Free Where the Bodies Were Buried by T. J. English

law-and-order president, Richard M. Nixon, the use of informants had been a staple of state and federal law enforcement. This technique of using criminals to convict other criminals was born out of a statute within the Organized Crime Control Act that led to the creation of a federal Witness Security Program (WITSEC), more commonly known as the witness protection program. Criminals who had been caught now saw themselves as having an alternative to prison: a new life with a new identity, hidden away in some remote recess of the country.
    The witness protection program reinvigorated the era of the snitch. It began a long period in which traditional organized crime syndicates, most notably the American Mafia, were devastated through courtroom prosecutions.
    In the Bulger case, the prosecutors would be showcasing at least twosnitches whose body count was staggering. Steve Flemmi had pleaded guilty to ten murders, though observers with knowledge of the Boston underworld suspected there were more. The other most murderous witness was John Martorano, a gangster whose resume included twenty murders.
    Carney and Brennan knew that the jury would likely be repulsed by these two men. In movies, gangsters are sometimes charismatic figures when played by actors like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, but in real life, they are moral ciphers, a fact that defense attorney Carney would buff and shine and put on display for the jury to ponder as often as possible.
    â€œAt this trial,” said Carney in his opening statement, “you will hear a lot about John Martorano. It would be fair to say he is the scariest criminal, violent psychopath in Boston history. He would kill people almost randomly, just as the mood befits him. He would kill people because they crossed him. He would kill people because he wanted to get their money. He would kill people because he didn’t want to pay a gambling debt. He would kill people as easily as he would order a cup of coffee in a store.”
    For Carney and the defense, Martorano was the key to the government’s case, even more so than Bulger’s partner Steve Flemmi. Because Martorano had been the first former member of the Winter Hill Mob to come in and strike a deal. It was his cooperation that set off a chain of events that would lead, all these years later, to everyone currently sitting in a courtroom overflowing with spectators and media.
    Martorano, Carney would allege, was the first to figure out what the government wanted and needed. “Remember,” he told the jury, “at this point, Jim Bulger was gone. By this point years had passed . . . and there was a question if Bulger would ever be seen again. Rumors were that he had had plastic surgery, doesn’t even look the same. There were other rumors of Bulger being hidden in a small village in Ireland where they’re protecting him. Other people speculated that maybe he’s dead of natural causes. But most people thought they’d never see him again.
    â€œBut the government had as its primary target John Connolly and had to find a way to get evidence against Connolly and tie Connolly to Bulger.
    â€œAnd then Martorano was educated and learned that he could be the bridge from Bulger to Connolly.”
    Carney noted that Martorano had a problem: he had never met JohnConnolly. How on earth was he going to link Connolly to Bulger when he’d never been in a room together with the two men? That was rectified when it was explained to Martorano by his attorney that if he testified about conversations he had with Bulger about Connolly, that could be introduced as evidence against both those men. “That became Martorano’s ticket out of this mess,” Carney told the jury. “The more corrupt that he could make Connolly and Bulger, the better the deal that Martorano could get.”
    The witnesses’ state of mind, noted Carney, was all-important. In a criminal case, state of mind is more than idle