February 17, 2005
Biker gang moves into 'Peg' October 30, 2004
Winnipeg may not have an NHL team, but we're now home to two major-league outlaw motorcycle gangs. The Bandidos, arch-rivals to the Hells Angels, have set up a probationary chapter in the city, police said yesterday.
Cops confirmed the Bandidos' recent arrival in Winnipeg after arresting two members in connection with a violent abduction Feb. 8 in the West End.
Winnipeg police seized one of the Bandidos member's vests and showcased it to the media yesterday during a press conference.
"We've had intelligence for some time that there may possibly be Bandidos here in Manitoba, but this is the first confirmed evidence that we have that there is a charter here," said Sgt. Cam Baldwin, head of the Winnipeg police organized crime unit.
Police say there is a "worldwide truce" between the Hells Angels and the Bandidos, and so far there has been no reported violence between the competing gangs.
'UP TO ANGELS'
"I guess that will be up to the Hells Angels chapter here in Manitoba to dictate whether they're going to welcome the Bandidos or whether they're going to try to eliminate them from cutting in on their economics here in the province," Baldwin said.
Shortly after 3 a.m. on Feb. 8, a 20-year-old man was driving near Sargent Avenue and Toronto Street, when he was run off the road and forced into a snowbank, said Winnipeg police spokeswoman Const. Shelly Glover.
"The victim was then dragged from his vehicle by several males known to him and taken to an address in the city where he was held for several hours and tortured," Glover said.
The victim was treated in hospital for extensive injuries but has since been released.
Ron Charles Burling, 34, was arrested last Thursday, while Jason Llewellyn Michel, 25, was arrested Tuesday night in Calgary.
Both men, who are believed to be probationary members of the Winnipeg-based chapter of the Bandidos, are charged with aggravated assault and abduction.
Burling, whose leather Bandidos vest was seized by cops, returned a call from The Sun yesterday, saying he was doing it purely out of courtesy and that he had no comment.
Before hanging up, he asked that the media refrain from contacting Bandidos members.
"We don't talk to the media," Burling said yesterday afternoon via telephone from the Winnipeg Remand Centre. "I have nothing to say to you. Have a good day."
Burling made headlines last July when he accidentally shot off part of the big toe on his right foot following a violent home invasion on Agnes Street in the West End.
Police said at the time Burling had no gang connections.
Initial rumblings that the Bandidos were looking to expand into Manitoba were first reported in The Sun in December 2001.
Baldwin said the Bandidos chapter in Toronto is sponsoring Manitoba's six probationary members, who "are all people that are familiar to us in the province."
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To give credit when and where it's due, we give a nod to the CBC's coverage of the Winnipeg connection to the murder in Ontario of eight bikers, members or associates of the Bandidos motorcycle club.
Tuesday, they had a clip from the owner of the Holland House restaurant in Iona, Ontario, who described how Wayne Kellestine, the prime suspect in the murders brought five men from Winnipeg to eat. There had been rumors all day that the murders were somehow connected to a run the Bandidos were supposed to make to Winnipeg, but which the murdered men allegedly didn't want to make.
Then Wednesday, reporter Marisa Dragani quoted Ron Burling, a member of the probationary Manitoba chapter of the Bandidos currently in jail, about the murders. What's significant is that this is the first and so far only comment by any member of the Bandidos on the record in Canada.
Not some "source", or former Bandido, or "biker expert" who's written a book but a real, live colors-wearing member of the gang who insisted the club is far from finished. Good work, CBC.
The rumors and speculation of what sparked the killings have gotten farcical.
The latest theory is that drugs drove the men insane and into a killing spree. (We're not making this up.)
No doubt this is fueled by the information that three of the Bandidos who wound up dead were trailed to Kellestine's farmhouse by Durham drug police who suspected a major drug deal was in the works.
When it looked like the men were just settling in for a party, the police left.
After the murders, police (apparently) found that the men had brought 200 kilograms of cocaine with them.
The story in the Toronto Star put the value of the cocaine at $400,000, but if its broken down into ounces, the value becomes $5 million.
The street value, if sold in grams, is closer to $12 million.
That's enough to commit murder for.
And we aren't even touching on the 4 man hit squad that was coming in from Chicago theory. Maybe later.
The dead in the Friday Massacre are
John 'Boxer' Muscedere, 48,
Frank 'Bam Bam' Salerno, 43,
Luis Manny 'Porkchop' Raposo, 41,
George (Gus) 'Crash' Kriarakis, 28,
Paul Sinopoli, 30,
George 'Pony' Jesso, 52,
Jamie Flanz, 37, and
Michael Trotta, 31.
