Career
Formerly listed as Public Enemy No. 1 by state officials, O'Brien was one of the last independent racketeers as the Patriarca crime family began establishing themselves in Providence. On the evening of May 1952, after returning from a local roadhouse, his body was found in the backyard of his Cranston home (although other accounts claim he was gunned down during the afternoon in a street in Pawtucket ) after being shot and killed by an unidentified gunman.
