Heated and Gruesome Week of Testimony in Bulger Trial

By Chris Orchard/Somerville Patch

Jurors in the trial of James "Whitey" Bulger this week witnessed a flare-up between the defendant and a key witness and saw gruesome evidence about some of Bulger's alleged victims.

On Tuesday, tempers boiled over between Kevin Weeks, Bulger's one-time protege, and Bulger. Weeks had testified against his former mentor, saying he had been involved in five murders with Bulger, who was arrested in Santa Monica.

According to the Boston Globe, J.W. Carney, Bulger's attorney, asked Weeks if it bothered him that he played a role in five murders.

"Yeah, it bothers me," Weeks said, "Because we killed people that were rats, and I had the two biggest rats right next to me." He was referring to Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, Bulger's close associate. The two were informants for the FBI, though Bulger denies he was an informant.

"You suck," Bulger reportedly shouted at Weeks.

"[Expletive] you, okay," weeks screamed back.

"[Expletive] you, too," responded Bulger.

To which Weeks, jumping to his feet, said, "What do you want to do?" U.S. marshals prepared to intervene if either man went after the other, the Globe reported.

Minutes earlier on Tuesday, Carney asked Weeks what he'd do if Carney called him a "rat," according to WBUR. "Why don't you call me outside, when it's just me and you, and see what I'd do?" Weeks responded, according to the radio station.

WBUR also reported on Wednesday's testimony, featuring Ann Marie Mires, a forensic anthropologist who worked for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner from 1996 to 2009.

Mires told jurors about digging up the bodies of alleged Bulger victims buried in Dorchester.

Jurors saw photographs of the skeletons, skulls with tufts of hair still attached, and things like rings and gloves found buried with the victims.

You can see some of the photos at WBUR's website.

Later on Thursday jurors heard from Tom Daly, a former FBI agent, who talked about the 1976 murder of Richard Castucci. Earlier in the trial, former hitman John Martorano testified that the Winter Hill Gang brought Castucci to its headquarters at a garage in Somerville. Martorano said he shot Castucci in the temple and Bulger and Flemmi cleaned up the mess, stuffing Castucci's body in a sleeping bag and leaving it in the trunk of a car.

The garage, on Marshall Street near Broadway, is now a church.

On Friday, jurors heard from a former drug dealer, a forensic dentist, a South Boston bar owner, a former bookie, the widow of one alleged victim and the brother of another.