Alan Fidler
Alan Fidler, also known as "Suitcase Fidler", (born December 2, 1919 in Dorchester, Massachusetts) is a small time Anglo Saxon English-Irish mob associate of the Patriarca crime family and Winter Hill Gang.
Biography
Fidler was the son of first generation emigrants. He was raised an Anglo-Saxon and is suspected to be of Norman-French descent. He was arrested on January 22, 1962 for [...] dealing or bookmaking, most likely in cooperation with Edward G. Connors. John Birmingham, a veteran's agent for the City of Boston, brother of the then President of the Massachusetts Senate Tom Birmingham and close friend and law client of William M. Bulger committed welfare fraud for. Like fellow Winter Hill Gang mob associate Joseph "Joe Mac" MacDonald, Fidler was a veteran who served in World War II. He was one of the few Winter Hill Gang mob associates who had served in the military including Edward G. Connors and Stephen Flemmi. His nickname is sometimes construed as "The Suitcase Fiddler", implying that Alan played the fiddle, but this is untrue. John Birmingham helped Fidler apply for and receive welfare payments from the city when in fact he was incarcerated for an unspecified crime, therefore committing welfare fraud. It is also highly suspected that he had second hand knowledge and was an accomplice after the fact in the 1965 gangland slaying of burglar and armed robber Edward Deegan, murdered outside his friend Connors' bar and criminal headquarters, The Beach Ball in Dorchester.
Influential connections
Although Fidler himself is not very memorable in the Boston criminal underworld he had very important connections with the Boston State Senate in the 1950s and 1960s which helped him out with legal problems that arose with his involvement in organized crime. Birmingham later helped out Fidler again, he sought out William Bulger who had been appointed president of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Senate and had the welfare fraud charges dropped. He was a close friend and criminal associate of Edward G. Connors. He earned the nickname "Suitcase Fidler" because he was always seen carrying a suitcase by his criminal associates which was most likely to contain illegal narcotics or firearms. Edward G. Connors was also a close friend of Dan Keating and Mayor Ray Flynn.
The James O'Toole [...]
James "Spike" O'Toole had been receiving death threats since 1963 since leaving prison. In December 1964 Spike and Francis X. Murray received telegrams the day before they were set to be released saying, "You will receive the same benefits of Harold." The anonymous telegram sender was referring to mob associate Harold Hannon, a 54-year old criminal associate whose bound body was found floating in the Boston Harbor the previous August. In September after Spike and Francis were released, there was an attempted shooting of Murray as he drove along the Southeast Expressway in South Boston. The shooter was never identified and his intended death sentence was never carried out unlike his friend O'Toole. James was later arrested for another crime and served time in Massachusetts Correctional Institution - Cedar Junction as an accessory after the fact in the [...] of Dorchester bank clerk, William Sheridan.
Sheridan was shot to death by Georgie McLaughlin while in the middle of an armed robbery. On December 1, 1973 Fidler's friend and business associate Edward G. Connors] set up O'Toole who was shot to death as he left Connors' criminal headquarters and saloon, The Bulldog in Revere Beach. Several years following the [...], Connors was rumored to be boasting AbOUT his partaking in the brutal gangland slaying. Connors allegedly trusted Fidler so much that he confided to him about his ACTIVE role in the O'Toole [...].
Used as a lure to [...] Thomas King
In November 1975, James J. Bulger informed Mullen Gang member Tommy King that he and John Martorano planned to [...] Fidler. The three men met in the area of Carson Beach in South Boston. Stephen Flemmi brought four handguns. Bulger handed out a gun to King and Martorano and himself, except that King's gun was filled with blank cartridges. Martorano shot King in the back of the head and buried him in the marshy area in Quincy, Massachusetts near the Neponset River with the help of Bulger, Flemmi and other members of the Winter Hill Gang.
External references
- While the Music Lasts by William Bulger