On a summer evening in July 1994, a violent clash between two rival motorcycle clubs at an Elk's Lodge in Hackettstown, New Jersey, ended in the death of 33-year-old Glen Ritchie. The event, a poker run hosted by the Tri-County Motorcycle Club, took a fatal turn when members of the Pagans Motorcycle Club, including Ritchie, arrived uninvited.
The simmering tensions between the two groups quickly boiled over into a full-scale brawl involving knives and guns.
In the ensuing chaos, Glen Ritchie was shot once in the neck. The bullet tragically traveled through his heart and exited his back, resulting in his death. Another man, Diego Vega, aged 23, of Morristown, also lost his life in the gunfire.
In the aftermath of the deadly encounter, law enforcement identified William Johnson, a 35-year-old member of the Tri-County Motorcycle Club from Jefferson, New Jersey, as a primary suspect. Johnson, who was also wounded in the fight with a gunshot to the buttocks, was subsequently arraigned on charges of attempted homicide and illegal weapons possession. Another individual, Richard Leadbeater, a 30-year-old from Kearny and a member of the Pagans, faced charges of aggravated assault and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose after he allegedly stabbed a Tri-County member in the neck.
Despite these arrests and several others on obstruction charges, the investigation into Ritchie's death proved to be complex. While multiple individuals were held accountable for their roles in the violent altercation, no one was ever specifically charged with the murder of Glen Ritchie. The authorities awaited ballistics tests to determine the exact caliber of the bullet that killed him, but the specific individual responsible for firing the fatal shot was not publicly identified in the immediate aftermath.
