JOHN 'RED' SHEA
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John "Red" Shea was born on August 12th, 1965 in Boston City Hospital and John "Red" Shea was born on August 12th, 1965 in Boston City Hospital and
lived in a small two bedroom apartment in a three family wooden row house on I Street in South Boston. He lived with his mother Mabel and his three older sisters Paula, Claire and Maureen. His father's name was Al Shea he fixed television sets for a living, he was full blooded Irish and was an alcoholic. By the time John was born his father had been kicked out of the house, his mother Mabel was half Irish a quarter Dutch and a quarter English. At age nine John Shea's father died of cirrhosis of the liver. Although Shea said his fathers death was of little concern to him "he was already gone from my life and now he was gone from his life". Shea grew up on the mean streets of Southie and learned just how mean those streets could be at the tender young age of five. At the age of five Shea was beaten by two older children, spit on and left in a gutter. He went home bleeding to his older sister Paula who attacked one of the two older kids with a coat rack, as the other child ran away. After this, Shea's sister Paula talked Shea's mother Mabel into enrolling Shea in a gym to learn some boxing skills.
lived in a small two bedroom apartment in a three family wooden row house on I Street in South Boston. He lived with his mother Mabel and his three older sisters Paula, Claire and Maureen. His father's name was Al Shea he fixed television sets for a living, he was full blooded Irish and was an alcoholic. By the time John was born his father had been kicked out of the house, his mother Mabel was half Irish a quarter Dutch and a quarter English. At age nine John Shea's father died of cirrhosis of the liver. Although Shea said his fathers death was of little concern to him "he was already gone from my life and now he was gone from his life". Shea grew up on the mean streets of Southie and learned just how mean those streets could be at the tender young age of five. At the age of five Shea was beaten by two older children, spit on and left in a gutter. He went home bleeding to his older sister Paula who attacked one of the two older kids with a coat rack, as the other child ran away. After this, Shea's sister Paula talked Shea's mother Mabel into enrolling Shea in a gym to learn some boxing skills.
As a kid boxing soon became everything to Shea. He found the gym a place he could relate to, a world where people valued self-protection and admired aggression as long as it was controlled. At twelve years old Shea began boxing as the protégé of Tommy Connors. At the age of six he had his first competition in the Baby Golden Gloves, he fought another youth boxer by the name of Brian Yanovich and won. Shea soon became Connors' star pupil and Connors became the closest thing Shea ever had to a father figure. Connors taught Shea more than just how to box, he also taught Shea how to handle women. Shea won the Junior Olympic Championship for the first time when he was fourteen, he then went on to win three times in total. He compiled a record of sixty wins and six loses. In high school Shea was eventually bused to Roxbury schools were the blacks outnumbered the whites heavily. Shea and his friends were not able to do anything because the blacks would tell them "You can't sit here" "You can't play here", etc. Until one day when Shea and a few other Southie kids became fed up with it and humbled a couple of the black students in the vacant auditorium. For the next few days Shea was practically stalked around the school by black students carrying knives and pipes that they had sneaked into the school. Then Shea dropped out of school and got his G.E.D., he continued his boxing career and started a life of crime on the streets of Southie.
Shea began his life of crime with his childhood friends Johnny Baldwin, Billy Mahoney and Ray Talent. They would go to the mall in Natick and go on a shoplifting spree they would sell the clothes they stole in the bars of Southie. They would also 'tailgate', follow a truck around Southie, one guy would follow the truck driver into the store, while another jumped into the back of the truck and grabbed whatever he could they would also sell the haul in bars of Southie as they did the goods from their shoplifting exploits. On the day of his sister Paula's wedding, a wedding which Shea begged his mother to take him to, Shea's friends and partner Johnny Baldwin, and a few other friends Bobby McCormick, Billy Welch and Keith Miller all got drunk and decideded to drive to a fight with kids from the Point. They didn't make it to the fight, their car crashed head on into a transit bus and all were killed. Shea's first arrest came on his mother's birthday in 1980. He was arrested for assault and battery, he was over at his sister Claire's house and got into a verbal argument with her about something small that barely even mattered. Shea said "If you and that boyfriend of yours come over ma's later, I'm gonna cut you!" and Claire responded "You ain't gonna cut shit!". Shea than proceeded to grab a knife from the kitchen and held it up to Claire's arm to scare her, but Claire grabbed the blade and cut herself as a result. Shea then flipped and threw the knife into Claire's walla and stormed out of his sister's house. Claire called the Boston Police and had Shea arrested, she also added to the story that Shea was drunk and had put the knife up to her daughter's neck and threatened her daughter's life. Claire pushed it all the way to trial. In the end Shea was saved by his sister Paula who testified that Shea's niece Erin, Claire's daughter, told her that "Uncle Jay didn't do it, my mommy's making me say it." In the end Shea was given a two and a half year suspended sentence.
