enforcement official, who has knowledge of the investigation. 
 
 Bulger was found unresponsive at 8:20 a.m., and was pronounced dead after failed lifesaving measures, prison officials said. 
 
 Investigators believe he was attacked by more than one person. At least one of the inmates involved has ties to organized crime in Massachusetts, the official said. 
 
 Read More 

 Mob Boss Whitey Bulger Beaten to Death in Prison ... Eyes Gouged 
 
 Boston Crime Boss Whitey Bulger Beaten to Death in Prison at 89 
 
 Exclusive Details 
 
 12:09 PM PT -- A prison source tells us Bulger -- who is wheelchair bound -- was in general population Tuesday morning. We're told he was approached by 3 other inmates who wheeled him into a corner that could not be seen by surveillance cameras. 
 
 Our source says the inmates beat Bulger -- one used a lock in a sock as a weapon -- until he was unconscious. They also attempted to gouge his eyes out with some type of shiv, but were unsuccessful. Bulger fell to the ground covered in bruises and with several dents in his head. 
 
 As for the eyes, we've been doing some research -- back in the days of Murder Inc., (the 1940s gangsters, not the rappers) mobsters would gouge out the eyes of witnesses who talked to cops. 
 
 Whitey was an informant for the FBI starting back in 1975 -- so, this may have been a message from his killers to warn others about snitching. 
 
 11:43 AM PT -- A law enforcement source tells us Bulger's death is being treated as a suspected homicide. 
 
 11:15 AM PT -- TMZ has learned emergency dispatchers got a call from the prison for someone in cardiac arrest, and staffers at the facility were performing CPR. They also had a defibrillator on scene. 
 
 10:25 AM PT -- The Dept. of Justice says Bulger was found at 8:20 AM, and prison staff immediately attempted to resuscitate him. Bulger had just arrived at Hazelton on Monday. 
 
 James "Whitey" Bulger -- one of America's most notorious mobsters -- was found dead Tuesday in a federal prison where he had just been transferred ... TMZ has confirmed 
 
 Bulger was just moved to a new facility -- U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia, a maximum-security prison. Prison officials haven't released details, but say his body was found sometime after he was moved to the prison. 
 
 Bulger had been serving out his life sentence in a federal pen in Florida until last week, when he was transferred to one in Oklahoma City ... and then recently arrived in Hazelton. He was convicted in 2013 for a slew of crimes, including being linked to at least 11 murders. 
 
 The ex-crime boss was on the run for years and was one of the FBI's most wanted before being captured in Santa Monica in 2011. 
 
 Bulger's life story was documented in the 2015 flick, "Black Mass," where Johnny Depp played the ruthless Winter Hill Gang crime boss, and longtime FBI informant, who terrorized the Boston area for years. 
 
 On an episode of "Objectified" ... UFC honcho Dana White told Harvey Levin, Bulger was the reason he had to get the hell out of Boston. 
 
 Bulger was 89. 
 
 Originally Published -- 9:55 AM PDT 

 BOSTON — The inmates who killed James (Whitey) Bulger, Boston’s notorious crime boss, deliberately moved out of view of surveillance cameras in a West Virginia prison before pummeling him with a padlock that was stuffed inside a sock, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday, as investigations began into how such a murder could have taken place in a supposedly secure facility. 
 
 Despite the attackers’ efforts to hide, officials said, cameras caught video images of at least two inmates rolling Mr. Bulger, 89, who was in a wheelchair, into a corner where the attack took place. Mr. Bulger was bleeding profusely when he was found by prison authorities at 8:20 Tuesday morning. Guards immediately undertook lifesaving measures, officials said, but he was pronounced dead. 
 
 A prison official identified one of the suspects as Fotios (Freddy) Geas, 51, a Mafia hit man from West Springfield, Mass. He is serving a life sentence at the Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia for the 2003 killing of the leader of the Genovese crime family in Springfield. 
 
 Daniel D. Kelly, who has represented Mr. Geas for many years, said in an interview that he had no idea whether his client was involved in killing Mr. Bulger, who was an informant for the F.B.I., a relationship he manipulated as a cover while he betrayed and murdered rival gang members.
– More gruesome details of Whitey Bulger's fatal prison beating are out: "They apparently tuned him up to the point where he was unrecognizable," one law enforcement official tells the New York Times. The Boston crime boss's eyes were "dislodged" from his head, though it wasn't clear whether that was due to the severity of the beating or the killers' reported attempts to gouge out his eyes. Surveillance video captured at least two inmates rolling the 89-year-old's wheelchair into the corner of his cell where the attack took place, out of view of the cameras. TMZ's sources say three inmates were involved. Bulger was beaten with a padlock inside a sock; he was covered in bruises, bleeding profusely, and reportedly had "several dents in his head" when prison authorities found him. CNN's source confirms the report that the attackers also tried to cut out Bulger's tongue. A prison official confirms that Fotios "Freddy" Geas, the incarcerated hit man rumored to be behind the slaying, was allegedly involved. Geas' lawyer says he has no idea whether his client had anything to do with it, but notes that he does have "a particular distaste for cooperators." Bulger was a longtime FBI informant. Geas and at least one other inmate were sent to solitary confinement after Bulger's death, sources say. Federal officials are investigating the death as a homicide, and investigations have also begun into why Bulger was left in the general prison population after being transferred to the West Virginia prison where he was killed. Still, many in Boston were relieved to see Bulger, whom a federal jury found culpable in 11 killings, gone. Says one 85-year-old, "There's an old saying, 'What goes around comes around.'" (Click to see Bulger's rat-shaped pen holder.)