Impact Statement: A Family's Fight for Justice against Whitey Bulger, Stephen Flemmi, and the FBI

by Bob Halloran

Overview

As the biggest criminal trial since the Boston Strangler draws nearer, the public’s fascination with the life and crimes of mob boss Whitey Bulger continues to heat up. Many stories have been told about the murders Whitey and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi committed, and the tacit permission they received from the FBI. But never before has the story been told from the point of view of one of the victim’s families—until now.

Impact Statement is the first book to provide background into the family of a victim and their own compelling history and experiences, their decades-old fight for justice, the momentous victory over the US government, and their angry quest for the closure that Bulger’s trial may provide.

Author Bob Halloran will have front-row access to the trial and the ensuing media blitz, as he observes the trial alongside Steven F. Davis, perhaps the most outspoken advocate for the victims’ families. The murder of Davis’s sister, Debbie, is what keeps Flemmi jailed to this day, and remains the most horrific and arbitrary killing committed by Bulger and Flemmi.

Steven Davis’s colorful commentary and reflective admissions of his own criminal past will reveal how he was once a protégé of Flemmi’s, and how the Davis family’s longstanding relationship with Flemmi cost them a father, two sisters, and a brother. Such is the devastating impact Bulger and Flemmi’s violence had not only on their own families, but many others as well.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628734935
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	09/17/2013
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	99,145
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Bob Halloran is a television news and sports anchor for Boston's ABC affiliate. He is the author of White Devil: The True Story of the First White Asian Crime Boss, Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward, Destiny Derailed: The Story of the 2003 Boston Red Sox, and Breakdown. He resides in Milton, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Introduction v

Preface to the Paperback Edition ix

1 Meeting at Triple O's 1

2 Beauty and the Beast 23

3 The Summer of 1981 45

4 Without a Trace 67

5 Missed Opportunity 85

6 On the Banks of the Neponset River 99

7 Davis v. Government 121

8 "They Got Whitey" 135

9 The Trial Starts 157

10 A Confederacy of Liars 171

11 Steve Davis Takes the Stand 187

12 The Prosecution's Star Witness 195

13 The Right to Remain Silent 215

14 No Finding, No Closure 229

Acknowledgments 239

Editorial Reviews

Whitey Bulger was one of the most notorious murderers in U.S. history, whose legend was enabled by corrupt FBI officials. In Impact Statement, Bob Halloran provides an intimate view of the personal toll of Bulger’s crimes, as he lets us not only see, but also feel, the impact on the family of one of his victims, Debbie Davis. Heartbreaking!” — Mike Farris, attorney and author of A Death in the Islands: The Unwritten Law and the Last Trial of Clarence Darrow”

“Whitey Bulger was one of the most notorious murderers in U.S. history, whose legend was enabled by corrupt FBI officials. In Impact Statement, Bob Halloran provides an intimate view of the personal toll of Bulger’s crimes, as he lets us not only see, but also feel, the impact on the family of one of his victims, Debbie Davis. Heartbreaking!” — Mike Farris, attorney and author of A Death in the Islands: The Unwritten Law and the Last Trial of Clarence Darrow”

From the Publisher

2013-10-01
Hard-boiled investigative look at murderous South Boston drug kingpin Whitey Bulger. TV journalist and author Halloran (Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward, 2007, etc.) gives a no-nonsense, nuts-and-bolts portrait of South Boston's most notorious drug czar and mass murderer. Although there have been accounts of Bulger and his long and lethal reign over the Boston drug world, Halloran's book is more specifically about the relationship between Bulger and Southie cocaine-peddling rival Steve Davis. Davis' first inauspicious meeting with Bulger occurred when Davis' brother accidentally began dealing coke on Bulger's turf, a mistake that would make Davis a marked man and eventually lead to the violent death of Davis' sister, Debbie Davis. At the time, Bulger was an informant for the FBI, while also making tons of money from simply targeting other less-prominent area gangsters and threatening to have them snuffed out if they didn't pay him protection money. Throughout much of the book, Halloran keeps up a blistering pace in constructing this narrative of South Boston's gangland, where Bulger and his crew ran brutal shakedowns almost at will throughout the 1970s and '80s. In the first third of the book, the author describes the lead-up to the brutal strangulation of Debbie Davis by Bulger and then the eventual, inevitable difficulties Steve Davis had for years in trying to investigate the murder due to Bulger's FBI protection. It isn't until the 2000s that enough red tape was cut to finally get to the point where Davis saw Bulger and his partner indicted for the murder of his sister. A tough-as-nails portrait of the close-knit connection among organized crime, the FBI and the deaths of innocent people.

Kirkus Reviews