Not long after Shea had his first real connection to the streets, the connection came through an ex-boxer and a Winter Hill Gang drug dealer by the name of Paul "Pole Cat" Moore, who was well respected by both the average citizen and the criminal element of Southie also. Moore was "living the life" in Southie. He had a nice car, nice clothes, plenty of women and a pretty lucrative drug business. Moore brought Shea around to all the bars that were connected to members of the Winter Hill Gang in Southie, although Moore himself did not drink much. Moore became Shea's first mentor in the street life, among other things he taught Shea how to sell drugs. Shea learned to notice where the back door was and if it was opened or closed, never to show money when the product or the money is being exchanged, only to carry a small amount of your product with him, an amount that you can afford to be ditched, to find a spot to hide the rest of you stash in and how to roll joints and cut and bag cocaine in little envelopes with eight folds, evreything a street dealer should know. While working for Moore, Shea became very good at Math, the scale and breaking up the product. Shea was beginning to make some money of his own and saw the appeal drug dealing had to the criminal society in Southie.
Not long after Shea had his first real connection to the streets, the connection came through an ex-boxer and a Winter Hill Gang drug dealer by the name of Paul "Pole Cat" Moore, who was well respected by both the average citizen and the criminal element of Southie also. Moore was "living the life" in Southie. He had a nice car, nice clothes, plenty of women and a pretty lucrative drug business. Moore brought Shea around to all the bars that were connected to members of the Winter Hill Gang in Southie, although Moore himself did not drink much. Moore became Shea's first mentor in the street life, among other things he taught Shea how to sell drugs. Shea learned to notice where the back door was and if it was opened or closed, never to show money when the product or the money is being exchanged, only to carry a small amount of your product with him, an amount that you can afford to be ditched, to find a spot to hide the rest of you stash in and how to roll joints and cut and bag cocaine in little envelopes with eight folds, evreything a street dealer should know. While working for Moore, Shea became very good at Math, the scale and breaking up the product. Shea was beginning to make some money of his own and saw the appeal drug dealing had to the criminal society in Southie. Although Shea was now entrenching himself in the street life, he continued his dreams of boxing. Shea wound up working with a famous boxing trainer by the name of Eddie Flynn, who had to have his fighters do everything his way...so he changed Shea's ring name from John Shea to Sean O'Shea, to make him sound more Irish and less American. After catching a ride home from Flynn's own son who also attempted a career in boxing, Shea realized that Flynn would ruin his career, just as he had done to his son, so he left his working venture with Eddie Flynn and called up a young lawyer by the name of Tony Cardinale who was born and raised in Hell's Kitchen, and would go on to be included in the lawyer team of John "Johnny Boy" Gotti, Jr., Gennaro "Jerry" Angiulo, Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno and Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme. Tony Cardinale's brother Dennis began working with Shea and brought him back to California were Shea had his first bout against a Mexican fighter. Shea won a $500 purse and gained his first victory. In Shea's second bout he would lose a split decision against a black fighter by the name of Wilkins, after the lose to Wilkins Shea returned to Southie and the drug dealing business with Paul Moore.
