Law enforcement officials have also found another connection between the South Boston mobster and the Santa Monica neighborhood he called home: A niece, the daughter of former Senate President William Bulger, lived 2 miles from Bulger’s address back in 1992.
Though Bulger was a fugitive wanted for 19 murders, he was by no means reclusive. Bulger said he and his girlfriend, 60-year-old Catherine Greig, frequently drove to the border, parked on the US side and walked into Tijuana, using a false identification to get through security, the official said. In Tijuana, he was able to purchase Atenolol, a drug taken for chest pain and high blood pressure, without a prescription.
A former close associate, Kevin Weeks, a gangster-turned-author, said yesterday that before Bulger fled Boston to avoid a federal racketeering indictment in January 1995 he talked about the easy availability of prescription drugs south of the border.
“Before he took off, he used to talk about Mexico,’’ Weeks said. “He said you could get as much prescription medicine as you wanted.’’
The arrest of Bulger, now being held without bail in Plymouth County House of Correction, has written a bizarre new chapter in one of the most sensational crime stories in Boston history. While rumored Bulger sightings came in from around the globe — in April, Bulger was rumored to have died of a heart attack in Costa Rica — he and Greig were living as an ordinary retired couple a few blocks from the beach.
In hindsight, there were numerous indications that Bulger might be in Southern California.