The Black Rod has found web posts by some of the men to the Bandidos Canada and Bandidos International sites. They show the joy the men felt in the camaraderie of the club in happier days. It's something that's missing from the many stories about the crime itself.
These posts bring a little humanity to the horror.
Wishing you all a fat RED & GOLD Christmas and a great New Year
from Bandidos Canada " NO SURRENDER CREW ".
LOVE, LOYALTY & RESPECT
Bandido Concrete Dave 1%er
Vancouver Canada Saturday, 24. December 2005 02:31
Name: Grmg Hafiz
City: Twin Tower, Kuala Lumpur
Sent: 29/12 2005 04:11 AM Fatz
Congratulation to Bandidos MC Canada "No Surrender Crew" on your 5th Years Anniversary. We wish all the brothers & families A Merry X-Mas & A Glorious & Joyful Year 2006. Have a Safe & Happy Holiday Season. With much LOVE, LOYALTY & RESPECT Grmg Hafiz Hang Around Chapter of Bandidos MC Malaysia
Name: BANDIDO BOXER NO SURRENDER CREW
City: TORONTO WORLD
Sent: 25/12 2005 10:50 AM
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEWYEAR TOO THE BANDIDO NATION AND TOO THE NO SURRENDER CREW WHO LOVES YA BABY FROM BOXER PBOL NINA AND ANGELINA LOVE LOYALTY RESPECT IT JUST DOESNT GET ANY BETTER.
Name: BANDIDO BOXER1%ER
City: TORONTO ONT
Sent: 27/07 2004 10:03 AM
LOVE LOYALTY RESPECT MY HEART AND PRAYERS GO OUT TOO A YOUNG MAN THAT WAS KILLED A FEW DAYS AGO HIS DAD IS MY BROTHER MY BRO I FEEL YOUR PAIN AND SORROW LOVE LOYALTY RESPECT BANDIDOBOXER 1%ER FOREVER.
Name: BANDIDOBOXER1%ER
City: CHATHAM ONTARIO
Sent: 27/07 2004 09:55 AM
WE WERE IN WINNIPEG WE RODE THREW SPENT THE NIGHT THE SUPPORT COMES FROM PEOPLE YOU KNOW AND TRUST SOMTIMES THIER FEW AND FAR BETWEEN BUT GOING THREW THE RIGHT MOTIONS GETTING TOO THE RIGHT PEOPLE IF YOU HAVE A HEARTBEAT AND BELEAVE IN BROTHERHOOD THERE ARE PEOPLE JUST DOWN THE RODE THAT CAN HELP YOU OUT ALL I CAN SAY THE COPS OUT THIER ARE FUCKED SOME HAVE A REAL PROBLEM THATS NOT UNUSAUAL LIKE GUN POWERED DOGS JUST MY OPPION THEY MIGHT CHANGE OVERNIGHT AND DO THERE JOBS AND KEEP HONEST
Name: bad compagny frenchy
City: the no surrender crew
Sent: 27/07 2004 05:43 AM I MISS YOU ALL MY BROTHERS,
I M GETHING BETTER FROM MY CAR ACCIDENT AND SHOULD BE BACK SOON.
IT S GOOD TO EAR THAT THE CANADIAN NO SURRENDER CREW
WASSABEE CHIEEEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFF IS RIDING DOWN
THE STATE
LOVE LOYALTY AND RESPECT
BAD COMPAGNY FRENCHY
NO SURRENDER CREW
Name: BANDIDOBOXER1%ER
City: TORONTO ONTARIO
Sent: 27/07 2004 05:26 AM
GOOD DAY TOO THE GREAT BANDIDOS WORLDWIDE EVERYDAY IS A GREAT DAY GONNA START MY BIKE AND RIDE WITH MY PBOL WHAT A DAY JUST GOT BACK FROM CROSS CANADA RIDE IT WAS BREATH TAKING LOVE LOYALTY RESPECT TOO THOSE THAT COUNT
Name: BANDIDOBOXER
City: TORONTO
Sent: 26/07 2004 05:00 PM
CHIEF MY BROTHER WHAT DID I TELL YOU YEARS AGO ONE DAY WHAT LOVE LOYALTY RESPECT FOREVER MY BROTHER SPYKE RICK WHO LOVES YA YOU CAME THREW LIKE ALL BANDIDOS WILL IN A PINCH MUCH LOVE RESPECT BANDIDOBOXER NO SURRENDER CREW ALL OF CANADA AND WORLDWIDE ONLY THE BEGINNING WHAT A RIDE RED AND GOLD EVERTWHERE.
