What if Catherine Greig Turned in Whitey Bulger?

Seriously, let’s consider this. It could have happened. I say that only because of the FBI’s official version of events: The tip that led the feds to Whitey came from a woman living in Iceland. This woman apparently saw news coverage of the PSAs about Catherine Greig that the FBI launched last week. The Icelandic woman at one time presumably lived in L.A., noticed that Greig looked a lot like a woman she once knew from Santa Monica, and called the FBI.

Very few people believe this story. A woman in Iceland has better intel than the FBI, whose L.A. office was only a couple miles from Whitey’s apartment? Attorney Harvey Silverglate thinks the FBI’s protecting an informant with this Iceland account. The Herald’s Michele McPhee agrees.

So who could the feds be protecting? Why not Greig? This is pure speculation, but in a narrative this strange, Greig as informant sounds as true as anything else. Think about it. She’s on the lam with him for 15 years. He’s 81 now, perhaps in debilitating mental health but at the very least treating her cruelly, yelling at her loud enough so the neighbors can hear. Is this how she wants to spend the rest of her days? With a deranged (alleged) serial murderer? Why not turn him in? Maybe the feds would spare some of that $2 million reward for Whitey’s capture on Greig’s family, maybe give her a lenient sentence. (The FBI’s certainly done that in the past with Whitey’s cohorts.)

Greig is 20 years Whitey’s junior, which means she has perhaps 30 years more to live. I wonder if she wasn’t thinking about their eventual capture. What if Greig were sentenced to an equivalent time in prison? She would likely serve the term in full. The same cannot be said for Whitey.

She would have had a lot to gain by turning him in. I am not alone in thinking this.

Browse our previous coverage for more on Whitey Bulger.