Paul McGonagle (Quincy, Massachusetts- November 1974 South Boston, Massachusetts) was an American mobster and leader of the Mullen Gang, a South Boston street crew involved in burglary and armed robbery.
Paul McGonagle was the oldest of several brothers born to first generation Protestant immigrants from Ireland and raised in South Boston. While in South Boston he became acquainted with Catherine's sister Margaret and the two married, and moved into a home in the neighbourhood of Quincy where she lived during her marriage to the gang leader. During the gang war against neighborhood boss Donald Killeen, McGonagle and Irish immigrant Patrick Nee successfully led the Mullens against the Killeen brothers organization, which finally ended with Donald Killeen's gunned down outside his suburban home in 1972. The leadership of the Killeen Gang was then devolved on James "Whitey" Bulger. He is the former brother-in-law to Catherine Elizabeth Grieg, the fugitive girlfriend of Winter Hill Gang leader James J. Bulger. Later, Catherine and Margaret's younger brother became close friends with Bulger. Former reporter Howie Carr stated, "Whitey isn't exclusively gay. But I've had it on good authority from the FBI sources that he is bisexual... Whitey was often seen in the company of (David). He liked to have him around". Paul's brother-in-law David was found mysteriously shot in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which was ruled a suicide. He was married to Catherine's identical twin sister Margaret (born April 3, 1951) in East Boston, Massachusetts and brother-in-law to David Greig, the younger brother of Catherine. It is unknown when and how long were Paul McGonagle and Margaret Greig married. Following the murder and subsequent disappearance of her husband, Margaret divorced him on grounds of abandonment and remarried to a man named McClusk whom she was still married to as of 2008. Catherine is also the sister-in-law of Donald McGonagle, Paul's younger brother lived a law abiding life and did not follow his brother into a life of organized crime. Unfortunately, Donald who shared a fleeting physical resemblance with his brother was mistaken by Irish mob boss and wanted fugitive James J. Bulger to be that of Paul and was shot in the head, execution style in 1971, during the Killeen brothers and Mullen gang war. The FBI state on their wanted fugitive poster of Catherine Greig that one of the aliases she was known to have used in 1995 before she fled with Bulger was 'Catherine McGonagle', taking the last name of her slain brother-in-law as her own after going on the run with Bulger.
According to Kevin Weeks,
"One day while the gang war was still going on, Jimmy was driving down Seventh Street in South Boston when he saw Paulie driving toward him. Jimmy pulled up beside him, window to window, nose to nose, and called his name. As Paulie looked over, Jimmy shot him right between the eyes. Only at that moment, just as he pulled the trigger, Jimmy realized it wasn't Paulie. It was Donald, the most likable of the McGonagle brothers, the only one who wasn't involved in anything. Jimmy drove straight to Billy O'Sullivan's house on Savin Hill Avenue and told Billy O, who was at the stove cooking, 'I shot the wrong one. I shot Donald.' Billy looked up from the stove and said, 'Don't worry about it. He wasn't healthy anyway. He smoked. He would have gotten lung cancer. How do you want your pork chops?'"
According to former Mullen boss Patrick Nee, Paul McGonagle was enraged by the murder of his brother. Certain that Billy O'Sullivan was responsible, McGonagle ambushed and murdered Bulger's mentor. Rather than murdering Bulger as some Killeens desired, Patrick Nee arranged for their dispute with him to be mediated by Howie Winter, the godfather of the Irish-American Winter Hill Gang. After a sitdown in the South End, Boston, the two gangs joined forces with Winter as overall boss. Bulger, who proved a reliable moneymaker for Howie Winter, was soon in control of the South Boston rackets. It has since been revealed by investigators that Bulger was responsible for McGonagle's disappearance in November 1974. According to Patrick Nee, Paul McGonagle was enraged by the murder of his younger brother Donald, who, according to Kevin Weeks, was shot in the head during the Killeen-Mullen War after Bulger mistook him for his brother Paul. It was likely for this reason that Bulger shot McGonagle in the head and buried him in a shallow grave on Boston's Tenean Beach. The murder was almost certainly sanctioned by Howie Winter. At the time of McGonagle's murder in 1974, his wife Margaret was left an unassuming widow at the age of twenty-three.