Name: BANDIDO CHIEF1%ER
City: CANADASent: 26/07 2004 09:41 AM
HELLO TO MY BROTHERS IN CANADA EVERYTHING IS GOOD IM IN WASHINGTON KNOW HAVEING A GREAT TIME RIDEING WITH MY BROTHERS IN THE STATES TOOK SOME GOOD PICS.BOXER JERRY OLD MAN MISS YOU TO ALL MY BROTHERS IN T.O LOVE YOU.TAKE CARE CHOW FOR KNOW WAZUPPIE HEHEHEHEHE.MEETING LOTS OF WOMAN HERE TAKEING THEM FOR RIDES WISH YOU ALL CAN COME BUT I WILL HAVE FUN FOR YOU HEHEHEHE.
LOVE LOYALTY&RESPECT
BANDIDO CHIEF
NO SURRENDER CREW
CANADA.......
Name: BANDIDOBOXER1%er
City: TORONTO ONTARIO
Sent: 25/07 2004 06:24 PM
YA GOOD OLD TIME RIDING IN THE WIND FROM TOWN TO TOWN SLEEPING ON THE GROUND BEING REAL WITH OUR ONLY CONCERN IS OUR BROTHERS WELL BEING HAVING FUN PARTYING TURNING IT UP A NOTCH FLYING THE GREATEST COLOURS IN THE WORLD ROOSTER CHOPPER CHIEFERONE JOHNNY BIG PAULIE GRUMPY JAY WHAT A RODE TRIP LOVED EVERY SECOUND OF IT TO OUR BROTHERS IN EDMONTON AND CALGARY LOVE LOYALTY RESPECT BANDIDOBOXER
Name: Bandido Chief 1%ER
Sent: 21/12 2003 06:23 AM
Just writing to say hello to all my brothers Boxer is still recovering from friday night old man cant keep up with the chiefarone got tired of stareing at the whisky bottle so had to have a drink boxer say i dont know how you do it i say watch i will show you well chow for now
Name: Bandido Chief 1%ER
City: TorontoCANADA
Sent: 20/12 2003 01:46 PM
Just wanted to say i had a great time last night.good to see most of my brothers Crash Beaver Boxer Chopper frenchie circlehead and the one with the red and smelled like diesel fuel you know who you are . Bam Bam i know you were working to bad i know we would have cracked jokes all night L.L.R Cisco fucking site looking great ... i love it.Good to see our friends and hangarounds Had a great time Love.Loyalty and Respect B.F.F.B
----------------------------------------
Theory slayings were planned has no life, biker expert says
THE BANDIDOS MASSACRE: Unravelling the motive -- 'Someone snapped'
Randy Richmond
The London Free Press
April 12, 2006
Take all the theories about gangland hits ordered by higher-ups and bury them, deep, like you would a body, says a biker analyst and crime writer.SETTLING IN: Police have set up a command post, complete with portable toilet, on the road in front of Wayne Kellestine's property. (DEREK RUTTAN The London Free Press)Because, Yves Lavigne said yesterday (April 11), the idea that eight Bandidos members died on the weekend because of a planned slaying has no life.You want proof? Look at how the bodies of the dead weren't buried, he said."There was no attempt to hide the bodies. There was no attempt to run away," he said. "This was not a purge. This was an act of insanity. Someone snapped."
The massacre -- the worst in Ontario history -- and first-degree murder charges against five area residents have reporters, police sources, biker analysts and others going through theories faster than bikers go through beer.
The latest? The Bandidos ordered eight of their own killed because they refused to follow orders.Or the Bandidos ordered the eight members to kill colleague Wayne Kellestine of Iona Station because he was messing up.A corollary theory: Kellestine was tipped off.Those theories have as much validity as early media reports the killings were the result of a biker war between the Bandidos and the Hells Angels, Lavigne said yesterday."There have been two murders in Ontario this weekend," he said. "There was the shooting of eight Bandidos and there was the media shooting itself in the foot."Lavigne, who has written three books on bikers, refused to comment about the deaths until he heard from police that bikers were involved.Lavigne won't call himself a biker expert and he doesn't think others should, either.But he said he knows enough about the outlaw motorcycle world to know there was no hit ordered on the eight Bandidos or on Kellestine."This was a family tragedy. Biker gangs are like families. The reason eight people could be killed is because they all trusted each other."Whatever the reason the bikers got together, it wasn't for a planned hit, he said."Something went terribly wrong."Given the paranoia of outlaw bikers and the likelihood that any gathering would have been drug-fuelled, it shouldn't come as a surprise that someone would start shooting, Lavigne said.
