boston have sounded for generations of irish immigrants. it's a tight-knit community that's always protected its own, a place james "whitey" bulger called home. he learned to fight and survive on the mean streets of south boston, known as southy to locals like john shay who, decades later, would work for bulger. >> the guy was legendary. >> he made tough guys shake. he made them shake. >> reporter: bulger's life of crime started early, arrested in his teens, he was robbing banks by age 20. his shock of blonde hair earning him the name "whitey," a name he is said to despite. with his rugged good looks and reckless flamboyance, he imagined himself as boston's version of jimmy kagny. but instead of red carpets he was headed to alcatraz. a string of bank robberies landing him ten years in federal prison at age 25. did he his time and upon release vowed he would never, ever go back. >> they had no hard proof. >> reporter: "boston globe" reporters dick layered and jared o'neill ultimately reportsed the deal he cut to make sure of that. >> he go out of prison in 1965 and we started doing research in 1988. he hadn't gotten so much as a parking ticket. >> reporter: whitey bulger fresh from prison went to work as a mob enforcer. bup bulger warranted more and federal investigators say he'd stop at nothing to get it. >> then he went on a killing rampage. i think it is like a month. he killed six guys in 1972. >> he was ambitious in making his move. >> reporter: he was making his move with this man -- steve flemmy, a/k/a the rifleal. >> back before dna was used to identify victims he'd personally get involved in cutting off the fingers or hands of victims and extracting their teeth. >> reporter: tom fuentes ran the crime squad for fbi headquarters. give me three words to described whitey bulger. >> stone cold killer. >> why kill debbie davis? authorities say because she knew his connection with another kid from southy, john connelly. >> for me it was like meet the ted williams. the idea of equating -- >> gangster to a baseball icon -- >> i think that shows you the kind of twisted values in perception on the world that's part of john connelly. >> reporter: john connelly grew up in the same housing projects, he was a young am bibs fbi agent. in the '70s and '80s the fbi's number one priority was taken down the italian mafia. >> he did everything including breaking all kinds of laws over the years to keep that alive. >> reporter: in a series of grouped breaking articles for the "boston globe"ing with lair and o'neal uncover what their fbi sources call a dangerous alliance. >> 1976 connelly tipped him off about a rival and bulger killed him. connelly had to realize right away how deadly this was. >> reporter: bulger's criminal enterprise skyrocketed. court documents show bulger knew when police were watching, knew when they were moving in and ultimately knew when to disappear. he was shaking down bookmakers and loan sharks. this was a guy who was a really bad guy. >> everything that i wanted to be. >> reporter: as his power grew, so did that of his younger brother, billy. >> i just want you to know we are pea all on this open microphone, mr. president. >> reporter: a tough as nails politician well respected as president of the massachusetts state senate. >> how do you beat a guy psycho psychopathic. brother in senate. fbi is protecting him. it was one big family living in the projects like this. >> reporter: john shay, now a changed man, once ran bulger's multi-million dollar drug operation. >> growing you up, you had to be a tough kid. >> reporter: he served 12 years in prison rather than break southy's code of silence. >> whitey being a rat. stevie being a rat. and this is what i took an oath to? an oath of honor? it was heartbreaking. >> reporter: documents show fbi agent connelly continued to feed bulger secret information, at times with deadly results. >> bulger charged with a crime, then he could no longer be an informant. >> reporter: attorney bill christie represents families of several of bulger's victims. this man only gunned down while he left a boston restaurant. according to testimony at a civil trial, fbi agent connelly told bulger where to find him. >> bulger cornered him and shot him 22 times starting from the leg up to his torso, up to his chest. 22 times with no head shot. so he inflicted as much pain as he could and also did it in a fashion that to make sure he knew he would die. >> reporter: in a case of wrong place, wrong time, michael donahue was killing hallorhan a right home. whose wife and kids to this day blame the fbi for the death. >> john connelly is a big reason why my father is dead. >> there's a hole in your heart when you think about what's going to take place hopefully in the future, and then there's no future with that person so that's pretty gut wrenching feeling. >> reporter: in 1994, whitey bulger's nearly 20-year reign came to an end in what was likely connelly's parting gift, authorities say he alerted bulger to a pending indictment and true to his word that he'd never return to prison, bulger disappeared with his long-time mistress kathleen grieg leading to one of the fbi's greatest embarrassments and one of its largest manhunts. what was whitey bulger's life about? >> power. strength. money. he was like a king, that guy. he was like a king. coming up -- how one of america's most notorious gangsters remained comfortably hidden for 16 years. >> he became the elvis of gangsters. she's had these shoes a long time. they're kind of my thing. and they were looking... nasty. vile. but i used tide and tide booster, and look at them now! now they can be my thing forever. yay. that's my tide. what's yours? i use tide sport because it helps get odors out of athletic clothes. i mean, i wear my yoga pants for everything. hiking, biking, pilates... 