Whitey Bulger, Jai Alai, the Winter Hill Gang, & the Tycoon Murder that Stunned America

The Underworld Podcast

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 871 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2022

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

*Note: technical difficulties with Sean's microphone this episode, apologies* By the late Seventies Jai Alai, a superfast, racketball-like sport, had become one of the US’ most lucrative betting markets. That attracted Roger Wheeler, a mega-rich Tulsa tycoon, to pour millions into the game. It was also riddled with crime. Boston’s Irish Mob, led by the bloodthirsty James “Whitey” Bulger, would make a mint skimming its earnings and building an underworld empire off Jai Alai’s back. Then Wheeler figured out his latest investment was rotten. Bulger sprang into action, launching a campaign of terror that would claim several lives in gruesome fashion. Eventually, the Jai Alai slayings would bring down drug barons, dirty cops and dozens of New England’s biggest gangsters. Ja Alai wouldn’t fare much better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	May 27th, 1981, and it's a lazy Wednesday afternoon at the Southern Hills Golf Club, an exclusive
0:09.0	course just outside Tulsa, Oklahoma.
0:12.1	And 55 year old Tyco Roger Wheeler has just finished his weekly round.
0:16.8	It's hot, a good time for a 19th whole beer, but Wheeler won't even make it out of the parking lot.
0:22.8	Sat a few yards away as a Pontiac with four men inside.
0:27.0	None of them is dressed for golf.
0:29.2	As Wheeler climbs into his vehicle's driving scene,
0:32.0	one man steps out of the Pontiac and walks towards him.
0:34.9	He's wearing a beard and sunglasses and looks, somebody remarked later.
0:39.8	A bit like Kenny Rogers, only quote, dark complexion with hair over his ears and a full beard,
0:46.4	his black hair streaked with grey.
0:49.6	In the cowboy's hand is a 0.38 police special revolver and he's heading for Wheeler.
0:56.0	The gunman strides quickens as he reaches the businessman's offside window then bang.
1:01.5	A single slub smashes through the glass and hits Wheeler right between his eyes, killing
1:06.4	him instantly.
1:08.4	The shooter then drops four unspent bullets as he sprints back to the Pontiac in his three accomplices who speed away from the
1:14.6	southern hills in seconds. The four rounds aren't a slip-up. They're a warning. To anybody else who's
1:20.9	thinking of following Roger Wheeler into the lucrative world of Hirely, a strange
1:26.2	ultra-fast Basque racquetball game that draws millions of dollars in gambling each year.
1:36.8	At first, witnesses to the slaying are too scared to speak. They know damn well this is an underworld hit. Perhaps it's Italians who've been ironed up high-lied long
1:41.2	before Wheeler through his fortune at it.
1:43.8	The beard, the sunglasses, the killer did kind of look Italian after all.
	...

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