James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger Jr. (; September 3, 1929 – October 30, 2018) was an American organized crime boss and FBI informant who led the Winter Hill Gang in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, a city directly northwest of Boston. On December 23, 1994, Bulger fled the Boston area and went into hiding after his former FBI handler, John Connolly, tipped him off about a pending RICO indictment against him. Bulger remained at large for sixteen years. After his 2011 arrest, federal prosecutors tried Bulger for nineteen murders based on the grand jury testimony from Kevin Weeks and other former criminal associates.