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

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No one can deny that mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi are two of the most brutal killers in American historynot even the two gangsters themselves. But a jury denied the Davis family closure for the slaying of Debbie Davis, Flemmi's beautiful young girlfriend, who went missing in 1981 and whose remains were found nearly twenty years later under the Neponset River Bridge in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Now serving a life sentence, Stephen Flemmi testified in graphic detail how he lured Debbie to a house in South Boston where Bulger jumped out of the shadows and strangled her to death. Flemmi then extracted her teeth and buried her body by the Neponset River while Bulger watched. Bulger wanted Debbie dead, Flemmi claimed, because she knew that the two men were meeting with an FBI agent named John Connolly. That, and he might have been jealous of the time Flemmi and Debbie were spending together. Throughout his trial, Bulger stubbornly insisted that he never would have committed the dishonorable act of killing a woman. In the end, it was one stone-cold murderer's testimony against another's.

In Impact Statement, veteran journalist Bob Halloran looks at the devastating impact Bulger and Flemmi have had on the Davis family, whose longstanding relationship with the two mobsters cost them a father, two sisters, and a brother. Through up-to-the-minute coverage of Bulger's criminal trial and extensive interviews with Debbie's brother Steve Davis, a one-time protg of Flemmi's and now an outspoken advocate for the victims' families, Halloran has pieced together this unique and compelling story of a family's quest for justice.

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 Bulgers 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 Bulgers 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

Author Bio

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