Pat Nee July 2013

'We were up to our necks in murders': Hitman implicates Whitey Bulger in nine killings as he describes brutal reign of terror at Boston mob trial

John 'The Executioner' Martorano has admitted to 20 murders
He worked for James 'Whitey' Bulger in for decades and is expected to reveal many details of Bulger's alleged crimes
Martorano, 72, served just 12 years in prison after striking a deal with the federal government
He currently lives on social security on a golf course outside Boston
Martorano was paid $250,000 for the movie rights to his life story, $80,000 more for a book and thousands by the federal government

A former Boston mob hitman has revealed even more chilling details in his second day of testimony at the trail of his long-time boss, James 'Whitey' Bulger.
John 'The Executioner' Martorano, who has admitted to killing 20 people, implicated Bulger in nine murders in less than two days on the witness stand. He is expected to tie the former organized crime kingpin to 11 killings from the 1970s to the early 2000s.
Martorano, a 72-year-old who lives a quiet life on a golf course, calmly described brutal executions of associates, cold-blooded betrayals of friends and mistaken hits on victims who weren't mixed up in organized crime at all - just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Turning: John Martorano, who has admitted to killing 20 people, claimed he was 'heartbroken' when he learned that his former boss has been supplying information to the government

He admitted to gunning down six people who he hadn't meant to kill - including a bartender Michael Milano who had the misfortune of driving the same kind of car as one of Martorano's targets.

The Boston Globe reports Martorano portrayed himself as a 'man of honor' and claimed Monday he 'wasn't a hitman' because he never accepted money for the murders he committed.
He said he only killed people to help friends or family members. On Tuesday, though, he admitted that he had been paid $50,000 to murder an Oklahoma businessman in 1981.

Facing justice: James 'Whitey' Bulger is accused of murder, extortion and running a criminal enterprise

The money was given to him by, John Callahan, who had been skimming profits off the businessman's Florida company. Martoano said he considered Callahan a good friend.

But in 1982, Bulger an the other leaders of Bulger's Winter Hill gang decided that Callahan had to go, too.

'I felt lousy. But these were my partners,' Martorano testified.

'We were up to our necks in murders already. If it had to be done, it had to be done.'
He subsequently went to Miami with an associate, Joe MacDonald, and set up a meeting with the unsuspecting Callahan. When Callahan met Martorano at a van he had rented, Martorano shot Callahan in the back of the head with a handgun wrapped in a towel.

Callahan's body was later found in the trunk of an abandoned car at Miami International Airport.

Another slaying he described seemed to come right out of a scene from a Martin Scorsese film.
Thomas King was a mobster with a rival gang that Bulger and his crew had been forced to work with. Bulger hated King, Martorano testified.
'Him and Tommy couldn’t get along, He wanted to get rid of Tommy,' he said.
Bulger decided to kill the dangerous King, but knew he would be wary of being lured into a trap. So, he had Martorano and his allies contact King and tell him they needed his help murdering another mobster.

Godfather: James 'Whitey' Bulger holds John Martorano's youngest son, John Jr., during his Christening ceremony in this undated handout photo provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts

Winter Hill Gang: A diagram showing the 'Winter Hill Gang' organization in the late 1970s was passed around jurors as John Martorano took the stand in the trial of accused mob boss Whitey Bulger

They gave king a bulletproof vest and then a gun. The gun had only blanks in it.
King got into the front passenger seat of a car he believed would take him to the bar where his target was. Martorano got in the back seat behind him.
'I shot Tommy,' Martorano told the court. 'Where did I shoot him? In the head.'
Martorano also said he witnessed Bulger kill mobster Edward Connors in 1975 because he had bragged about helping Bulger's gang murder a rival.
Bulger and his partner Stephen 'The Rifle' Flemmi lured Connors into a phone booth in Dorchester.
'They walked to the phone booth and shot Eddie,' Martorano testified.
Martorano, is a star witness in the Bulger trial. He has said he had a detailed knowledge of many of the 19 murders Bulger is accused of committing.
He described shooting dead rival mob member Alfred 'Indian Al' Notorangeli from a car in 1974 while Bulger rode behind him another car that was ready to block out anyone to tried to get in the way of the hit.
Before Martorano killed Notorangeli, he gunned down bartender Michael Milano, who had the misfortune of driving the same car as Notorangeli. Martorano called that murder 'a mistake,' because Milano wasn't the intended target.

Deaths: The body of Roger Wheeler, the former owner of World Jai Alai, is shown in this undated handout photo. John Martorano said he killed Wheeler in 1981 under orders from Winter Hill Gang leaders Bulger and Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi

Innocent bystander: This photo presented to jurors shows the bullet-riddled car of bartender Michael Milano. He was killed after being mistaken for a member of Bulger's rival gang

Gruesome: The Buick was riddled with bullets in a hit on Albert Plummer, who worked for a rival mob boss

A crime scene photo from the time reveals Milano's car riddled with bullet holes.
Martorano also said he killed one of Notorangeli's henchmen, Albert Plummer, in a hail of bullets.
He served just 12 years in prison after admitting to the killings under a plea deal. He now lives in a quiet suburb of Boston on a golf course. He testified that he collects Social Security.
However, he was also paid $250,000 for the film rights to his story and has made $80,000 off a 2012 book about his life titled 'Hitman.'
He has also been paid thousands by the U.S. government, including a check for $20,000 from the Drug Enforcement Agency gave him when he was released from prison.
Martorano worked closely with Bulger and Flemmi from the 1960s until the 1990s. On the witness stand on Monday, he called the men 'my partners in crime, my best friends, my children’s godfathers,' according to the Boston Globe.
'After I found out they were informants, it sort of broke my heart,' Martorano said on the witness stand. 'They broke all trust that we had, all loyalty.'
Martorano is, by his own admission, a brutal killer. He worked as the lead enforcer and hit man for Bulger's Winter Hill Gang, for whom he gunned down at least 20 people.

FBI surveillance photograph shows a meeting between Bulger (right) and his business partner Stephen Flemmi

His victims include two businessmen who Bulger allegedly ordered killed because they had discovered that Bulger was skimming profits of a Connecticut company.
Martorano shot millionaire Roger Wheeler between the eyes in the parking lot of his Tulsa, Oklahoma, country club in 1981. The following year Wheeler's business partner, John Callahan, was found shot dead in the trunk of his car at Miami International Airport.
In 1968, he tracked down a black man who had beaten up Flemmi and found him in his car with a 19-year-old woman and a 17-year-old teen. He killed all three with close-range gunshots.
Bulger, 83, face 32 counts of a federal indictment alleging he committed murders, ordered others, extorted bookies, drug dealers and legitimate businessmen, laundered his profits and amassed an arsenal of weapons.
During much of his criminal career he was protected by a corrupt FBI agent, who designated him as a high-level informant.
When he was indicted in 1995, he skipped town and evaded police for 16 years. For much of the time, he lived a quiet life in Santa Monica, California.
He has denied all charges.