Slain woman’s grieving mom finally finds peace in death
By Peter Gelzinis
Boston Herald Columnist
Thursday, April 26, 2007 - Updated: 01:18 AM EST
Olga Davis’ indomitable 76-year-old heart stopped beating last Saturday, but not before a few of her whispered prayers were answered.
Seven years ago, on a brilliant fall morning, a team of state police and DEA agents uncovered the remains of a beautiful daughter who had been missing for almost 20 years. Olga Davis’ middle child, Debbie, had been unceremoniously entombed in a Quincy swamp at the hands of a man who was no stranger.
“One of my mother’s greatest fears,” Steve Davis said yesterday, “was that she would die without ever knowing what happened to my sister. I am just so glad the police were able to find my sister before my mother passed away.”
Over the next few years, Olga Davis would live to hear Stevie Flemmi, the gangster who once romanced her daughter, avoid the electric chair by pleading guilty to helping Whitey Bulger strangle the life out of her.
She would also see John Connolly - the disgraced FBI agent who enabled Flemmi and Bulger to slaughter with such impunity - sent to prison for 10 years for racketeering, only to be subsequently indicted for murder in Florida.
Eventually, Olga Davis would endure long enough to receive a shamefully small penance from the proceeds of a book written by Kevin Weeks, the lowlife who dug her daughter’s unmarked grave.
But yesterday, in a blend of grief and anger, Eileen Davis made it clear that her mother died without ever hearing what she had come to crave most of all.
“My mother never got an apology from the people who owed her the decency of looking in her eyes and saying, I’m sorry,” Eileen said. “No one from the government, who were always more concerned with protecting a couple of monsters, ever bothered to apologize for the anguish they put my mother and the rest of my family through.”
Robert Davis, the youngest of Olga’s 10 children, agreed that what mattered most to his mother as her days dwindled was some acknowledgment of the treachery committed and the harm done.
“That always hurt my mother till the day she died,” he said. “All she wanted was an apology. She wanted to hear someone admit that what they had done was wrong. They put us through hell for 20 years, they destroyed our family, when they knew what had happened to my sister. Yet, they just didn’t care. We didn’t matter.”
“Toward the end,” Eileen said, “it got so that she didn’t want to hear about it anymore. They’d put Debbie’s picture in the paper and she’d sink into this depression for days. What most people never knew is that my mother buried four of her children. My brother Ronnie died six months before Debbie went missing. My sister Sandra was struck and killed by a car some years back. And Michelle died in my mother’s house just about a year ago.
“She gave life to 10 of us,” Eileen said. “My mother wasn’t even 5 feet tall, yet she was a giant. She left 23 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. She managed to shoulder so much for so long.
“I didn’t want to let my mother go,“ Eileen continued. “She hung on as long as she could, for us, for me, my brother and sisters. But you can only hang on for so long, especially when you’re struggling to live with wounds that never heal. My mother never really got over all that happened to her back in 1981.
“When Michelle died last year,” Eileen said, “that was the last blow. Michelle was her baby. You know, my mother really never saw justice on this earth, She saw a man who killed and defiled her daughter get the chance to save his own neck by striking a deal. At least now, I know she’s at peace. She’s finally made it home to God and a place where she’ll be shown justice and hear forgiveness.”
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