Who Murdered Louis Litif? How Whitey Was Wrongly Implicated

a leisure suitWhile discussing the murders I do not want to skip over that of Louis LItif. He was not one of the nineteen. I mentioned earlier how Judge William Young in the Boston federal court found that even though Flemmi lied when he said Whitey had a motive to murder Debbie Davis he nevertheless believed Flemmi that Whitey helped him murder her. There was no basis for him to believe that other than Flemmi stating it and he had already found he lied about it. It was not as if Flemmi had never murdered anyone before. He murdered Paul Poulous who was his friend who fled with him from Boston after he learned he was going to be indicted; he murdered Wimpy Bennet who was his mentor; and he walked up to a guy at a bus stop and shot him in the face. Why is it Judge Young thought Flemmi needed anyone’s help in murdering the young woman who was leaving him?

This shows how the judges and media are preconditioned to believe anything criminally derogatory about Whitey Bulger. It is an example of how judges guess at the evidence. Like Judge Young who picked and choose what fit his theories among Flemmi’s lies; so did Judge Wolf as I have shown when he did not believe what Flemmi said about Jeremiah O’Sullivan, because he knew him and worked with him, but did when he lied and said John Naimovich was his informant naively believing Flemmi was going to give up the cop who was providing him with inside information.

Judge Young due to his anti-Whitey disposition hooks him into the Litif murder. He does it in a case where no party is there who presents a defense for Whitey or for John Connolly his FBI handler. Much of the civil litigation in this case was done without those men being present to defend themselves through counsel. Imagine having people allege things against you, used criminals to provide information in court about you, and you are unable to rebut it. That is what the civil cases were all about.

I digress to let you understand the full picture. Judge Young found Louis Litif was murdered in April 1980. Litif too had been a top echelon informant in the FBI since 1976, the year after Whitey became one. In September of 1979 Litif was charged with the murder of James Matera. He was out on bail. (I should note Brian Halloran also charged with murder was out on bail which is usually an indication that the defendant is cooperating since murderers are usually held on bail.)

Young writes LItif approached an attorney (a guy who was disbarred) to find out if he should cooperate with the Suffolk DA to get himself a deal. He was willing to incriminate Bulger and others in a drug deal. Curry went to Boston detective Eddie Walsh and mentioned that. Connolly was standing there at the time. Litif was murdered three weeks later.

Judge Young writes that he “infers that Connolly leaked to Bulger Litif’s willingness to incriminate Bulger and that the murderous result of the leak was” forseeable.”  It is hard to accept that round about route. The natural and usual thing for Litif to do was to go directly to Connolly who was his handler to get off of the Boston murder charge. But either way, none of that proved Whitey committed his murder.

Judge Young reasons that he did it because: Connolly leaked Castucci’s cooperation. Strange to use that because a Boston jury found that did not happen when Connolly was tried for that leak. It refused to believe Martorano. Plus, it would be highly unlikely for Connolly to put one of his sources of information in a situation where he would be murdered. No other of Connolly’s top echelon informants were murdered that we know of.

Young added “Connolly’s later leaks of other informants’ status, leading them to a similar fate.” Again, he does not name these people. Perhaps he is thinking of Brian Halloran who is the only other person who was an informant who was murdered. That information most likely went from Morris, not Connolly.

Young also used Bulger’s statement to Weeks and Flemmi “made shortly after Litif’s murder” that Litif was an informant as a reason to tie Whitey to the murder. A normal conclusion from that would be that Bulger did not know he was an informant prior to his murder or he would have told his close buddies of that fact then. It also shows that Connolly kept that information from Bulger so he could protect Litif. Speaking of Weeks, in his book he talks about Litif and suggests that Whitey murdered him but even though he was with Whitey most of that time he never says Whitey actually did it. Figure that out!

Young after using the above which really proves nothing says the murder was particularly gruesome,  stabbed with an ice pick dozens of times (when did Bulger ever use an ice pick to murder someone) and shot in the back of the neck. He adds in Halloran’s statement that he dropped off Litif at Triple Os in Southie where Whitey hung out.