The U.S. Bandidos would not order a hit against Canadians because they simply don't care enough about the much-weaker clubs to the north, he added."The American Bandidos wrote them off a decade ago. The guys in Ontario are bottom feeders."The Bandidos moved too quickly and patched over too many low-level bikers in Canada to get a foothold, he suggested."It's the equivalent of the Toronto Maple Leafs going to a street corner in London, giving some sweaters and saying, 'You're in the NHL.' "Lavigne's take on the killing is similar to another author, James Dubro, who said this week he doubted anyone planned the killing of anyone else."I don't think it was a professional hit," Dubro said.Speculation that the deaths create a vacuum for Hells Angels to fill is also invalid, Lavigne said."There is no vacuum" because the Hells Angels had no competition in the first place, he said."This doesn't affect them in terms of business."But, Lavigne added, "the unprofessional approach of the Toronto media gives the Hells Angels a public relations coup."
Talk of a Bandidos-Hells Angels war was false and now the Hells Angels can use it to prove to everyone how the world misjudges them, Lavigne said."They will milk this."Sure enough, yesterday, the Toronto Hells Angels website did take advantage of earlier reports about a possible war.Over photographs of newspaper headlines calling the massacre part of a biker war, the Hells Angels wrote their own headline: "Hell of a smear."
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Trio arrested for slaughter
Sat, June 17, 2006
'Toba bikers connected to killings: cops
Three Winnipeg Bandidos have been charged with murdering eight fellow bikers near London, Ont., confirming a link between Ontario's worst massacre and Manitoba.
After two months of speculation about a possible Manitoba link to the slaughter near Shedden, Ont., police announced yesterday they've charged three men with eight counts each of first-degree murder in connection with the mass killing.
Police said the three men -- one the president of the Bandidos Manitoba chapter, one a full-patch member and the other a prospective member -- are all presumed to have been in Ontario at the time of the killings.
Ex-cop charged
"We have reasonable grounds to believe they're involved. We followed the evidence trail and it led us to Winnipeg," said Det. Insp. Paul Beesley, who is in charge of the OPP's investigation into the case. "You don't actually have to be a shooter -- they may or may not have been shooters -- but the law allows people who are parties to the offence to be charged with the offense."
Charged are Michael Sandham, 36, a former East St. Paul police officer who led the local Bandidos chapter; Dwight Mushey, 36, a full-patch member of the local club; and 30-year-old Marcelo Aravena, a prospective member.
Police seized four leather Bandidos vests in the raids, two of which bore "Canada" bottom "rockers" and one that had a bottom rocker reading "probationary."
Aravena and Mushey were both arrested late Thursday night -- Aravena at his home and Mushey in what police would only describe as a "public place."
Sandham was arrested yesterday morning at his Greene Avenue home in East Kildonan, where Sandham lived with his partner Kathleen Harder and two children.
Police also arrested an unidentified woman, who has not been charged.
One neighbor said a man was led out of the Greene Avenue house at gunpoint, with a red light shining on his chest.
"We heard them scream 'Mike, get out of the house'," he said.
Clutching a doll, a little girl along with a young boy and a woman also came out of the home, said another neighbor.
"It was so sad," the neighbor said.
The couple hadn't been living in the brand-new home very long and weren't seen much around the neighbourhood, area residents said.
Sandham's red GMC Jimmy was seized from a garage at the back of the Greene Avenue home. As it was removed from the small garage -- which also housed a Harley Davidson -- small amounts of body damage were visible, including to the driver side mirror, which was held on with duct tape.
Though it matched the description of a similar vehicle spotted in Ontario around the time of the murder, police couldn't definitively say it's the same one, noting forensics will have to confirm that suspicion.
Cops also spent much of yesterday morning executing search warrants at homes on Lindsay Street in River Heights and Rogan Drive in St. James.
The people charged yesterday join five Ontarians already arrested in connection with what the OPP is terming an "internal cleansing" of the gang.
Police said more arrests may be coming.
"We have a large number of investigators that are working on this full-time and we'll let the evidence take us where it takes us, so if that leads to more arrests, it leads to more arrests," said Beesley.
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Events that led to yesterday's arrests:
- April 8:
The bodies of eight men -- all members, prospects or associates of the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gang -- were found stuffed in several vehicles on Stafford Line near Shedden, Ont.
- April 10:
A prominent member of the Bandidos biker gang was one of five people charged with first-degree murder after eight of its members were killed in what police call a violent "internal cleansing" of the notorious motorcycle club's ranks.
- April 14:
Sun media uncovers Winnipeg connections to the Ontario murders. Sun newspapers reported Winnipeg bikers had been visiting Wayne Kellestine, one of the accused, as recently as a week before the slayings.
- June 5:
A suspicious red SUV, possibly with Manitoba license plates, becomes a key clue in the investigation of eight dead bikers. OPP announces it is trying to find out more about the vehicle, seen in the area during the two weeks before the massacre.
- June 7:
Ontario Provincial Police investigators come to Winnipeg, looking into a possible link between Manitoba Bandidos and the slayings. Winnipeg police help the OPP with interviews.
