Dead End in Lincoln

A Dead End sign on Mill Street in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Photo by Trisha Thomas
A Dead End sign on Mill Street in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Photo by Trisha Thomas

I don’t know if this happens to any of you dear Blog Readers, but I am finding that my personality is suddenly being possessed by my profession.  Or perhaps my personality has always been what it is and led me into a profession that requires those personality traits.  Let me clarify– I am home in Boston on vacation to relax– and suddenly I am feeling an urgent need to report.

But let’s go back to the beginning. I guess I was born a Curious George.  Since an early age I’ve wanted to find out what is going on and be where the action is.  Once I found out where the action was, I needed to be in the middle of it.  Once the action– whatever that might have been — a friend getting a wasp bite, a cat stuck in a tree, a fire in someone’s attic — was completed, I would rush home and report events in bated breath and with as much colorful elaboration as possible.

But I am getting rather old, after all, so a vacation should be a time to relax and I have every intention of not running to where the action is this summer.  It just so happened that I arrived late the other night in Boston and my mother sent Bob Kiley, an Irishman who grew up in South Boston and certainly knows a thing or two,  to come pick me up and take me out to her home in bucolic Lincoln.

“So, how are things out in Lincoln?” I asked casually as we were heading out of Logan Airport, “Ah, well we gotta dead body out there, today,” Bob replied.  I recognized immediately a fellow yarn-teller.  “Yep, somewhere on one of those woody paths near Flint’s Pond.  Jogger found him, looks like it might even be a Mafia hit” he added as he tossed our suitcases in the back of the car.  Well, it doesn’t matter that I just got off an 8 hour flight, or that it was about 2am Rome time, that comment woke me up and I wanted to know every last gory detail.  Lucky for me that  Bob Kiley knows a lot about the history of the Irish Mafia in Boston.

So, this is more or less the story.  Police found the body of 59-year-old Stephen “Stippo” Rakes on a small wooded trail in the town of Lincoln — about a 20 minute drive outside of Boston.  Rakes does not live in the Lincoln and police did not find his wallet on him, according to the report in “The Boston Globe.”

This death is suspicious because of Rakes’ involvement in the trial of Irish Mafia boss James “Whitey” Bulger going on in Boston.  Bulger — who is now 83 was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang that ruled Boston’s underworld in the 1970s and 80s.  Bulger is now on trial accused of murdering 19 people, and being involved in extortion, money-laundering, and stock-piling of weapons.  For decades Bulger got away with his crimes because he was an FBI informer, giving information on the Italian Mafia in Boston. (And here I thought Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta Mafia were the really bad guys)

Interestingly while “Whitey” Bulger was running the dark side, his younger brother Billy Bulger was serving — for a total of 18 years – as President of the Massachusetts Senate, and as President of the University of Massachusetts.  He has always been considered innocent of any knowledge of his brothers activities, but he has remained loyal and has been attending his brother’s trial since it began on June 12th.

“Stippo” Rakes had also been attending the trial and apparently was eager to testify.  According to the Boston Globe who interviewed Rakes in 2001, Rakes said “Whitey” and his cohort “The Rifleman” Flemmi came to him at his home, put Rakes’ one-year-old daughter on Flemmi’s lap, spun a gun on the table and told him that he was going to sell them his liquor store.  They then gave Rakes an envelope filled with 67,000 dollars in cash.   Rakes had told reporters that he was eager to take the stand and tell his story.  He will no longer be doing that.

The FBI eventually tipped off “Whitey” that he was being investigated by the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Boston Police for various murders. Bulger fled Boston in 1994 and, after years of collaboration with the FBI, ended up on their Ten most-wanted list.  “Whitey” was captured in Santa Monica, California in 2011.   His trial has captured the attention of Boston with relatives of the victims packing the courtroom.

Yesterday,  Flemmi–“Whitey’s” former right-hand man, now serving a life sentence for murder,  testified in great detail about how he brought his 26-year-old girlfriend to be strangled to death by “Whitey” because he had revealed to her that “Whitey” was an FBI informant.  Flemmi described how he brought her to an empty house in Boston but couldn’t bring himself to kill her, so “Whitey” “grabbed her by the throat and strangled her”.  Once she was dead, Flemmi took over, wrapping up her body in a tarp and pulling out her teeth.  They then threw the body in the trunk of a car and buried it in a hole by the Neponset River in Quincy.

