A Boston mobster in prison on a life sentence is suspected by local police to have been involved in the suspected murder of Whitey Bulger Tuesday, according to local reports.

Fotios "Freddy" Geas, 51, also from the Boston area, was reported by the Boston Globe as being a part of an operation targeting Bulger, though the paper did not detail if he was responsible for planning or physically carrying out the attack in which four men are believed to have brutally beaten Bulger to death in his wheelchair at a West Virginia prison.

Geas grew up in Springfield, Mass., and was sentenced to federal prison in 2009 for his role in the assassination of mob boss, Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, the murder of Gary Westerman, and the failed murder attempt of Frank Dabado.

Following Bruno's murder, the man who was sent to carry it out and another man who had ordered Geas to find someone to do it both testified against him in court.

Ted McDonough, who once worked as a private investigator for Geas, said the man "hated rats," or people who snitched on their fellow comrades.

“Freddy hated rats,” McDonough told the Boston Globe. “Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It’s probably that simple."

David Hoose, the lawyer who represented Geas during his trial, agreed his former client "wouldn't rat on anybody" and "had no respect for anyone who would."

Geas was serving his time at the Hazelton federal prison in Bruceton Mills, W. Va., where Bulger had just been transferred from a Florida prison.

Bulger had been serving two life sentences for 11 murders. He was on the FBI's most-wanted list for more than a decade and was captured in 2011. He was also a secret informant to the FBI.

McDonough said if Geas was responsible for Bulger's death, it could improve his status in the mob scene despite his being behind bars.