The bottom line is that if there were evidence that Whitey murdered Litif that was available to the prosecutor then Whitey would have been indicted for the murder as we have seen he was on the other cases where he had little if any involvement. Neither Flemmi nor Weeks could give the prosecutor that evidence. Perhaps it was one of them or their buddies who really murdered Litif.  Litif was a man who had made many enemies.

It shows how you can take bits and pieces, fit them into your preconceived ideas, and justify any conclusion one seeks to make. Young made inferences, some of which ran contrary to common experience, and hooked Whitey for Litif’s murder. He was wrong.



19 thoughts on “Who Murdered Louis Litif? How Whitey Was Wrongly Implicated

    1. MS:

      FBI bashing is really not up my line. I point out things I believe where the agents screw up or are not doing their job especially as it relates to this case. I do that for the purpose of hoping the Bureau will better itself and become more transparent and less drone-like. I do not like the FBI culture of cover-up to protect the Bureau. Less of that and more integrity as the “I” is supposed to stand for would be good. Unfortunately the Big Boss – J.Edgar set a bad standard as he got older. I’m always amazed at how he used his agents as valets to help out Hollywood stars and other people of prominence on their foreign trips and how he never paid for most of his meals or vacations. He developed in the Bureau an idea that they were above the law and could make their own law.

      Individual peccadillos by some do not reflect upon the great majority of the agents who are out there. It is sort of how I view the Catholic Church’s problems a lot of good work undermined by some few bad apples; an environment that would rather cover-up than do right; lots of good people but intimidated by the bad who often gain the leadership positions.

  1. Steven Twoomey of Worchestor, MA, rahim-Allah. He was a stand-up guy, and, a solid con. Twoom was, also, one hell of a clever thief. Now, the G will never recover the lost paintings. Rest in peace, Steve.

    1. Khalid:

      A new name in the Gardner matter. I’ll send along the tip to the FBI but it is too intent on proving that old guy in Connecticut who will soon expire has the paintings. Maybe after that he and Twoomey can get together and exchange notes.

  2. Hello Matt, Just for the record Louis Litif and John Connolly were handball partners at the L Street Bathhouse. They played many matches together as a good team and were very competitive . Now to turn around and accuse John of setting him up for execution is a very hard sell. Great Series. Happy Fathers Day and Happy Grandfathers Day

    1. JR:

      Good points – no one wants to recognize things like you mention. They do not want to know how things really operated that these guys knew each other and were friends. I know you are familiar with the guys who played handball at the L Street Bathhouse – I’ve heard that you and some guy named Sal never played the games but you liked to watch them 🙂

      It is absurd to think that Connolly would have to learn things out about what Louis was thinking by listening to an attorney like Kevin Curry. The most likely scenario is Louis went to Connolly to see if he could help him out on the murder charges in Suffolk which Connolly would have tried to do. He would want to keep Louis on the street because he was his informant. When you point out that they were good friends and it makes it even less likely.

      The problem with the whole story about Whitey is it has been put out by people who come from the suburbs and have little understanding of how it was to live in Southie as some people I know do. I just read a lenghty FBI report about how Tommy Nee is around with Pat Linsky and they have about 4 or 5 other individuals including Pat O’Shea, Jimmy O’Malley and Billy Hogan are helping Linsky who is looking to hit Vito Ivaska because they think he murdered Jimmy Whito. The guys from Southie would know most of these people. They would also know that when a guy is murdered his friends sometimes seek to retaliate. They would also know if the report made any sense. Here is the site if you want to see what the informants were telling the FBI:


      Hope you are well – give E our best and the rest of the kin – wishing that you too have a good father’s/grandfather’s day.


    1. Rather:

      I read that along with Judge Young’s finding in the district court. Read it closely and you will see there is nothin in there that puts Litif’s murder on Bulger except a newspaper report that says Halloran clsimed Whitey murdered Litif because he was freelancing as a drug dealer and he murdered Matera without permission.

