Richie Fitzpatrick (1880-1905) was a top gunman in the Monk Eastman gang, as well as a former member of the Five Points Gang , during the late 1890s until his death in 1905. He is best known however for the method of eliminating an Eastman rival where he would meet with the person in question and, after being searched, would inform them that he would not follow Eastman's orders instead seeking to defect to the rival gang and as he excused himself to use the bathroom he would retrive a planted gun and return surprising the person shooting the victim down. This would later inspire the famous scene in The Godfather Saga.

Joining the Five Points Gang under Paul Kelly in the late 1890s Fitzpatrick defected to the Monk Eastman Gang along with "Kid Twist" Max Zwerbach during the Kelly-Eastman gang war in 1903 becoming a top lieutenant. After Monk Eastman's arrest in 1904 Fitzpatrick began fighting over leadership of the Eastman gang with Zwerbach eventually splitting the gang into separate factions. In early 1905, while attending a peace conference to discuss the gang war against the Five Points Gang in the New York Chrystie Street neighborhood, Fitzpatrick was killed by "Kid Twist" before the peace talks began. Several weeks later "Kid Twist" liutenent Vach "Cyclone Louie" Lewis led an attack mudering the remainder of the Fitzpatrick faction.

Further reading

• Jay Robert Nash, Encyclopedia of World Crime (D-J) Vol. II, Crimebooks Inc., 1990, hardcover, 1,000 pages (853-1750)