Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson (29 September 1935-29 August 1988) was a Gambino crime family associate of mixed Italian and Native American descent. He worked as an FBI informant from 1966 to 1985, and he was murdered by the family in 1988.
Biography[]
Wilfred Johnson was born in Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York City in 1935 to a father of partial Lenape Native American descent and a mother of Italian descent. He was raised in Red Hook, and he had a dysfunctional and vicious childhood, as he had to deal with an alcoholic and abusive father and an absent mother. At the age of nine, he was arrested for robbing a candy store cash register, and he was pushed off the roof of his school during a fight when he was 12 years old. Johnson became a Mafia enforcer, running a gang of thugs in East New York by 1949. Johnson brought in money for the family, but he was unable to be "made" due to being of mixed descent. In 1966, he was imprisoned for armed robbery, and Carmine Fatico broke his promise to look after Johnson's wife and children. Johnson decided to become an FBI informant, and he told the FBI about Paul Cicero's avoidance of FBI wiretaps and bugs. In 1985, his career as an informant came to an end when a federal prosecutor revealed his FBI informant status in an attempt to get him to testify against John Gotti in a plea bargain. Johnson refused to enter the Witness Protection Program, and the FBI stopped investigating Gotti.
Death[]
The crime scene
On 29 August 1988, Bonanno crime family hitmen Thomas Pitera and Vincent Giattino ambushed Johnson as he walked to his car in front of his Brooklyn home, firing 19 rounds at him. Johnson was hit in the thighs, his back, and the head, and the mobsters dropped jack-like spikes on the street to prevent the NYPD from pursuing them. His death was done as a favor from Pitera to Gotti and the Gambino family. Johnson was buried in the Middle Village of Queens.