548 // Paul McGonagle

Missing

Crawlspace Media

True Crime, News, Society & Culture

3.8 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this new episode, Tim Pilleri and Lance Reenstierna speak about the disappearance of mobster Paul McGonagle from Boston, Massachusetts in November of 1974. This episode was researched by Kathleen Studer. We are going to CrimeCon in Denver CO. Sept. 5th - 7th! For 10% off your standard pass, use code "crawlspace" at checkout. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.crimecon.com/CC25⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Check out Mood and use my code MISSING for a great deal: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://mood.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sources: ⁠https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McGonagle⁠. ⁠www.ancestry.com⁠. ⁠www.newspapers.com⁠. ⁠https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/172981444/paul-mcgonagle⁠. ⁠https://www.wcvb.com/article/paul-mcgonagle/8165669⁠. ⁠https://www.kbzk.com/cnn-national/2018/10/31/former-prosecutor-hopes-james-whitey-bulgers-death-is-the-end-of-a-very-sad-chapter-in-bostons-history/⁠. ⁠https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/exclusive-family-of-alleged-bulger-victim-breaks-silence/⁠. ⁠https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-judge-tosses-99-million-suit-by-family-of-whitey-bulger-victim-2016-1⁠. ⁠https://mattofboston.com/the-second-irish-gang-war-the-mullens-vs-the-killeens/⁠. ⁠https://beaconhilltimes.com/2024/06/06/speakeasies-bootleggers-and-jazz-at-the-west-end-museum/#google_vignette⁠. ⁠https://irishboston.org/2025/being-irish-in-southie/⁠. ⁠https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/mcgonagle-v-united-states-892868052⁠. ⁠https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-59548846⁠. ⁠https://dh-wordpress.ramapo.edu/discovering1920s/blog/2024/03/26/midterm-irish-civil-war-1922-1923/⁠. ⁠https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2013/02/23/james-whitey-bulger-catherine-greigs-story/⁠. ⁠https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/whitey-bulger-killing-planned-minutes-justice-department/story?id=88761649⁠. ⁠https://youtu.be/KzorDy46cV4⁠. ⁠https://youtu.be/x3VVsBQf3Sk⁠. ⁠https://www.masslive.com/news/boston/2013/11/whitey_bulger_sentencing_1.html⁠. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcfwAKaQjOk. Follow Missing: IG: https://www.instagram.com/MissingCSM/. TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@missingcsm. FB: https://www.facebook.com/MissingCSM. X: https://twitter.com/MissingCSM. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0yRXkJrZC85otfT7oXMcri. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/missingcsm. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/missing/id1006974447. Follow Crawlspace: IG: https://www.instagram.com/Crawlspacepodcast. TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@crawlspacepodcast. FB: https://www.facebook.com/Crawlspacepodcast. X: https://twitter.com/crawlspacepod. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7iSnqnCf27NODdz0pJ1GvJ. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/crawlspace. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crawlspace-true-crime-mysteries/id1187326340. Check out our entire network at http://crawlspace-media.com/. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Welcome back to Missing. I am Tim here today with Lance. Lance, how are you today?
0:37.4	I am doing fantastic today, Tim. Lance, how are you today?
0:49.8	I am doing fantastic today, Tim, coming off of a holiday weekend. I hope everybody out there had a safe holiday weekend the 4th of July. Tim, how was your holiday weekend? Was it full of fireworks and festivities?
1:02.5	Not exactly. I did take a quick cruise on the Connecticut River out here, though. Yeah, with the fam. It was fun. Yeah, nice night. How about you?
1:10.8	Oh, it was fine. It was fine. I was shooting off illegal fireworks in my backyard. Really upset the neighbors't, we don't really care about those things.
1:15.0	I'm just kidding. I wasn't doing that. We had a, we had a really decent time, kept it low key,
1:20.4	but I'll tell you what, Tim, the person that we're speaking about today did not keep his life low key whatsoever. And this is, as you said before we started recording, this is one that's probably
1:26.8	not going to gain a lot of sympathy, but it's still a human life and we still talk about these stories.
1:32.7	And this one also does have a little bit of a close to home feeling for us.
1:36.5	It sure does because Paul Charles McGonagall Sr. went missing in November of 1974 from Boston, Massachusetts, Lance.
1:45.5	And as some of our listeners may know, we're from New England, Massachusetts and New Hampshire,
1:50.9	both live in Massachusetts now.
1:52.7	If you are interested in the history of the mafia, the American mafia, especially in Boston,
1:58.7	you will definitely have heard of many of the names that we
2:02.6	mentioned later in this episode because Paul McGonagall was, really, he was a mobster, Lance.
2:09.8	Right. And when you talk about mobsters in Boston, especially when you're speaking about
2:14.8	Irish mobsters in Boston, the Winter Hill gang has to come up,
2:19.2	Whitey Bulger has to come up, he's going to be a character in the story of Paul McGonagall as
2:23.4	well. But this also has some more worldly historical roots to it. We get into just a little bit.
2:29.8	We get into the fighting in Ireland between North Ireland and the British Empire and the war that raged there in 1919 to 1921.
2:43.0	So for anybody who's a history buff and a local New England history buff, fan of the mafia story, this covers a lot of bases. And we want to thank the great
	...

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