Son Of Murdered Tulsa Businessman Reacts To Mobster's Arrest

Lacie Lowry, News On 6

UNDATED -- The family of prominent Tulsa businessman Roger Wheeler say they've been through hell since his murder thirty years ago. They went from a happy family of four to a heartbroken threesome searching for answers.

News On 6 spoke with David Wheeler, one of Roger Wheeler's two sons, on Thursday. You may be surprised at his reaction to the arrest of Whitey Bulger, who was on the run for 16 years before his arrest Wednesday night.

6/23/2011 Related Story: Mobster Connected To Infamous 1981 Tulsa Murder Arrested

"The timing is curious at best. What's going to come out of it? I don't know," David Wheeler said.

It's been three decades since David Wheeler's future with his father was stolen from him. That was just the start of the suffering.

"I have been lied to and my family has been lied to so many years, so many times over so many years, it is unbelievable," he said.

Wheeler says those lies came from the FBI and for that reason, he never thought Whitey Bulger would be caught alive.

"In thirty years, I have seen so much FBI corruption that, why would they arrest a guy that can expose them to even more corruption?" David Wheeler asked.

Wheeler has been intimately involved in his father's case, testifying alongside retired Tulsa Police Sergeant Mike Huff at a Congressional hearing and speaking on his family's behalf through each twist and turn of this decades-long story.

And all that time, he has maintained that Bulger and the other "major" players really weren't major at all.

"Bulger was just a two-bit hood save for the power that the FBI granted him. They're the ones that gave him power," he said.

So all these years later, when Bulger is finally arrested at age 81, Wheeler can't really say he's relieved. He's disgusted that the FBI is handling the Bulger case file.

"That's like asking a bank robber to handle the investigation into the bank robbery. What do you think is going to be the answer?" he said.

Wheeler and his family believe this is a massive conflict of interest and true justice isn't possible with the FBI involved.

"It has to be taken out of the hands of the FBI, because they have dirty hands," he said.

David Wheeler has been working on a book for about eight years now on what he calls the FBI's embarrassing involvement in his father's murder and how it's affected his family.

David's brother and mother did not want to comment on this story.