About The Talk: Veteran journalist Bob Halloran will discuss his latest book – Impact Statement: A Family’s Fight for Justice against Whitey Bulger, Stephen Flemmi, and the FBI – which 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 protégé 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 ongoing quest for justice.
No one can deny that mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi are two of the most brutal killers in American history—not even the two gangsters themselves. However, of the various murders for which Bulger has been convicted, the jury has 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 2003 in graphic detail how he lured Debbie to a house in South Boston where Bulger jumped from 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 a little 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.
About The Speaker: Bob Halloran is a television journalist who is currently the weekend anchor for Boston’s ABC affiliate WCVB-TV Channel 5. He has written four books, including Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward, Destiny Derailed: The Story of the 2003 Boston Red Sox, and Breakdown. He lives in Milton, Massachusetts, with his wife, Eileen, also an investigative television reporter, and their children. Steve Davis, Debbie Davis’s brother, will be joining Halloran for the talk.
Limited to 100 seats. Book selling and signing after the talk for those interested. Sponsored by the Friends of the Library.