Shea moved into Moore's apartment and they moved most of their product out of the bar next to Moore's apartment Triple O's, which in name belonged to Winter Hill Gang Lieutenant Kevin "Turtleneck Pants" O'Neil but was really owned by James "Whitey" Bulger. A bouncer at the bar was a young tough guy and shylock who was also a member of the Winter Hill Gang and would go on to become one of Whitey's two protégés, his name was Kevin "Two" Weeks. Shea's apprenticeship with Moore would be short lived. Shea quickly became tired of selling grams and eight balls of cocaine for Paul Moore, he was sick of playing second fiddle and soon began selling ounces of his own. It wasn't long before Shea had to buy in much larger quantities in order to keep his customer base happy. Shea bought his first kilo after saving money from the ounces, eight balls and grams he had been hustling in the bars of Southie. When Shea was finally able to purchase his first kilo he went down to the Florida Keys to get it from a dealer known only as "the Captain", through this girl who was friends with Tommy Connors, an Italian woman by the name of Marina. At their first encounter The Captain believed that Shea was actually a cop, but in a sign of good faith Shea handed the $19000 over to The Captain for the kilo of cocaine. The Captain left after telling Shea he would be back with the product in about an hour. After a couple of hours Shea grew wary and his temper began to flare up, but instead of taking it out on Marina with verbal abuse they both got drunk together and made love. Also during this waiting period a helicopter continually flew by and Shea grew paranoid and believed that the SWAT Team was coming for him. At 1:00 A.M. The Captain finally arrived with the kilo. Shea was furious and lashed out on The Captain, to which the Captain responded, "I wanted to make sure you weren't a cop, that was my helicopter.", Shea left and headed back to Southie.
The next time Shea made a trip to Florida to purchase the product was again with Marina, but this time the product would not be arriving through The Captain. It was a Cuban that Shea referred to in his book as Jerry. Shea would make about a half dozen trips to do business with Jerry and his Cuban and Colombian drug partners, he also went to do business with Jerry because of Jerry's "young and beautiful Cuban daughter", whom Shea made love to on every trip. Shea was very pleased with Jerry's product the readings were always 87%, 88% or 89%, except on one occassion were the reading actually made it up to 90%. As Shea stated it was "gorgeous, flashy, sparkling and crisp". When Shea arrived with the product in Southie he and a few of his trusted friends who went on to become business partners, would weigh out the kilo into eight balls, ounces and grams. It wasn't long before Shea was noticed by Whitey Bulger. Whitey was at the time in his early sixties and Shea in his early twenties, forty years apart, but Whitey knew a good recruit when he saw one.
After a while of being on his own distributing his own product, and just a short time after Whitey noticing Shea's progress in the business Shea was handed an ultimatum, either you're working for Whitey or you die. Shea began working in Whitey's organization as a Soldier in the drug crew led by a Lieutenant for which Shea only supplies the name Mickey O. According to Shea, Mickey O was a "snake" and although he set Shea up for some very large purchases(seven or eight kilos of cocaine from his Florida connections at a time), Shea was not a fan of the way Mickey O operated his crew. After a while other dealers that were part of Mickey O's crew, including Shea's original partner Paul "Pole Cat" Moore, began to realize that they were being kept out of the loop and complained about how they were not getting enough product and not making enough money and how Mickey O was stepping on the product more times than necessary and the Winter Hill drug crew began to gain a bad name for themselves. Whitey called in Mickey O, Mickey tried to blame it on Shea. Whitey then went and had a chat with Shea, Whitey told Shea after only a one minute long conversation that Shea had no need to worry, he knew it was Mickey screwing up and that Mickey would be forced into retirement and forced to leave Southie forever. Around the same time that Shea was being recruited into Whitey's organization, he fell in love with a woman by the name of Penelope who had olive skin, big brown eyes, brown hair, full lips and a nice body. She was of Italian heritage. Shea soon thereafter became very serious with Penelope and the two young love birds were quickly falling in love with one another, after Shea bought Penelope a pair of diamond earrings, Penelope's mother did some research on Mr. John "Red" Shea, and asked Penelope to meet this Irish boy from Southie. Upon meeting Penelope's mother Shea was confronted with the fact that people in the neighborhood had told her that Shea was a part of Whitey Bulger's Irish Mafia and was a big time coke dealer. Shea denied both claims, he even denied the existence of Bulger's Irish Mob. When Penelope's mother asked Shea to promise that if he went to prison he would walk away from Penelope, Shea told her that he couldn't promise that. Shea would later wind up proposing to Penelope, but, the wedding never took place. Shea stated that he could not bring a wife and children into the life he chose, he said he took Whitey's advice on family and ran with it.
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Part 1