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                                                           He's "met his maker"

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    That was the emotionless response of Robert Long, the retired Massachusetts State Police lieutenant who helped put William "Billy" Barnoski behind bars for life for the May 10, 1988, cold-blooded slaying of Lowell bookie John R. "Jackie" McDermott in his Highlands home, upon hearing that Barnoski died at 6:20 p.m. Monday at HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster.

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    Also taking a bullet that evening was McDermott's son, Peter, who was 27. The younger McDermott would survive, but spent nearly a month at Lowell General Hospital recovering from a bullet wound to his mouth and neck.

Barnoski, who according to sources was battling pneumonia, was 74.  "I'll tell you this," Long said in a telephone interview "Billy Barnoski was the real deal."  A real mob enforcer.

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    Barnoski, Long said, wouldn't think twice about smashing a horse racing jockey's skull with a tire iron during the early- to mid-1980s when his Winter Hill Gang fixed local horse races.

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    Barnoski was convicted of fixing those races, while the big fish the state police were after, James "Whitey" Bulger, managed to escape prosecution with the help of other law-enforcement agencies.  "He did his time, kept his mouth shut when he was in prison, and it was kind of a reward when he got out that he would take over McDermott's turf" in the Greater Lowell area, Long said.

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    So it was inevitable that Barnoski would introduce McDermott to his .38 caliber snub-nosed revolver. The only uncertainty was when. Late the previous evening, the mobsters even had drinks at the Hong & Kong Restaurant in Chelmsford.

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    Another motivation Barnoski had for shooting McDermott in the head is that it had come to his attention that McDermott was cooperating with law enforcement on the activities of the Winter Hill Gang, which drew its name from the topography of Somerville where the gangsters were based.  "They were going to do him," Long said. "It was just a matter of time".

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    The murder not only mesmerized Lowell, but also the entire region and state.

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    State-police wiretaps in late 1986 and early 1987 uncovered McDermott's cozy relationship with local politicians, including city councilors, who were scheming to put Mike McLaughlin in the city manager's office. (McLaughlin, 67, of Dracut, was sentenced in July to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court to federal charges that he under-reported his grossly inflated salary at the Chelsea Housing Authority to state and federal agencies. Under fire for receiving more than $360,000 in an annual salary, McLaughlin resigned as the agency's director.)

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    Political influence was discussed on the tapes. Blockbuster development deals were discussed. So, too, were gambling debts.  The notorious "Bookie Tapes" led to the indictment of McDermott and nearly two dozen other people in May 1987.

   

    McDermott turned state's witness on Barnoski to avoid jail in the gambling-racketeering case. While he might have avoided time behind bars, he essentially signed his own death warrant.

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    Patrick Cook, a reporter for The Sun who was on the scene that evening with former Sun photographer Michael Pigeon, recalls a bloodied Peter trying to tell authorities from the inside of an ambulance that it was indeed Barnoski who shot him and his father. "He had a mouth full of bullet and blood so it wasn't easy," Cook recalled.

    Initially, the scene outside McDermott's home at 26 Carroll Parkway wasn't too chaotic, Cook recalled. But as the investigation proceeded and authorities realized the significance of what happened, a who's who in law enforcement was soon on the scene. "Instead of an assistant district attorney, you had the district attorney, Scott Harshbarger," recalled Cook. "And rather than a couple of state police detectives, you had one of the top detectives in Bob Long."

Also on the scene was Lowell's top vice cop, Ed Davis, now the Boston police commissioner. Dozens of state troopers, and Billerica police officers descended upon Barnoski's home on Tercetennial Drive in Billerica less than two hours after the murder.

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    In Barnoski's wallet police found a description of Long's undercover BMW 320i, a copy of the registration, and a note that Long kept a Red Sox hat in the rear window. "How do you think Barnoski got a copy of that," Long was asked.  Long just sighed, before adding: "I was more worried with what he was planning to do with it."

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    Barnoski was first incarcerated on June 27, 1989. He had been an inmate at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Institute in Shirley since July 31, 2008.  Because of the pre-trial publicity, a jury for his murder trial was selected in Springfield and sequestered at Middlesex Superior Court in Lowell, recalled the presiding judge, Robert Barton. Barton, who is 83 and 13 years retired from the bench, oversaw many of Middlesex County's highest-profile trials. Barnoski's, he recalled, was one of them. Barton, who lives in Bedford, has many recollections of the trial. One in particular, however, stands out.

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    After the jury had found Barnoski guilty of killing McDermott, the prosecution wanted Barton to tack on additional years for attempting to kill Peter.Barton, however, decided to run the sentences concurrently.           

 

    "I remember the defendant approaching the bench, and the bench then in Lowell Superior was high," Barton recalled. "The defendant looked up to me and muttered the words "Thank you". "In all my years on the bench I don't think any defendant who I had just sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole said thank you," Barton said.