- June 15:
Marcelo Aravena, 30, is arrested at his River Heights home while Winnipegger Dwight Mushey, 36, is arrested in "a public place" shortly before midnight.
- Yesterday:
4 a.m. -- Officers start descending on 249 Greene Ave. to arrest Michael Sandham at home.
6 a.m. -- London-area cops assist Winnipeg officers guarding 938 Lindsay St., believed to be the home of Marcelo Aravena, who was arrested late Thursday.
9 a.m. -- Red GMC Jimmy belonging to Michael Sandham is seized by OPP from a Greene Avenue garage. Earlier reports suggested a similar SUV had been in the area around the time of the multiple murders.
11 a.m. -- Joint news conference with Winnipeg police, Ontario Provincial Police about the arrests of three Winnipeg men in connection with the slayings of eight Bandidos members or associates in Elgin County, Ont.
8 p.m. -- Accused make a court appearance after being flown from Winnipeg to St. Thomas, Ont. by the OPP.
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ST. THOMAS, Ont. -- Just hours after they were rounded up on murder charges in Winnipeg, three men tied to the Bandidos motorcycle gang appeared in court last night.
Security was tight and a large group of reporters were in the court as the trio -- arrested in early-morning police raids in Winnipeg yesterday -- made their first appearance on the charges in the worst slaying in Ontario's history.
Shuffling into the prisoner's box together, the three -- in blue prison garb, their hands and legs shackled -- showed little expression as they politely answered questions.
"I'm trying to arrange for counsel through Winnipeg, your honour," 36-year-old Dwight Mushey told Justice of the Peace Stewart Taylor.
Having been whisked into London on a flight from Winnipeg under police guard early yesterday evening, none of the suspects had a defence lawyer.
Michael Sandham, 36, a former constable with East St. Paul police, stood between the other accused as the court clerk read out the eight first-degree murder charges.
The charges stem from the grisly discovery April 8 of eight men found stuffed into five vehicles in the rural Shedden area, near London, Ont. All were members or associates of the Bandidos motorcycle gang.
The balding and clean-shaven Sandham, said to be the head of the Bandidos in Manitoba, became the trio's unofficial spokesman when Taylor asked how much time they need to find lawyers and return to court by video.
"I think Wednesday should be sufficient, your honour," Sandham said. The other two agreed.
The three men, jointly charged, are being held in custody in London. Mushey has an olive complexion, large piercing eyes and a beard. The third defendant, Marcelo Aravena, 30, is more portly, with shorter hair and some facial hair.
All three gave their names and birth dates, with Aravena helping the justice of the peace to pronounce his last name.
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News that a former East St. Paul cop had been charged in the murder of eight Bandidos members shocked the man's most recent employer.
Michael Sandham worked from 2000 to 2002 as a cop with the East St. Paul police department and more recently was employed as a bylaw officer with Prairie Bylaw Enforcement, a private company hired by rural municipalities to enforce local laws.
Police arrested Sandham, reputed to be the head of the Manitoba Bandidos, and charged him and two others with eight counts of first-degree murder in connection with the killing of eight Ontario Bandidos members in April.
"It's a shocker. It sets you back," said Dave Prud'homme, of Prairie Bylaw Enforcement, where Sandham worked for two years, ending in 2004.
Background checks
Sandham was a certified instructor in the use of Taser guns and use of force and officer safety, said Prud'homme. All the necessary background checks were made before Sandham was hired in 2002, he said.
East St. Paul Reeve Phil Rebeck was surprised to learn of Sandham's alleged involvement in the Bandidos killings, despite his municipality's previous concerns that led to the officer's resignation from the 10-member force four years ago.
"When we hired him, we thought he would be a good policeman with us," Rebeck told the Sun. "On that basis, we hired him. I'm sorry to hear he has maybe gone the other way. It hasn't all been proven yet, but the charge is serious enough."
Sandham was suspended from the East St. Paul police department in October 2002 after he was spotted by Winnipeg cops doing security at a Bandidos rally. Winnipeg cops notified East St. Paul that Sandham -- who had asked for time off from the force for an unspecified reason -- was seen at the event.
"We felt that if he were involved in any of those gangs, we weren't interested in keeping him on," the reeve recalled.
"We gave him a choice to resign, and he did that."
Biker sources claim Sandham was associated with the Outlaws motorcycle gang when he lived in southern Ontario in the 1990s.
Some of Sandham's former neighbors at the Pine Ridge Village mobile home park just north of Winnipeg, where he and girlfriend Kathleen Harder lived until last fall, said they always suspected something was fishy about the man. They never thought he was the head of a motorcycle gang, though.
