by Jack Sullivan, Boston Herald

Saturday, January 15, 2000

From the outset, Emily McIntyre knew she would never again see her boy alive after he vanished more than 15 years ago.

``To my son, John,'' she wrote in a book about his disappearance, ``who loved the children of Ireland and could not be indifferent to their pain. Whatever he may have done, he did not deserve to die.''

Just two months before he disappeared, John McIntyre had taken part in a failed plan to deliver stolen guns and ammunition to the Irish Republican Army, transferring the ordnance from the Gloucester-based fishing vessel Valhalla to a waiting boat, which was seized by British authorities off the coast of Ireland.

Emily McIntyre speculated in the book, ``Valhalla's Wake,'' that her son was killed by British intelligence agents trying to protect an informant in the IRA who tipped them to the incoming guns.

But law enforcement sources here theorized John McIntyre, whose body is believed to be one of three exhumed from a frozen Dorchester field yesterday, was executed by James ``Whitey'' Bulger and Stephen ``The Rifleman'' Flemmi or their associates for telling investigators about the gunrunning and a marijuana smuggling operation.

``(McIntyre) came into us and started telling us about the Valhalla and then coughed up the Ramsland,'' said one former investigator, referring to the freighter that smuggled the pot transferred from the Valhalla. ``If I didn't know the (background), I would think he was having a fantasy.''

Authorities think McIntyre and Arthur ``Bucky'' Barrett, who disappeared in 1983, are two of the three bodies taken from the 8-foot grave across the street from Florian Hall. Sources said the third body is a woman, either a girlfriend or a relative of Flemmi's.

Relatives of McIntyre and Barrett confirmed that state police informed them yesterday morning they were searching for the bodies and there was a good chance the remains were their loved ones. Both families declined to say much.

``I just don't want my children hurt,'' said Elaine Barrett, who lives near the McIntyre family in the Squantum section of Quincy.

Chris McIntyre said when police arrived at his mother's home yesterday to tell them of the possible discovery of his older brother, who was 32 when he disappeared, it was a ``shock.''

``We're dealing with 15 years of closure here,'' said Chris McIntyre, as he stood red-eyed in his mother's doorway.

John McIntyre, a disabled veteran and former member of the Army's elite Security Agency, allegedly told Quincy police about the Valhalla and Bulger's connection following his arrest on an unrelated warrant for a domestic charge. One former investigator said McIntyre had been drinking heavily and ``just coughed up the Valhalla.''

On Nov. 14, 1984, right around the time McIntyre disappeared, the Ramsland and its cargo were seized by federal agents acting on information from McIntyre, the source said.

Sources said Barrett may have been killed on Bulger and Flemmi's orders so they could grab his share of a $1.5 million bank heist from the Depositor's Trust Bank in Medford. Another investigator yesterday said Barrett was also involved in marijuana smuggling aboard the Ramsland, although he disappeared before federal authorities seized the freighter and its cargo.

While McIntyre and Barrett grew up practically next door, they could not have been more different. McIntyre was described by one investigator who knew him as ``an intelligent kid,'' while Barrett was portrayed as a ``professional career criminal.''

``This kid (McIntyre) is no dummy,'' said the source. ``A little high-strung but after he started with the alcohol, that's where he started going bad. He wasn't a stone-cold killer himself.''

The source said McIntyre was ``an IRA sympathizer'' who likely got involved thinking he was helping the rebels' cause. But when he was arrested, his conscience got the best of him and he spilled his guts, said the source. And that may have been his demise.

Barrett, on the other hand, ran with a bank robbery crowd in Charlestown and was a part of Bulger and Flemmi's gang. One source said the three were seen together in Medford just weeks after the Memorial Day 1980 robbery of Depositor's.

In April of 1983, shortly before he vanished, Barrett was arrested and charged with conspiracy to distribute 11 tons of pot seized at the Harbor Oil Company in South Boston. The company was owned by Joseph Murray, who was convicted in the Valhalla gunrunning case.

McIntyre told investigators that Bulger and Flemmi set up the operation with Murray's help.

Murray was shot and killed in Maine in 1992 during a fight with his wife.

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