Eyewitness: ‘It Was Absolutely Bulger I Saw’ In 2006

Published June 24, 2011

Past Southern California sightings and tips that were never followed may well have been right: It was Whitey.

One of the best of the hundreds of Bulger sightings people have called in to me over the years was from a law enforcement guy in San Diego a couple of years ago.

Now that Bulger’s been arrested in California, where’s he’s said to have lived for years, that call and others warrant a second look.

“What do his legs look like?” was the first question out of the guy’s mouth. The guy he’d seen was wearing shorts.

Check out the article I wrote for the Boston Phoenix in 2007. Now consider the phone call I got Thursday morning, the morning after Bulger was arrested in California not far from where I had last heard from the cop back in 2007.

Here’s the message:

Hey. It’s your buddy in sunny San Diego, where crime bosses wear shorts and walk around downtown. What comes around, goes around, huh buddy?

Having seen our photo of Bulger being booked Thursday, my “buddy” says he’s absolutely the same guy who was wearing shorts that day in San Diegeo at the premiere of the movie “The Departed.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

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