"He drove a car marked Peace Officer, and I actually assumed he was sort of going undercover to infiltrate a gang. I never expected him to be the gang," said one resident of the park, who declined to give her name.
Another neighbor said he also thought Sandham was an undercover biker cop, and said he always thought the man looked like "a wannabe" when riding his motorcycle.
One neighbor said Sandham and Harder lived with two children, a girl of about five and a boy a few years older.
She said they never associated much with other neighbors and lived quietly, except for one night when several police cars arrived at their trailer for unknown reasons.
The neighbor said Ontario Provincial Police officers were in the park on Wednesday asking questions about Sandham
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LONDON -- Three new arrests, but still no answers.
Despite the latest development in the mysterious Bandidos massacre, those affected by it -- witnesses, friends and family, former bikers -- say they still can't figure out what happened the night eight men were killed.
"I'd still like to know what the hell went down," said one Toronto tow-truck driver who worked with several of the men killed in the Apr. 8 slayings near Shedden.
Three Winnipeg men are now charged with eight counts of first-degree murder, police said yesterday, bringing to eight the number of people charged in the deaths.
But even to one former high-ranking Bandido who set up the gang's Canadian chapter, the massacre is only getting more confusing.
"I'm as perplexed as everyone else is," said Ed Winterhalder, author of Out In Bad Standing, a book about his life in the Bandidos.
"I have no idea what the connection is" between Winnipeg and Shedden, he said.
Neighbours of Wayne Kellestine -- police spent the past two months probing his Iona Station, Ont., home -- also can't figure out how eight people could have been killed on a farm without making a sound.
"We didn't hear a thing," said one neighbor who lives close to the Kellestine farm. "No shots were fired.
"Our dog didn't bark. Wayne's dogs didn't bark."
Peace and quiet has returned to the rural communities where the bodies were found.
"Everything has kind of calmed down now," said Carl Jensen, who lives near where the eight bodies were found.
Relatives of George Jesso, a Toronto tow-truck driver who was among the dead, only heard about the arrests through press reports yesterday.
"Never heard a thing," said cousin David Jesso from his Prince Edward Island home. "I really don't think about it, don't want to think about it."
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LONDON -- The first inkling that the slayings of eight Ontario Bandidos had a connection to Winnipeg came in an unlikely place -- a small restaurant and gift store crammed with souvenirs in Iona Station, Ont.
There, Holland House Restaurant and Tavern owner Marty Angenent told Sun Media only the day after the bodies were found that five burly men from Winnipeg had a meal with Wayne Kellestine a week or so earlier. That same day, Kellestine and four others were arrested at his farmhouse and charged.
Yesterday, three Bandidos from Winnipeg were charged.
Since the April killings, Sun Media uncovered several possible links to Winnipeg:
- About three months before the killings, Kellestine's right-hand man, fellow biker and white supremacist David Weiche left London to find work in the cement business in Winnipeg.
- The week before the killings, what appeared to be bikers -- five burly men from Winnipeg -- appeared in the Iona Station restaurant with Kellestine.
- Two weeks after the killings, two of the five people accused in the killings told a Sun Media source other bikers with Winnipeg connections were involved.
- OPP revealed June 5 they were looking for a red SUV seen in the area during the two weeks before the massacre. Residents of the municipality of Dutton-Dunwich told Sun Media the SUV had Manitoba plates.
Sources told the Sun the victims were set to burn their Bandidos colours and join the Hells because they were tired of being hassled by the Texas-based leadership of the world's second-largest outlaw motorcycle gang.
It's believed the eight victims were killed when they went to seize the colours and motorcycle of Kellestine, who was allegedly in the process of re-activating the Loners outlaw motorcycle gang.
Kellestine, a career biker, was rejected in 2000 by the Hells when the gang staged an instant "patch-over" of 130 members of Ontario rival gangs. The move was an attempt to counter the expansion of the Hells arch-enemy -- the Quebec-based Rock Machine -- who patched over to the Bandidos.
A patch-over is how one gang absorbs another on a patch-for-patch basis.
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OPP credit Shedden-area residents for noting, reporting clues that lead to three more arrests in murder case.
BANDIDOS ARRESTS: Ex-cop a killer?
Three Winnipeg Bandidos have been charged with murdering eight fellow bikers near London, confirming a link first reported in The Free Press between Ontario's worst massacre and Manitoba.
The three men -- a former police officer, a boxer and a black-belt martial artist -- were flown to London last night under tight police security and whisked into a St. Thomas court to face first-degree murder charges.
The trio politely answered a few questions in court, with one even helping a justice of the peace to pronounce his name, before they were led away -- in blue prison garb and shackles -- to the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre.
Scooped up in early-morning raids in Winnipeg, they were behind bars by nightfall thousands of kilometres away.
