My colleague at the Boston Globe Emily Sweeney has a new book out called Boston Organized Crime. It's a trip through the city's moldy underbelly that pulls together mug shots, crime scene photos and all of the sordid details of some of the city's most notorious bad guys. I asked Emily to share a couple photos she dug up, like the one above of Whitey Bulger in 1956 at Alcatraz, and explain why it is we're so fascinated by infamous scumbags.
What is it about this type of crime history that appealed to you?
I've always been a history buff. About 12 years ago, when I was working as a reporter at the Brookline Tab, I started researching all of the bookies and and wiseguys and crime figures that had lived and hung out in Brookline at one time or another, and I was surprised to find so many connections in this one town. I wrote a cover story about this for the TAB. The headline was "Brookline Mob Ties." Soon after that, I was hired at the Globe and an editor (David Beard) asked me to write a similiar story for the Globe. I spent months doing the research and gathering the photos, and we called it "Greatest Hits: A Mob Tour of Boston."
Having all that background knowledge in my head (thanks to the kickass reporting of colleagues like Shelley Murphy, Kevin Cullen, Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill) led me to compiling all the photos for this book.
Why do you think people are so fascinated with it in general?
I think people are generally curious about secret organizations, unsolved mysteries, and violent crimes. We're also drawn to stories about celebrities and guys who operate on the wrong side of the law. Not sure why, it's just human nature, I suppose. It's also interesting to see how many criminals become well-known in the media and were given nicknames, too like "the Home Run Hood", "Jimmy the Bear", "Joe Beans", "The Animal", and, of course, "Whitey."
What's the story with this guy?
This photo is of Romeo Martin a.k.a. The Home Run Hood. The newspapers at the time gave Romeo that nickname because he once escaped from jail by hitting a home run in a prison baseball game.
Romeo made that run for his life in 1951. He had been playing in a prison all-star game at Washington State Penitentiary when he hit a ball far into the woods. He ran to first base and then, well, just kept on running. (At least that's what the papers reported.) He was eventually caught in Boston six months later.
That's just one example of what I found out while doing the research for this book. Basically I compiled hundreds of photos from as many different sources as I could, the FBI, the Massachusetts State Police, the Brookline Police Department, Massachusetts Department of Correction, the Boston Public Library. I also scanned police reports, crime scene photos, mugshots, medical examiners records, you name it. I definitely put a lot of mileage on my scanner while working on this project. But I think it was all well worth it, because some of these photos were buried deep in police files and archives, and might never have seen the light of day otherwise.
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4 comments:
Good timing with the book coming out now that they've finally caught Whitey.
They don't name people Romeo anymore. That's a shame.
I'm more fascinated by non-famous scumbags personally.
Look at the mug on that entitled little shit up there.
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