Gerard Michael O'Neill (September 1, 1942 – August 22, 2019) was an American journalist, newspaper editor, and writer. A long time investigative reporter for ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', he was awarded the

Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting The Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded since 1953, under one name or another, for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series in a U.S. news publicat ...

three times.

Life and career

Born in Boston, O'Neill graduated from

Stoughton High School Stoughton High School (SHS) is a public high school the town of Stoughton, Massachusetts, United States. It serves students in grades 9 to 12 and is a part of Stoughton Public Schools. It has an average of 300 students per grade level. It is lo ...

and

Stonehill College Stonehill College is a Private college, private Catholic church, Roman Catholic Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Easton, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1948 by the Congregation of Holy Cross and is located on ...

; earning a degree in English at the latter institution in 1964. He attended

George Washington University Law School The George Washington University Law School (GW Law) is the law school of George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Established in 1865, GW Law is the oldest top law school in the national capital. GW Law offers the largest range of cou ...

before earning a master's degree in journalism from

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

in 1970. For 35 years he was an investigative reporter and editor for ''

'', and was notably one of the three original reporters on the Globe's " Spotlight" team. He was first awarded the

in 1970 for a major investigation of corruption in

Somerville, Massachusetts Somerville ( ) is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a total population of 81, ...

; an award he would receive two more times during his career. O'Neill's most notable piece of investigative reporting was in 1988 when he and journalist

Dick Lehr Dick Lehr (born May 3, 1954) is an American author, journalist and a professor of journalism at Boston University. He is known for co-authoring The New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award winner ''Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI and a Devil ...

published a story revealing that mobster

Whitey Bulger James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger Jr. (; September 3, 1929 – October 30, 2018) was an American organized crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, a city directly northwest of Bost ...

was an FBI informant while still actively committing crimes. The two men would go on to write three books together, including two about ''Black Mass: The Irish Mob, the FBI, and a Devil’s Deal'' (2000) and ''Whitey: The Life of America’s Most Notorious Mob Boss'' (2013). The former book was an

Edgar Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...

winner, and was made into a 2015 movie starring

Johnny Depp John Christopher Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor and musician. He is the recipient of multiple accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Award ...

as Bulger. O'Neill died on August 22, 2019, from

interstitial lung disease Interstitial lung disease (ILD), or diffuse parenchymal lung disease (DPLD), is a group of respiratory diseases affecting the interstitium (the tissue and space around the alveoli (air sacs)) of the lungs. It concerns alveolar epithelium, pulmo ...

at his home in

Needham, Massachusetts Needham ( ) is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. A suburb of Boston, its population was 32,091 at the 2020 U.S. Census. It is home of Olin College. History Early settlement Needham was first settled in 1680 with the purchase of a ...

, a close-in suburb of Boston.

Works

* * * *Lehr, Dick; O'Neill, Gerard (2015). ''Black Mass: Der verhängnisvolle Pakt zwischen dem FBI und Whitey Bulger, einem der gefährlichsten Gangster der US-Geschichte (German Edition)''

References

1942 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American journalists American male journalists American investigative journalists Boston University College of Communication alumni Deaths from lung disease Edgar Award winners George Washington University Law School alumni Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting winners Stonehill College alumni The Boston Globe people Journalists from Boston {{US-journalist-1940s-stub