Trail off Mill Street, Lincoln where the body of Stephen "Stippo" Rakes was found by a jogger. Photo by Trisha Thomas
Trail off Mill Street, Lincoln where the body of Stephen “Stippo” Rakes was found by a jogger. Photo by Trisha Thomas

But now back to the body of Rakes.  The corpse was found on a wooded trail in Lincoln on Thursday as I was winging my way to Boston. So how could Curious Georgette herself not go check it out.  So today, I rounded up my daughter and two cousins — dragging them away from computers, iphones and dvds and straight out into the bright sunshine to find the scene of the crime. It took some sleuthing, we followed some false leads, but we finally did find the spot.  The corpse was gone but the cops had left a few empty coffee cups on the ground.  Hey guys, no littering allowed!!

 

 

 

Ah, what a working Mamma will do get force her kids to get some fresh air.

Conrad, Cassie and Chiara, three fearless detectives head to the woods in search of dead bodies. Photo by Trisha Thomas
Conrad, Cassie and Chiara, three fearless detectives, head to the woods in search of dead bodies. Photo by Trisha Thomas

 

This update just in from a anonymous blog reader:

Have you heard the latest on Stephen Rakes, whose body was found in Lincoln?  A man by the name of William Camuti is being charged with his murder.  Camuti is a businessman who lives in Sudbury.  Apparently he had some business dealings with Rakes, and I believe Rakes owed him money.  Anyway, he called up Rakes and said he had a good idea for a business investment and invited Rakes to meet him at a Waltham McDonalds to discuss it at 2:30 in the afternoon .  He bought two iced coffees for them and apparently laced Rakes iced coffee with cyanide.  I guess they sat in the car and talked until the cyanide took effect and then he drove the body around for a couple of hours before deciding how and where to dispose of it.  Or perhaps he figured that out ahead of time and waited until dark.  Anyhow, what a story.  Moral of the story:  don’t let your “friends” treat you to iced coffee.  You never know what will  befall you!   The pundits aren’t sure it is connected with the Whitey Bulger case, but I’ll bet it is.  Why knock Rakes off just before he has the possibility of testifying.  Probably Camuti was afraid he would be implicated in something or another.

 

9 thoughts on “Dead End in Lincoln”

  1. And you call this a vacation! Whitey Bulger’s story is just fascinating. From his having been an FBI informant to his years on the lam. You couldn’t write a better movie script. But geez, the story of the murder of his friend’s girlfriend really points up the brutality of these people. And when I told Bart that Stephen Rakes had been found dead, Bart just shook his head. What a world. I sure hope you can relax now! I hope there will be no big news stories for the duration of your stay!

    1. Trisha Thomas

      I am such a newshound Adri that I love chasing the news even on vacation. I think my family members might have to tie me down so I don’t slip into town and try and get into the courthouse to watch the trial with my one two eyes. The whole story is astounding and it is hard for me to believe that as I was growing up completely unaware all these horrible things were happening.

    2. Trisha Thomas

      I agree Adri — it is stuff of movies. I am such a newshound I am having to resist the temptation of going into the courthouse and checking things out for myself.

  2. Terrific photo, and so glad you posted on this. This death is more than suspicious, since the police now say the body was dumped there, and his car was found a few towns away. So . . . . who is sending this message??? A Whitey ally? A Kevin Weeks ally? I hope the police can get to the bottom of this!

  3. Yes, Trisha’s Tales, always family favorites! And still are! Wish we were there to go sleuthing with you! And you weren’t even the Nancy Drew crazed sister!

  4. Hi Trisha
    So good to see you’re vacationing but still bringing us some really interesting news.
    At the moment I’m reading Roberto Saviano’s ‘Gomorrah’ and some of the statistics he refers to are truly terrifying. One in two businesses in Naples are controlled by the Camorra and every family in Naples has at least one member who is seriously drug addicted. Before I began reading this I was blissfully unaware of the extent of the Camorra’s influence and to me, organised crime was part fact and part Hollywood construction.

    Trisha, hope you have a relaxing time in Boston – and keep on with that curiosity – you’ve always got something great to tell us.

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Great to hear from you Kathy. “Gomorrah” is a fascinating book and I really admire Saviano. I have seen him speak in person and he is brilliant but I think his life– under constant police protection– has taken its toll. The various mafia groups in Italy — Cosa Nostra, Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta — are powerful, but interestingly, as I did not feel the presence of the Irish Mafia and their dark doings in Boston when I was growing up, I don’t feel the Mafia presence much in my daily life in Rome. Still, once in a while you hear something a bit disturbing. The other day, a friend of a friend opened up a small store in Genoa and the owners of the stores near hers came to warn her that within a few weeks she should expect a person to stop by to ask for the “pizzo”– protection money to be paid to the mafia. She was appalled. She didn’t think the mafia had a presence in Genoa. But they were there.

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