Monday coverage of the James “Whitey” Bulger trial is always challenging for the local dailies, there being no weekend court sessions. So enterprise stories are the order of the day for both papers.
Start with the Boston Globe, which features Page One portraits of the three sketch artists chronicling the trial.
The three freelancers – Jane Flavell Collins of Duxbury, Margaret Small of Cambridge, and Christine Cornell , a New Jersey artist drawing the Bulger trial for CNN – all use binoculars to get up close to their subjects for their pastel sketches. And all three have good stories to tell.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, it’s a different side of Bulger that’s on display.
Track Gal Gayle Fee has the inside story on two letters purportedly written by Bulger to a South Boston man last year.
Whitey Bulger’s mail from jail
Alleged letters up for sale by dealer
In letters purportedly written by accused crime lord James “Whitey” Bulger to a man in South Boston, Bulger gave fatherly advice, waxed nostalgic about his days in Alcatraz and insisted that he offered to plead guilty to all charges — including 19 murders — if the feds would only free his ladylove Catherine Greig.
“I offered since day one to plead guilty to all crimes I’m accused of if they free Catherine but answer is ‘No.’ They want their ‘Big Circus Trial,’” Bulger wrote in a pair of letters that are currently being offered for sale by Saugus memorabilia dealer Phil Castinetti.
Our favorite part: Bulger pining away for the good old days in Alcatraz:
“The healthy salt air,” he wrote, “open front 9 by 5 foot barred cells and eating in a mess hall — yard with weights to work out with and lots of good convicts. None of that here [in the Plymouth jail].”
Yeah – just can’t find good convicts around here anymore.
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 