According to Colonel Johnson:

“Our MAAG C-47, on which “Fitz” was crew chief, had returned from a trip to Hong Kong at approximately 1300 hours on Friday, 8 June, after an uneventful flight. When all the passengers had deplaned “Fitz” and the other members of the crew went about their normal maintenance duties, readying the aircraft for another flight the following morning.

When his work was completed, “Fitz” left the airfield for his quarters, in downtown Saigon, for a well-earned rest, a shower and dinner. As far as is known, he planned a quiet evening, relaxing and resting up for the next day’s flight.

That evening, at dinner, an incident occurred while “Fitz” and several of his friends were eating at the Non-Commissioned Officers Club. SSGT Edward C. Clarke, the radio operator on Technical Sergeant Fitzgibbon’s crew, walked into the club and stood several paces away for a time, watching and glaring at “Fitz.”

Shortly, “Fitz” got up and walked over to Clarke and according to observers they had several moments of what appeared to be rather heated conversation. Soon after Sergeant Fitzgibbon returned to his table, someone in the group told a joke and the entire group laughed. With this, Sergeant Clarke walked up to the table and said “you had better stop talking about me.” Sergeant Clarke, without another word, turned and departed the club.

After eating, “Fitz” left the club and walked the several blocks to his quarters. No one knows just how long it took Sergeant Clarke to cross the thin line of sanity that the MAAG First Sergeant spoke of. No one saw him return to his quarters and remove a .22 calibre target pistol from his locker. Nor did anyone give Clarke more than a glance when he presumably returned to the NCO club only to find Sergeant Fitzgibbon had returned to his quarters.

At 2145 hours Richard Fitzgibbon was in front of the enlisted billet where he lived. He had been sitting in a chair that he would customarily remove from just inside the doorway after every return trip from Hong Kong. Minutes earlier Vietnamese children had been crowded around him. “Fitz” wouldn’t let anyone chase them off. After all, he had gotten to know most of them and after a trip to Hong Kong they flocked around him as was customary. The sun had just set beyond the buildings — Vietnamese women were just taking in the last of the wash hung from the balconies. Most of the children were on their way home. The gray haze just before darkness almost obscured Staff Sergeant Clarke as he approached.

“Fitz” lived directly across the street from me,” said Master Sergeant Burroughs. “I was in my room with a couple of friends polishing off a jug when we heard two series of rapid fire — at that moment it sounded like fire crackers, but immediately someone reported a shooting.”

Clarke had shot “Fitz” five times at close range.

Immediately afterward, Clarke walked into a bar next door, and without a word shot and wounded SFC John Sakmar, an Army Sergeant, also assigned to MAAG. Sakmar was shot three times. “I looked across the street and noted something was wrong,” said Burroughs. ” We had a medic upstairs so I had someone grab him and a first aid kit.

“After shooting Sakmar, Clarke left the bar, gun in hand, and proceeded up the street,” said Johnson. “When the local police attempted to stop him, he ran into a building, went upstairs and positioned himself on a small balcony overlooking the street. The police opened fire on Clarke who slipped and fell to his death on the sidewalk below. He died as a result of the fall. He was not hit by police bullets nor did he shoot himself.”