Gerard O'Neill obit

Gerard O’Neill, Spotlight editor who defined investigative reporting in Boston, dies at 76

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O'NEILL, Gerard M. Age 76, of Boston. One of Boston's top investigative journalist for the Boston Globe died on Thursday, August 23, 2019. He was the beloved husband of Janet (Reardon) O'Neill, and the loving father of Brian T. O'Neill and his wife Patricia and their children Kylie Madeline, Jack Taylor and Shane Michael O'Neill. Sister of Maureen Dennis and her husband James. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated in St. Joseph Church, 1360 Highland Ave., Needham on Tuesday, Aug 27 at 10 AM. Visiting Hours will be held at the Eaton Funeral Home, 1351 Highland Ave., NEEDHAM, on Monday from 4-7. In lieu of flowers, memorials in Gerry's Memory may be made Good Shepherd Community Hospice, 90 Wells Ave., Newton, MA 02459 or to My Brother's Keeper, 534 Washington St., North Easton, MA 02356. To share a memory of Gerry, please visit www.eatonfuneralhomes.com Eaton Funeral Home Needham 781-444-0201

Born in Boston, O'Neill graduated from Stoughton High School and Stonehill College; earning a degree in English at the latter institution in 1964. He attended George Washington University Law School before earning a master's degree in journalism from Boston University in 1970. For 35 years he was an investigative reporter and editor for The Boston Globe, and was notably one of the three original reporters on the Globe's " Spotlight" team. He was first awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1972 for a major investigation of corruption in Somerville, Massachusetts; 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 published a story revealing that mobster Whitey Bulger 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 winner, and was made into a 2015 movie starring Johnny Depp as Bulger.