Reports suggest that James 'Whitey' Bulger, a notorious organised crime boss who was found dead in prison yesterday, was beaten to death by fellow inmates.
Bulger was found dead in his cell just hours after arriving at USP Hazelton, a high security facility in West Virginia. He had been moved there from a prison in Florida after spending some time in a transfer facility in Oklahoma City.
Police reported yesterday that they were treating the death as a homicide and two other inmates at the prison were under investigation.
According to reports two men were seen on surveillance cameras entering Bulger's cell at around 6am yesterday morning. He was found dead at around 08:20am.
One of the men under suspicion of his murder is thought to be Fotios 'Freddy' Geas.
Geas is a former mafia criminal from West Springfield serving a life sentence for the murder of a Genovese crime boss in his home town back in 2003.
Reports also suggest that Bulger was found with his eyes nearly gouged out of his head.
The motive for the killing is not known, but several theories have been put forward. It has been alleged that during his criminal career, Bulger was an FBI informant.
Brian T. Kelly, a former prosecutor who worked on the case against Bulger, said: "[Bulger] lived a violent life and it's not surprising that he would ultimately meet a violent death."
"Prison is a violent place and informants are not too popular, so these things can obviously happen if proper precautions aren't taken,"
At the time of his death, James Bulger was 89 years old. He was convicted in 2013 for the death of at least 11 people, alongside a litany of other crimes committed by him and his South Boston organised crime gang.
He was in control of the gang from the 1970s right through to the 1990s. He was on the run and on the FBI Most Wanted list for 16 years until he was found and arrested in Santa Monica, California in 2011.
There has so far been no comment on why he was moved to Hazelton prison, which is known for its poor conditions.
There has been a number of deaths at the facility in recent months, which union bosses and staff have attributed to understaffing problems.
The US Bureau of Prisons has released a statement concerning the death in which they offer little other than the information surrounding the time and place of Bulger's death.
It reads: "Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff. Mr. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston County medical examiner,"
No other inmates or members of staff at the prison were injured.
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