Brutal_ The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob - Kevin Weeks [87]
Roger Wheeler’s murder was purely business. A respected millionaire from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the owner of Telex Corp., Wheeler bought World Jai Alai in 1978 for $50 million. A few years later, however, he began to suspect possible skimming from the company’s Connecticut office and started to check things out. When Wheeler started to tighten the reins, John Callahan, a former president of World Jai Alai, broached the subject to Winter Hill that if Wheeler was out of the way, then he could take over and Winter Hill would have a piece of it.
On May 27, 1981, as Wheeler was getting into his Cadillac after a round of golf at the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Johnny Martorano and Joe MacDonald were waiting in the parking lot for him. While Joe remained in the car, Johnny walked up to Wheeler’s car and shot him between the eyes, thus setting off the events for the Halloran and Callahan murders. A major investigation went on after the Wheeler murder, and after a period of time, Winter Hill stopped getting money from Jai Alai.
John Callahan, who was a big man, six feet tall and about 250 pounds, went soon after that, again for business reasons. Jimmy told me that a year after Wheeler’s and Halloran’s deaths, FBI agent John Connolly told him and Stevie that Callahan was going to be called in front of the grand jury and put under extreme pressure on the two murders. Of course, Connolly denies this. At the time, Johnny Martorano was already down in Florida. But Jimmy and Stevie flew down to New York and Johnny came up from Florida and met them at a hotel at one of the New York airports. Here, they discussed Callahan and whether or not he would stand up when facing the possibility of doing twenty years. It was decided Callahan would have to go.
Shortly thereafter, Callahan flew into Miami International Airport where Johnny Martorano and Joe MacDonald picked him up in a van and asked him if he wanted a drink. When he said yes, Johnny shot him in the back of the head. Then they put his body in the trunk of his Cadillac and left him at the airport. But Jimmy was upset that they didn’t bury him. Since the ground in Florida is mostly sand, it would have been easy digging. If they had put him under, no one would have found him, and it would have looked like he had taken off and become another dead end. However, when his body was found in the trunk of his car, the investigation continued.
Years later, H. Paul Rico, a former Boston FBI agent who worked security at World Jai Alai, was charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in Wheeler’s death. Investigators accused Rico of aiding Johnny in the murder, but Rico died in custody in Oklahoma before he was brought to trial. The truth was that Rico had done all the legwork. He had told Johnny where Wheeler was going to be, what he drove, and what he looked like. Basically, Rico had set up the murder.
Approximately a year after Rico died, John Connolly was indicted for Callahan’s murder and charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy for allegedly providing information, the tip to Jimmy and Stevie, that prosecutors said led to Callahan’s death.
Ten murders, ten violent deaths. Jimmy might have been responsible for only nine of them, but any way you look at it, the world was left missing nine criminals and one innocent businessman.
NINE
JIMMY AND SOUTHIE
Jimmy had his own unique sense of morality. Even though he spent so much of his life involved in violent crime, he still believed that certain crimes could not be committed, certainly not on his turf, anyhow. And he never hesitated to help