Bulger attorney J. W. Carney Jr.
Credit: Michael Naughton/Metro
It’s rare for the family members of a murder victim to have to rely on the alleged murderer’s lawyer to let them say their peace, but that’s what happened Friday during the trial of James “Whitey” Bugler.
For years the family of Michael Donahue sought closure, seeking to find out the identity of another man who joined Bulger in the alleged shooting death of their father. They have said they were frustrated that FBI agents let Bulger allegedly get away with crimes for years before their father was killed in 1982.
When asked by Bulger’s lawyer, J. W. Carney Jr., how she felt when she heard Kevin Weeks, who served as a lookout during her husband’s killing, got just five years in prison, Patricia Donahue said it made her “sick.”
On Friday, Patricia Donahue, let the jurors hear her frustration with the government.
“I don’t understand why all these people involved in my husband’s death are walking around like nothing happened,” she said of her frustration with the freedom of Weeks and the FBI agents accused of protecting Bulger. “I don’t think it’s fair and I don’t understand why the government let this happen.”
Donahue’s family, along with others, sued the government and the FBI agents for the wrongful death of her husband after it was revealed Bulger was a protected informant. Carney tried to ask questions about that lawsuit to paint the government as admitting its role in the killings, but prosecutors objected and a judge sustained their request.
Follow Michael Naughton on Twitter @metrobosmike.
