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By Root 985 0

I was in the Broadway Appliance and Furniture store with Jimmy and Kevin O’Neil when Billy Shea and Freddie Weichel came in to talk to Jimmy. Billy, who was in his forties, had done time in Norfolk, a state prison in Massachusetts, and other state prisons for armed robbery. Now that he was out of prison, he was looking to figure out a way to make money. As for Freddie, he had a reputation around South Boston as being dangerous. That day, the two of them approached Jimmy in the front of the store to ask if it was all right if they started grabbing all the marijuana dealers in town and putting them in line. From then on, wherever these dealers might be buying marijuana, they would be working for the two of them. Whatever Jimmy wanted out of the business he could have. Jimmy told Billy and Freddie to go ahead and see what they could do. Up till then, it had been small-time people, nickel-and-dime bag sellers, handling things. This was the first time that someone wanted to control all these dealers.

Right away, Billy and Freddie started grabbing marijuana dealers, putting them in line, and taking them over. From that time on, if they were working in South Boston and were selling drugs, they were taken over by Billy and Freddie. Since I hadn’t been around during the gang wars of the 1960s and 1970s, all I really knew about Jimmy and the Mafia was that they coexisted. Now drug dealers would have to buy their marijuana from Billy and Freddie, who would be giving Jimmy a large percentage of their profits. No longer would there be any independent drug dealers, just the way there were no independent bookmakers or shylocks. Every once in a while, someone would pop up and go into business for himself, but eventually he would be grabbed.

Billy and Freddie had only been in business a matter of months when Freddie got pinched for a murder he didn’t commit. Once Freddie was gone, Billy Shea went back to Jimmy and asked him if I could go around with him to put all these people in line, to make them buy their product off him. When Jimmy asked me if I was interested, I told him I didn’t want anything to do with it. I just knew I didn’t want to deal with certain people. Jimmy’s response was, “Good, ’cause I don’t want you involved with it.”

Shortly afterward, Billy Shea enlisted Paul Moore as the muscle to go around with him to grab more drug dealers and control a larger portion of the marijuana business. There were few people who could stand up to Moore, one of the toughest kids in town, in a fight. Moore and Billy had only been working together a short time when they happened upon Joe Towers, a marijuana dealer in Southie, who introduced them and their associates to cocaine. Once Towers showed them about cocaine, how to step on it, putting in additives to increase the volume and make more profit, the cocaine business in South Boston really took off. Before then, cocaine had been around, but never on such a large scale as this.

It didn’t take long for Billy Shea’s network to increase. As he was moving more product, he had more people working for him; as he made more money, Jimmy made more money. In the beginning, they were moving between 7 to 10 kilos of cocaine a week. At the time, the street price was probably between $28,000 and $32,000 a kilo, depending on the purity of the kilo. By the time the person on the street got it, the coke had been stepped on four or five times, diluting it with the powdery substance nasitol, which was a diuretic, then pressed back together because people would want it in rock form. Next it was sold to the drug dealers, who would sell it to their street dealers, who would ultimately sell it to the people on the street.

However, things changed in 1986, when Billy Shea started to spend more time in Florida and pay less attention to business, which resulted in money being misappropriated. One afternoon in 1987, Jimmy and I were driving down D Street when we saw Billy in the D Street projects. Jimmy got out of the car to talk to him while I stood off to the side. Basically, Jimmy told Billy that Billy wouldn