But as it hit home, Foley began to reflect — on years of detective work, on murder victims unearthed from shallow graves, and on investigations that failed because Bulger had been tipped off by a corrupt FBI agent.
“People would say: ‘You can’t do it. You guys are never going to be able to do it,’ ’’ Foley, 57, said yesterday from his house in Clearwater, Fla. “And I’d look at them and say, ‘Maybe we won’t, but we’ll certainly give them hell.’ ’’
Bob Long, a retired State Police detective lieutenant who worked the case, expressed relief tinged by regret at the lives lost and opportunities missed because of FBI interference.
“The media keep showing surveillance videos we had taken, and it just makes me think of the effort we put into it and how sad that it was compromised,’’ said Long, who lives in Norwell and runs a private investigative agency. “I was exuberant that he was apprehended, but it made me think about how many lives could have been saved.’’
Long was awakened by his daughter, Whitney, who works for the Hull Police Department and delivered the news. “I just smiled and shook my head,’’ Long said.
The former detective recalled painstaking surveillance in 1980 by the State Police at the Lancaster Street parking garage near Boston Garden, where Bulger met with mob associates. That effort was irretrievably compromised after an FBI tip to Bulger.
Afterward, Long said, bugs placed at phone booths at a Howard Johnson restaurant in Dorchester encountered similar problems.
“The day we got the court order to bug each of those phones, they stopped showing up,’’ Long said. “It was paranoia. Everybody’s looking at each other: What’s going on?’’
Foley expressed similar frustrations, but said the team remained committed to the case despite its recurring obstacles.
“Were we determined? Yes, we were,’’ Foley said. “We weren’t going to go away.
