Murdered by the mob or suicide? Victim of Whitey Bulger is found dead in woods days after he was struck off list of trial witnesses Stephen Rakes, 59, was discovered dead with no sign of trauma on Wednesday on a secluded rural road in Lincoln, Massachusetts Rakes was days from testifying against mobster James 'Whitey' Bulger Had told friends he was going to give explosive testimony against Bulger Rakes alleged that Bulger tried to extort his liquor store from him the 1980s Friends and family deny that Rakes would kill himself Friends of a man who hoped to be key witness in the on-going trial of James 'Whitey' Bulger have revealed that he was terrified of dying - just hours after police confirmed that a body found in a secluded wooded area belonged to him. The body of Stephen 'Stippo' Rakes was found at 1.30pm on Wednesday in Lincoln, Massachusetts and on Thursday afternoon, the Middlesex district attorney said that the autopsy found no sign of trauma to his body. Toxicology tests are now being carried out but could take several weeks. Police are believed to have told Rakes' relatives that the death appeared to be a suicide. The stunning development comes just weeks after Rake, 59, revealed he was no longer scared of the gangster and that he was grateful to be alive to testify. It also comes after he was denied the chance to testify that Bulger, 83, threatened his daughter at gunpoint in an effort to force him to turn over his South Boston liquor store as a headquarters for the notorious mobster for $100,000. His friend Steve Davis told the Boston Herald that Rakes had been terrified of dying. Rakes himself had spoken out just last month to say he was happy to be alive, which he considered lucky as he knew hundreds of victims who were terrified of Bulger, he said. 'They took everything from me,' he said of the mob. 'They don't care about nothing. They don't care about what they take from you... At least I'm still alive. I'm alive and I'm grateful for that.' Rakes, who had previously refused to testify against Bulger, had told Davis that he was 'nervous' about the 'bombshell' he thought he was going to drop on the stand at the feared mobster's trial. He told me over and over he had a big bombshell to drop,' said Davis. However, he was robbed of this chance on Tuesday when U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz informed Rakes that he was no longer needed as a witness - a decision that reportedly 'devastated' him. Rakes had harbored decades of anger at Bulger and his accomplices, Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi and Kevin Weeks, after they allegedly forced him to hand over his South Boston liquor store in 1984 by holding a gun to his daughter's head. 'The day I see him in a box, not breathing, will be better,' Rakes said in April. A long time friend of Rakes, Steve Davis, whose sister Debbie was allegedly killed by Bulger, said the first indication of anything amiss with Rakes was on Wednesday afternoon when he was removed from the witness list of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz at the U.S. District Court in South Boston. This was because on Tuesday, Ortiz told Rakes that she did not plan to call him to testify, a decision that Davis said upset his friend. Davis, whose sister is one of 19 murders Bulger is charged with said that he realized something was wrong on Wednesday, when Rakes did not call him back. He told the Boston Globe that Rakes thought Ortiz's decision had taken away his chance to refute the claims of Weeks, an associate of Bulger, that his claims about being extorted were untrue. Davis told ABC News that the last time he saw Rakes was on Tuesday in court but he failed to reach him during the night and alarms bells started ringing when he didn't meet him for breakfast on Wednesday. Absolutely not,' said Davis to ABC News on Thursday morning. Davis said that his friend was 'in good shape' and the two of them would frequently cycle across Boston. It doesn't make sense.' Experts watching the trial said that Rakes' death will not affect the outcome of the case against Bulger. 'He had a special level of outrage and really wanted to tell his story, but his story was not consistent' with prior testimony by key prosecution witness Kevin Weeks, said Rosanna Cavallaro, a Suffolk University criminal law professor to USA Today. Davis said he was told by authorities that Rakes was still dressed in the clothes he was wearing Tuesday when he was found in Lincoln. Arrested: This pair of file booking photos shows Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, left, in 1974 from the Boston Police Department, and James "Whitey" Bulger, right, in 1984 from the FBI Steve Davis, brother of alleged murder victim Debra Davis, answers a reporter's question outside federal court on Monday, July 8th, in Boston while Kevin Weeks (right) speaks during a 2011 prison interview Stephen Rakes (L) and Stephen Davis arrive for the first day of the trial of accused mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger at the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts June 12, 2013 Rakes owned a profitable liquor store in South Boston that Bulger had his eye on. One night in January 1984 Bulger, Flemmi and Weeks knocked on the door of his house. 'You've got a problem. We were hired to kill you,' Rakes said Bulger warned him calmly that cold winter night. Offering him the chance to save his life by selling him his store, Bulger allegedly put his gun down on the table where his one-year-old daughter, Meredith began to play with it. Would you like to have your daughter grow up without a father? Bulger allegedly asked Rakes. Rakes was handed a bag for $67,000 and told that he had lost control of the liquor store and threatened with death if he reported them to the police. Bulger, now 83, faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted of charges including racketeering and 19 murders that prosecutors say he committed or ordered in the 1970s and 1980s. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, though his lawyer admitted that Bulger was a drug dealer, extortionist and loan shark, essentially an "organized criminal." Bulger and Flemmi, who had not seen each other since 1994 when Bulger fled Boston to evade arrest, briefly got a look at each other on Thursday morning when Flemmi was brought in to testify but then hustled back out of the courtroom and a new witness called. Their tale recalls a dark side to Boston's FBI office during that period, when both men were listed as FBI informants but also were given tips by corrupt agents who helped them escape capture and root out 'snitches' within their ranks. Their story inspired the 2006 Academy Award-winning film The Departed, in which Jack Nicholson played a character loosely based on Bulger. In 2004, Flemmi pleaded guilty to 10 murders in a deal that spared him the death penalty, and his testimony is expected to form the backbone of the government's case against Bulger. Defense attorney J.W. Carney of the Boston law firm Carney & Bassil on Thursday cross-examined former drug dealer William David Lindholm, who was jailed on drug and tax evasion charges in 1991 but released early for cooperating in the case against Bulger. Lindholm admitted to having submitted fake tax returns while he earned more than $10 million as a marijuana smuggler. 'For you the lying was worth it, because of the benefit that you would get in return,' Carney asked. 'Yes,' Lindholm replied. In six weeks of testimony, witnesses so far have described Bulger as a cold-blooded criminal quick to violence. Former associates have accused him of participating in killing several people suspected of talking to law enforcement. Others said he used fear to extort cash. On Wednesday, a former drug kingpin testified that Bulger forced him to play Russian roulette in a nightclub's back room in 1983 as a way to make him hand over $1 million, and then later threatened to 'cut my head off'. Bulger's trial has riveted Boston and given the jury a glimpse of an era when machine-gun toting mobsters shot associates and 'rats' who talked to authorities, then buried their victims' bodies in basements or under bridges. Bulger fled in 1994 after tip from a corrupt FBI agent that arrest was imminent. He was finally captured in Santa Monica, California, in 2011 after 16 years on the lam.