Anti did they ever solve the murder of the man whose last name was patriarca in toronto think it happen last year. Was just wondering cause they said he was related to the guys in rhode island? Sounded like a hit.
Good Question! The murder was never connected to the Montreal war, but Patriarca was picked up frequently on Rizzuto wiretaps.
pmac:
No, the murder of Alfredo Patriarca in January 2016 remains unsolved. (The VICE Canada reporter was way off the mark in connecting the murder victim with the Patriarca Family. There is no such relation.)
Hollander:
Patriarca's murder could be connected to the June 2012 killing of Raposo, and, in contrast to the theory of the writer whose blog I quoted from just a bit farther above, both murders could be related to tensions between Montreal and the Siderno Group before and after Vito Rizzuto died in December 2013. As many posters who have read the articles about Patriarca's murder know, he was hit by a stray bullet when Raposo was killed, but Patriarca wasn't identified in newspaper articles at the time of Raposo's murder.
On January 20, Alfredo (Freddy) Patriarca was found shot to death in the garage of an Etobicoke home. Police have not arrested anyone in the shooting. However, a Toronto police spokesperson did tell the media that the murder had all the signs of a professional hit in that the killer took just eight seconds inside the garage to shoot Patriarca dead.
The 42-year-old Patriarca has long been suspected of having ties to Italian-Canadian mafia families. Citing an unnamed police source, the Toronto Star wrote that he was frequently overheard on police wiretaps that were part of Project Colisée, a major investigation into Montreal’s Rizzuto crime family of Montreal during the mid-2000s. During the investigations, police were conducting surveillance on one relative of Rizzuto and two twin brothers who were associated with the Rizzuto family. “The deceased had a close relationship with the twins and Rizzuto loyalists,” the police source said. “He was close to both brothers.”
Patriarca was previously wounded in a high-profile homicide allegedly connected to Italian-Canadian organized crime. As CBC News describes, “he was one of two men shot in the summer of 2012 as they sat together on the crowded patio of a College Street cafe. The men were among hundreds of people watching a Euro Cup soccer match in the neighbourhood’s bars and restaurants that day when a gunman, dressed in a hard hat, construction vest and dust mask covering his face, approached them and opened fire with a handgun. Patriarca was sitting with John Raposo who was shot five times in the head and died from his injuries. Toronto police have since said Raposo was the intended victim of ‘the targeted hit.’” Four people have since been charged in connection with that shooting, including Rabih Alkhalil (see earlier story on the Alkhalil brothers). Police have said the murder was likely related to an underworld dispute involving large quantities of cash and cocaine.
According to CBC News, Patriarca and his family “live in homes that are heavily secured, and rigged with surveillance cameras. But Patriarca’s residence was under renovation, so he, his wife and two children recently moved into a rented home. It was his wife who called 911 after discovering his body.”
A Toronto police spokesperson said that Patriarca “has never been charged with an offence in relation to organized crime.”
Sources: CBC News, January 26, 2015, Etobicoke murder victim survived 2012 Little Italy patio shooting; Toronto Star, January 31, 2016, Murder victim Alfredo Patriarca was picked up on Rizzuto wiretaps: police source; Torstar News Service, February 18, 2016, Police downplay mob angle in Etobicoke man’s murder