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>> um-hmm. always him with hat. i didn't know if he was bald. >> reporter: this 88-year-old eventually befriended her upstairs neighbors. but there were privacy boundaries you did not cross. like asking the gascos to hold a spare key in case of emergency. >> he says, well let me talk to my wife. he come back and says, no, he doesn't want you to give him anything. we don't want to. >> reporter: by all accounts whitey bulger kept a low profile. he didn't have any problems with the people who lived on his hall. according to one neighbor he didn't divulge much about himself but did say he had originally come from chicago and had fought in the korean war. that neighbor says a couple of times he caught whitey bulger on his balcony peering out with binoculars. from his crime days, bulger knew the easiest way to get caught was to become complacent so he changed his patterns. even when he came to getting his haircut. says this salon owner. >> i ask him to make appointment but he never did. he just walked in. he never left me any number or anything. >> reporter: in fact, court documents showed bulger and grieg had fake identities. after his arrest, he told authorities he went gambling in las vegas, took trips to tijuana to buy medication and even returned to boston on business telling authorities he was armed to the tee. all the while the fbi was scrambling to find the gangster who had kruchted bureau agents. former fbi speth agent in charge barry mohn arrived in boston two years after bulger disappeared putting him on the fbi's top ten most wanted list and had him featured on various crime shows, even in a dick tracy comic book. >> we weren't trying to hide him or not find him. if you look at what we did it is impossible to draw that conclusion. official say 12,000 leads came in over 16 years. fuentes leading the fbi's international efforts says they followed up bulger sightings in ireland, london and south america. >> there was thousands of police officers involved in that round-the-clock operation. so o any time there was a sighting of him, worldwide, everybody went full-bore to full up on those leads to try to find in. so in a way he became the elvis of gangsters, he was constantly being spotted somewhere. >> reporter: the break in the case came in late june after the fbi paid for a public service announcement aimed at finding bulger's girlfriend. it never even aired in los angeles. but a new story led to a crucial tip and an arrest three days later. bulger lured into the garage on a ruse that someone had broken into his locker. these are some of the 30 weapons fbi agents confiscated from bulger's apartment. >> van number one. van number two. >> reporter: after more than 5,000 days on the run, bulger was brought back to boston in handcuffs charged with 19 murders in court he denied them all. the damage he caused to the fbi still haunts the bureau to this day. in hindsight, do you think the fbi being aed to slowly to follow up on rumors that there was a leak and a dangerous leak that was letting whitey bulger run free? >> yes. i do think that. >> reporter: how this plays out is anyone's guess. bulger turns 82 in september. le cooperate in stand trial? cut a keel? depends on who you ask. >> at that time -- >> reporter: but his former drug boss john shay, now a writer, says bulger has the feds right where he wants them. >> he's playing them. trust me. psychologically he is playing them. is he giving them information? is he talking to them? you guarantee he is. >> reporter: so why here? why so near the statue of santa monica? consider this -- in south boston, bulger grew up attending the church of st. monica. perhaps it's just a coincidence. perhaps it's a clue. some kind of locator. after all, whitey bulger left little to chance. next on "cnn presents" -- we next on "cnn presents" -- we explore why the u.s. navy built this remote camp in the frigid arctic. and goes under the ice on a nuclear submarine. and later -- >> no, it's not good. it is not good enough. >> they don't just cheer on the sidelines. >> that's it! >> a team determined to win a world championship at any cost. >> this is it. this is what's going to determine the success of your year. it's a pleasant 60 degrees at my home in l.a. today. but where i'm going it could be as cold as 60 below zero. every two years the u.s. military conducts an operation in the arctic circle called ice exercise. better known as ice ex. the arctic region consists of eight countries that boardary vast ice-covered ocean. no one country owns the arctic. there are some agreements governing who controls what