[thegmanifesto]

Now this is an interesting trial:

Questions as alleged Bulger victim Rakes found dead

Quote:

A man who had waited decades to testify against James “Whitey” Bulger for allegedly stealing ownership of his South Boston liquor store was found dead Wednesday in Lincoln in what people familiar with the investigation are calling a suspicious death.

While an autopsy found no trauma to the body of Stephen “Stippo” Rakes, 59, authorities believe that he may have died elsewhere and that his body was dumped near a popular walking trail off Mill Street, where it was found, say several people familiar with the investigation.

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Lincoln police Chief Kevin Mooney said Thursday that they have yet to determine the cause of Rakes’s death and are awaiting toxicology results, which generally take several weeks to complete.

“I can assure you my ex-husband did not commit suicide,” Rakes’s former wife, Julie Dammers, said during a brief telephone interview Thursday, responding to reports that he was despondent after being told by prosecutors earlier this week that they no longer planned to call him to testify against Bulger.

She said that she and her three adult children had no idea how Rakes had died. “We have more questions than answers,” Dammers said tearfully. “We are just in limbo right now. We’re all in complete shock.”

Investigators were trying to determine Thursday how Rakes, who was not carrying a wallet, ended up in Lincoln, say those familiar with the investigation. His body was found by a jogger. The retired MBTA worker and South Boston native was living in Quincy.

Boston attorney Paul V. Kelly, who represented Rakes in a civil suit filed against the government, said, “I know you have to let the facts come out and give authorities a chance to do work, but the timing, the circumstances, and knowing what I do about him, it leaves a lot of questions.”

Rakes was one of the most determined of Bulger’s alleged victims, still furious at the South Boston gangster and his allies, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi and Kevin Weeks, for allegedly extorting his store from him at gunpoint in 1984, while Rakes’s two young daughters were in the same room.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/07...story.html