"We followed the evidence trail and it led us to Winnipeg, Manitoba," OPP Det. Insp. Paul Beesley said hours earlier at a news conference in Winnipeg.
The three men appear to be some of those seen with fellow accused, local biker Wayne Kellestine, in an Iona restaurant before the slayings in April, when the bodies of eight men were found stuffed into five vehicles in a rural area southwest of London.
"They (the three) certainly matched the descriptions . . . of the people given," Beesley said.
In early morning raids yesterday, Winnipeg police and the OPP also seized a red SUV that matches the description of one seen in Dutton-Dunwich in the weeks before the killings.
The SUV is being sent back to Ontario for forensic testing.
OPP in Ontario credited Dutton-Dunwich residents for assisting the police investigation, including spotting an SUV that seemed out of place.
"It was good, old-fashioned police work and citizens being observant about what was going on," said Elgin County OPP Const. Michelle Scott.
Three Winnipeg men -- Dwight Mushey, 36, Marcello Aravena, 30, and Michael Sandham, 36, a former police officer -- each face eight first-degree murder charges in the killing of the eight men whose bodies were found April 8.
Police described Mushey and Sandham as full-patch members of the Texas-based Bandidos gang and Aravena as a "prospect," meaning he's not yet a full-fledged member.
Only a day after eight bodies were found on Stafford Line near Shedden, a local resident told The Free Press he saw Kellestine meet five burly men from Winnipeg.
Sources later said Kellestine's right-hand man from London had moved to Winnipeg months ago.
Another source revealed two of the first five people accused in the killings had reported the involvement of Winnipeg bikers in the slayings.
Besides Kellestine, two other Ontarians were charged in April with first-degree murder and two residents with being an accessory to murder after the fact.
The three Winnipeg accused are well-known.
Police expressed concern that Sandham is a former constable with Manitoba's East St. Paul police service, near Winnipeg.
"As a police officer, naturally, he would have been exposed to training materials relative to motorcycle gangs and organized crime," Winnipeg deputy Chief Menno Zacharias said June 16. "And as a working officer, he would have access to a variety of related information."
Aravena was described as a nice guy and "journeyman boxer" with a losing record.
"He was just fighting for a paycheque," said Duke Roufus, a manager with Gladiators Fighting Series out of Milwaukee.
Aravena fought as a kickboxer for Gladiators until 2002 and more recently was a boxer, with a record of seven wins, including four knockouts, 32 losses and one draw.
Mushey got his black belt in 1994 from Kang's Tae kwon do Academy in Winnipeg. He told club officials he was a real estate investor.
"He was a very loving family man. He dresses well and is soft-spoken," said Lois Yeung, of Kang's Taekwondo Academy.
His resume said he took courses at military academies in the U.S., she said.
Mushey drifted away from the club and in 2004 was charged with conspiracy to produce the drug methamphetamine, commonly known by the street name speed.
Police said all three accused are longtime Winnipeggers. Yeung said Mushey had lived for a time in the 1990s in southern Ontario.
Police released no details about the role played by the three Winnipeg men, except to allege they were present at the killings.
"They are charged with first-degree murder, eight counts," Beesley said. "To be charged with the first-degree murder, the law speaks for itself. You don't actually have to be a shooter. They may or may not have been the shooters."
Police said their investigation in Winnipeg isn't over.
But they noted their arrests already have affected the Bandidos, touted as the world's second-biggest biker gang.
"Their presence in Manitoba and Ontario . . . this has dealt them a severe blow," said OPP Supt. Ross Bingley.
Police caught a break early in the investigation in April when a man walking by Winnipeg's main police station noticed documents blowing along the street.
He gathered up the papers, which contained details of the investigation, and took them to the CBC.
Zacharias thanked the CBC for not broadcasting details of the reports and said steps are being taken to ensure sensitive information will never again be blowing in the wind.
Police at yesterday's news conference repeated their belief the killing of the eight men was an "internal cleansing" within the Bandidos.
But a former leader of the U.S. Bandidos, who helped to establish the gang in Canada, still isn't buying that theory.
If anything, said Ed Winterhalder, the growing mystery only strengthens his theory that illegal drugs fuelled the slayings.
"Somewhere, somehow, woven into the threads of this deal is going to be methamphetamine. That's just a wild guess," said Winterhalder, who wrote a book about his biker life, Out in Bad Standing.
Two of the accused -- Eric Niessen and Dwight Mushey -- have previously been swept up in separate meth busts.
"(The massacre) makes no sense to anyone," Winterhalder said, "and when that happens, whether it's the biker world or not . . . 99 per cent of the time, methamphetamine is the explanation."
Winterhalder brushed off theories the killings resulted from a dispute between Ontario and Manitoba Bandidos over participation in a national rally in Winnipeg.
