May 13 – While walking down 59th Street in Woodside, a middle-class neighborhood in Queens, Mickey Spillane is shot and killed by an unknown gunman after approaching an unmarked car. Although in semiretirement, Spillane's death would mark the official end of the decade long gang war between Spillane and Jimmy Coonan as power over Hell's Kitchen falls to the Westies.
July 15 – Australian anti-drug campaigner Donald Mackay is kidnapped from a hotel carpark. Used shotgun shells and blood stains are found in his locked van. Drug baronRobert Trimbole is suspected of ordering the murder.
October 6 – Cleveland gangster Danny "The Irishman" Greene is killed by a car bomb after leaving from a dentist's appointment.[2]
October 30 – Frank Lino is made, or officially inducted, into the Bonanno Family. Lino would eventually become a cooperating witness for the government in 2003.
