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Brian Halloran
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Brian Halloran was a friend of Howie Winter, Joe McDonald and the
Martorano brothers – in short, he was old-line Winter Hill. When he got
out of state prison in 1979, all his pals in the gang were either in
prison or on the lam. Whitey and Stevie didn’t much care for him.
Then Whitey
decided he knew too much and personally murdered him with a machine gun
in Southie, along with another guy who had offered him a ride home. |
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In 1981,at
the behest of Hub wannabe gangster/businessman John Callahan,
Whitey and Stevie gave him the contract to murder Roger Wheeler, the
owner of World Jai Alai, which they were skimming. They quickly realized
they'd made a mistake and told him to forget about it. But when Wheeler
was murdered (by John Matarano and Joe McDonald) they realized Halloran
would have to go too. Halloran tried to get into the Witness Protection
Program, but was turned down.
Whitey was quickly tipped to the fact that Halloran, whom he
disparagingly referred to as Balloonhead, was trying to flip
so Halloran had to be whacked but Whitey couldn't
find him. One afternoon in May 1982, Whitey and his underlings were
hanging out at the Mob's appliance store on West Broadway and F Street.
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A
hood from Charlestown stopped by and casually mentioned that he’d just
seen Halloran drinking at The Pier, a bucket of blood on Northern
Avenue. Whitey immediately snapped to attention, and began planning to
whack Balloonhead as he left the taproom. An hour or so later Halloran,
half in the bag, asked a construction worker named Michael Donahue for a
lift home
he asked Donahue for a lift, and Donahue said yes, not knowing
that Whitey was waiting outside to kill him. |
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This is the Chinatown restaurant where Brian Halloran murdered drug dealer George Pappas, October 1981. |
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