Mullen Gang - Feud With The Killeen Gang

Feud With The Killeen Gang

The Killeen brothers - Donald, Kenneth, George and Edward - were an Irish-American crime family which ran the bookmaking and loansharking in South Boston, Massachusetts. The Killeens controlled every illegal activity that emerged in South Boston for nearly two decades. They used muscle to make collections, and to make examples of those who didn’t pay in a timely fashion.

The Mullens, by contrast, were a loosely organized crew of thieves. But being in Southie, it was just a matter of time before they butted heads with the Killeens. The Mullens Gang were mostly thieves who stole from the ships that brought goods into Boston Harbor and from the warehouses where they were stored. The crew was particularly talented and opportunistic, as likely to steal a truckload of Easter hams as one of televisions. They also had strength in numbers, the Boston Police Department at one time estimated there were as many as sixty members.

In 1971, Donald Killeen's younger brother, Kenneth, bit off the nose of Mickie Dwyer, a member of the rival Mullen Gang, at The Transit, a local watering hole. Paulie McGonagle, Francis (Buddy) Leonard, Thomas King, and Dennis (Buddy) Roche went to The Transit (the Killeen Gang’s main base of operations) looking to confront the Killeens who had already left the bar. The presence of the Mullens at the Killeens headquarters was viewed as a direct challenge by Donald Killeen. A gangland war soon resulted, leading to a string of slayings throughout Boston and the surrounding suburbs.

Several weeks following the Transit incident, Killeen enforcers Billy O'Sullivan and "Whitey" Bulger encountered Mullen member "Buddy" Roache, brother of future Police Commissioner Francis "Mickey" Roache, in a bar on Broadway in South Boston. After a heated argument, Roache was shot and left paralyzed for life.

A short time later, Bulger and O'Sullivan killed Donald McGonagle. Donald was not a member on the Mullens and was killed by mistake. His brother, Paulie McGonagle vowed revenge and according to Patrick Nee personally murdered O’Sullivan near his house at Savin Hill.

The killing of O’Sullivan revitalized the Mullins and the Killeens quickly found themselves outgunned and outmaneuvered.

On May 13, 1972, South Boston mob boss Donald Killeen was shot to death by Mullen gang enforcer Jimmy Mantville outside his home in suburban Framingham, Massachusetts. The leadership of the Killeen faction then devolved on Bulger, who was then in hiding on Cape Cod. Rather than murdering Bulger as some Mullens, including Paulie McGonagle desired, Patrick Nee arranged for their dispute to be mediated by Howie Winter, the godfather of the Irish-American Winter Hill Gang of Somerville and Joe Russo of the Patriarca crime family. After a sit-down at Chandler's restaurant in the South End, Boston, the two gangs joined forces with Winter as overall boss.

By 1973 Bulger was in control of the rackets in South Boston. He began to use his influence to remove opposition, by persuading Winter to sanction the murders of those rivals whom he viewed as having stepped out of line. These included former Mullens Spike O'Toole and Paulie McGonagle, who was murdered by Bulger and buried in a shallow grave in Boston's Tenean Beach. It is also alleged that Bulger had direct involvement in the murders of Eddie Connors, in January 1975 and Mullens, Tommy King and Buddy Leonard in November 1975.