      Most of it is specculation that Connolly told Bulger that Litif was seeking to cooperate. It also leaves out that Litif was a top echelon informant of Connolly who Connolly would want to protect rather than expose. But even assuming Connolly told Bulger that Litif wanted to cooperate where is the evidence that Whitey murdered him? That’s a big jump especially when you make it by talking about a newspaper article. The plain truth is there is no evidence linking Bulger to the murder – he had no dog in the fight – Litif was a money maker for him and if you read Weeks book you will see how Bulger had to convince a guy not to tell the cops that Litif shot him because he wanted to keep him out there as a big earner. Litif had a lot of enemies. No one even knows where he was murdered. His body was found in the trunk of a car.

      You know from having been with this site for a while that if Freddy had a scintilla of evidence tying Whitey to the murder he would have charged him. So leave all the rest of the stuff aside that shows nothing about Whitey bing involved, just that should show the prosecutor knows Whitey had nothing to do with it.

      1. Matt,
        Point taken. Your scenario makes more sense. Also I think John Cooney hit the nail on the head. Between your point of view and his….I have changed my mind.

        1. Rather:

          The big thing is that Louis was found in the trunk of his car. To get him there Whitey if Halloran is right that Whitey murdered him at Triple Os then he would have had to drive around town looking for his car and then open the trunk, dump Louis in, and drive the car to some other place. It makes no sense but it has been used by everyone as a factor for blaming Whitey. I did some more research on this and it is as likely that the Boston Police Drug Unit did Louis in as it is Whitey since Litif was planning to testify against some of the officers in that unit who he was bribing and getting drugs from; it it was not them then Matera’s friends would have done it. Whitey was way down the line plus Litif as Connolly’s informant and friend would have been told by Connolly to keep Whitey out of it. I have a post coming up on it soon.

    2. Rather Not
      Certainly will print out and read it. Thank you for the link. Going to the Yard or Nantucket this summer?

  3. Matt
    I easily believed Whitey Bulger had in fact murdered Louis Litif based on what I have read in the past in various articles/books. Any theories as to who murdered Litif and why?

    1. Jerome:

      The problem with thinking Whitey murdered him is he had no motive to do it. Weeks in his book tells how Litif went to Triple O’s and was a loud mouth which Whitey did not like. He also tells how Litif was having trouble with some other people. I suggest to you that the guys in Southie (except for Nee) will try to get back at the person who murdered their friend. Litif had been indicted for murdering his partner in a barroom, he then murdered the bartender, he was suspected in other murders so he had a list of people standing around waiting to murder him.

      As for Halloran putting him at Triple O’s and seeing them carrying out his body that is nonsense. Do you think they are that stupid that they’d lug out a body so that anyone standing around could see it. Plus we know Halloran was lying about Whitey trying to get a deal on his murder so for all we know Halloran himself could have been the guy who murdered Litif.

      It is amazing reading Judge Young’s opinion and he blames Connolly for leaking the information to Whitey that Litif wanted to make a deal implicating Whitey in drug dealings and jumping from that to assuming Whitey murdered him. As I said, since when did Whitey use an ice pick to murder someone.

  4. Lies are believed. Truth is nonexistent or distorted.
    “Perception is reality.”
    A messy, convoluted tale of misery neatly processed and packaged for the public’s gullible consumption.

    1. Rather:

      When you come down to it one judge sets the tone and the others blindly follow along and express their praise for their fellow judges without doing any real analysis themselves. That is how injustices perpetuate themselves; the black code or the blue code or the white code where everyone in the group covers for each other. The public just goes along singing the old song of accepting whatever is put out there.

      1. Matt,
        I thought Judge Wolf broke through that in 1998, and then with the Congressional “Everything Secret Degenerates” report it looked like the truth might come out…..but no such luck.

        PS. I am also curious as to your theory on the demise of Litif.


    2. I’m sure if Flemmi knew who really clipped Litif he would’ve ratted by now.

      1. John:

        Absolutely – good point – he would have gladly put it on Whitey by saying that Whitey told him. Which makes me believe there is substantial evidence in the hands of the prosecutor that shows who the actual people are who murdered Litig and that is the reason Whitey was not charged with the murder.

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