territory, but as the ice melts, those lines in the map are changing and each nation is competing to extend its arctic border to claim a greater piece of the valuable high north. i don't really think that often about what's going on in the arctic, but with global warming opening up vast riches of resources, and military exercises with nuclear convering underneath the polar ice cap i wanted to know what's going on at the top of the ice world, and why. as i launched to the arctic, i talked via skype with an arctic expert, professor rob hubert, about the spike in the region. >> most of the arctic states are moving toward the improvement their combat forces within that region and no one is calling for an arctic war or conflict at this point in time. it is telling that we have two american attack submarines doing scientific research off the coast of alaska. >> reporter: prudhoe bay, alaska, last stop in the u.s. before heading ot ice station. as it time to get armed with real cold weather gear. >> hopefully everybody's been given one of these books, survival in the arctic. >> the only way to get where we're going is a six-seater bush plane. finally, amidst a sea of arctic ice, we spot the camp. >> how you doing? >> reporter: with the u.s. submarines just below our feet i get my first look at a series of simple wooden huts built in the last two months to protect everyone from the extreme conditions. look at this right here. balmy 10 degrees right now. >> balmy, balmy 10 degrees. >> reporter: about 50 people from sailors to scientists have been adjusting to living at the ice station over the course of the exercise. there's no magazine rack or anything in there and also importantly is the effectiveness of toilet paper is significantly diminished at nye news 40. >> reporter: just basic survival at the camp is a challenge. you can't go outside without carrying a rifle in case a polar bear attacks. while we were standing on five feet of ice right now, we actually are moving 2 to 4 mirp. it is just floating. over the course of the one-month-long ice exercise it will move about 70 miles just from drift alone. so why am i here? why has the arctic become a hotspot? the world, it's physically clanging beneath my feat. with global warm being the polar ice cap is melting opening up an ocean for the first time since the ice age. this has created access to all kinds of new resources but it's also created competition at the top of the world. as the arc tech sea opens up, ships sailing from the atlantic to pacific oceans traditionally relying on the pan that ka nat route can use the northwest passage saves hundreds of millions of dollars. a third of the world's natural gas it under the arctic. minerals to diamonds. not everyone believes the quest for resources believes competition. in anchorage i was briefed by a professor. >> there is complexity. can be some friction. but not at a high level of military conflict issues that i would say. >> reporter: professor lawson's colleague from the university of calgary disagrees. >> i think we're on the cusp of being demilitarized. people are thinking much more military terms than they did since the end of the cold war. >> reporter: and back at ice camp, military exercises are indeed under way. >> maverick, roger, this is atlas. >> reporter: the command hut monitors and communicates with the u.s. submarines 24 hours a day. in the past submarines had to surface to communicate. one of the systems in development allows the base camp to send texts to the submarine under the ice. >> it is almost like a tweet, tweet submarines down here. i'll press in, there's a hydrophone down there that blasts out the sound. it sounds like crickets. >> reporter: we saw an amalgam of testing, acoustics, submarine tracking, sonar all under the umbrella of research. in your opinion what is the purpose? >> it is a scientific basin, it is a nice little cover but the reality is that the american navy is clearly showing that it is back. >> reporter: this is a land grant. this is the u.s. presence in the high north. but we're not alone. other nations are rapidly building their capabilities in the arctic as well. russia is creating an arctic armed forces. just this month announcing it will deploy two army brigades, including special forces. and it has resumed strategic bomber flights over the north pole. the canadian government is building eight ice strengthened patrol vessels. denmark is deploying f-16s to greenland. the value is not on this desolate sheet of ice i'm sitting on. the real value is beneath the surface. that's where we're going next, on a nuclear submarine underneath the ice. 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[oinking] [hissing] [ding] announcer: cook foods to the right temperature using a food thermometer. 3,000 americans will die from food poisoning this year. check your steps at foodsafety.gov. i'm don lemon live at the cnn world headquarters in casey anthony is now free but we don't know exactly where. anthony walk out of an orlando jail just after midnight. 12 days ago a jury acquitted her of murdering her daughter. about 1,000 people were outside the jail in protest. >> security was high. her attorneys say she has had multiple death threats. in