'Whitey' Bulger backs man's efforts at freedom
BOSTON - A Boston man who has spent more than 30 years in prison for a killing he says he didn't commit has an unusual ally in his quest for exoneration - convicted mobster James "Whitey" Bulger.
Robert LaMonica was gunned down in Braintree in 1980. The now 62-year-old Fred Weichel was convicted the following year based largely on testimony from a teenager who said he saw the gunman jump into a waiting car and identified him as Weichel.
The Boston Globe (http://b.globe.com/1h75fI3) reports that in a series of letters sent from jail last fall, Bulger wrote that the real killer was an unnamed friend of Weichel's.
Bulger says he's familiar with the slaying because he played an indirect role in it.
Weichel's lawyer shared the information with the Globe.
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Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.bostonglobe.com