Police warn of possibility of Career Killer in Yarmouth
One of America's Ten Most Wanted Featured on Maine Website

By Elizabeth Prata

YARMOUTH- Yarmouth is a community rich in legend and lore with more than 300 years of history along the shores of Casco Bay. The FBI is adding a new chapter to the Yarmouth story with its hunt for one of America's 10 Most Wanted in several places in Maine, including among the nearly 8,400 people who call Yarmouth home.

The Maine State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are advising citizens that they have received numerous reports that multiple murderer and mob kingpin James "Whitey" Bulger of Boston's Winter Hill Mob has been sighted in several Maine communities including Rangeley, Portland, and Yarmouth. Bulger, who is wanted for the murder of 18 people and with connections to 21 other murders, has been avoiding capture for nine years and FBI agents and police have posted his face on MaineMostWanted.com in the hopes that the public might breathe new life into this case.

According to the website, Bulger also will face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, drug dealing, racketeering, and money laundering when he is caught. Bulger, the brother of former Massachusetts State Senate President Billy Bulger, also was on the payroll of the FBI.

Congressman Tom Davis (R-VA) chaired hearings last June calling Billy Bulger before the Committee on Government Reform. Davis said, "James "Whitey" Bulger was an informant for the FBI in Boston. Whitey Bulger was repeatedly able to avoid arrest due to information illegally leaked to him by his FBI handler, John Connolly. When Whitey Bulger was finally indicted in 1995, he received advance warning from Connolly and fled."

Bulger sightings have been made in various Maine communities, in Massachusetts and overseas ever since. Several accounts place him in England but one account placed him in Bar Harbor in January and another in Rangeley last summer.

Local law enforcement officials told a Boston newspaper late last month that these sightings in Yarmouth are very old. FBI Supervisory Special Agent James G. Osterrieder told the Boston Globe that his office in Portland periodically receives calls about Bulger sightings that turn out to be look-alikes. He said, "…obviously we take them very seriously and jump on them right way. He is, after all, a Top 10 fugitive."

There is a one million dollar reward for the capture of this 74-year-old criminal who is considered armed and extremely dangerous. He is 5'7", 150 lbs. with blue eyes and silver hair and has gone by the following aliases: Thomas F. Baxter, Mark Shapeton, Jimmy Bulger, James Joseph Bulger, James J. Bulger, Jr., James Joseph Bulger, Jr., Tom Harris, Tom Marshall, and "Whitey."

Citizens with information about this case can contact Osterrieder at (207) 774-9322 or can report a tip on the Mainemostwanted.com website.
The website is sponsored by the Univeristy of Maine at Augusta - Maine Community Policing Institute and maintained by the Brunswick Police to identify unknown criminal suspects. In early January, one suspect was brought to justice by this new policing tool.