Other theories suggest some of the Bandidos were demanding the others quit the gang.
-- -- --
WHO'S CHARGED
Marcello Aravena
A boxer, 30, the tough-talking, six-foot-two Winnipegger once blamed a bitter loss on a judge, saying he'd "kicked the living crap out of him -- badly."
Was not yet a full-fledged Bandidos motorcycle gang member, police said.
Had worked as a nightclub security guard.
Michael Sandham
Another Winnipeger, 36, he'd worked for two years until 2002 as a police officer with East St. Paul police service, near Winnipeg.
Reputedly a full-patch member of the Bandidos and head of the gang's Manitoba wing.
Was a certified instructor in the use of taser stun guns.
Completed his officer training at the Winnipeg Police Academy.
Had been associated with the Outlaws biker gang, biker sources claim.
Dwight Mushey
Age 36, also from Winnipeg, was charged in a 2004 bust with conspiracy to produce methamphetamine, the illegal drug known on the street as speed.
Holds a black belt in tae kwon do.
Is a full-fledged member of the Bandidos gang, police said
-----------------------
Winnipeg arrests linked to Bandidos massacre
Police executed search and arrest warrants across Winnipeg early Friday morning in connection with the killings of eight motorcycle-gang members in southwestern Ontario this spring.
Police cordoned off this Winnipeg house after an early morning raid. (CBC) The bodies of eight men, all with links to the Bandidos biker gang, were found April 8 in a farmer's field near Shedden, Ont.
Five people have been charged with first-degree murder in the case, which Ontario police described as an "internal cleansing" of the biker gang.
A number of Winnipeg residents were already in custody by early Friday morning, following a sweep that police dubbed "Operation Octagon."
Those suspects are expected to be charged with murder, and more arrests are anticipated, police said.
Suspect a former police officer
CBC has learned one of the suspects arrested Friday morning, Michael James Sandham, is a former police officer who held positions of authority in several Manitoba communities.
Court documents allege that Sandham, 36, is the leader of the Bandidos in Winnipeg.
Sandham was a police officer in the Rural Municipality of East St. Paul from 2001 to 2002, court records show. He trained for that job at the Winnipeg Police Training Academy.
He resigned from the East. St. Paul force after Winnipeg police provided his employer with pictures of him attending a Bandidos function when he was on leave from work, sources told CBC News.
Sandham went on to work as an officer for Prairie Bylaw Enforcement Services, court records show. That company enforced municipal bylaws and provincial statues in several municipalities.
Council meeting minutes from a number of communities show Sandham was patrolling and enforcing local bylaws. In some towns, he was assigned a badge number. Sources told CBC that Sandham was also in charge of training all Prairie Bylaw Enforcement staff in the use of Tasers, which the company used from 2002 to 2004.
Sandham has no previous criminal record.
Details on the other suspects arrested Friday in Winnipeg are expected to be released by police later in the day.
Operation nearly compromised
Operation Octagon could have ended almost before it started if papers found outside a Winnipeg police station earlier this year had fallen into the wrong hands.
In April, confidential police documents were found in the mud outside Winnipeg's main police station. A passerby picked up a few pages and turned them over to CBC.
The documents included information about people police had under surveillance, including names and addresses.
"It's disturbing. Any sensitive police information could cause us problems if it got into the wrong hands," said Sgt. Kelly Dennison in April. "It would be detrimental to a police investigation to have this kind of information out in the public at this time."
CBC reported on the found documents, but did not reveal details about their contents.
Until Friday morning, police didn't know if that security breach might have compromised the investigation.
Bandidos in city since 2005
Police believe several people in Winnipeg are associated with the Bandidos, a Texas-based biker gang that claims to have 600 members in North America, Europe and Australia.
Police believe a "probationary" chapter of the club started in Winnipeg in late 2004.
Their suspicions seemed to be confirmed in February 2005, when investigators found a jacket bearing a Bandidos logo while making arrests related to the alleged kidnapping of a 20-year-old man.
In that case, police say a motorist was run off the road in central Winnipeg, abducted and tortured. He was later freed and treated in hospital. Seven suspects were arrested in the case and face several criminal charges. They will go to trial later this year.
Other chapters of the club are said to operate in Ontario and Quebec, although police have said the slayings near London virtually wiped out the Toronto chapter of the Bandidos.
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Sun, June 18, 2006
Bandidos take hit
But gang will fill vacancies
The arrest of three leading Bandidos will slow down -- but not cripple -- business for the local chapter of the outlaw motorcycle gang, a trio of men familiar with the Winnipeg biker scene told the Sun.
"We'd be foolish to think they'll roll up their blankets and disappear," said a person familiar with the Winnipeg gang scene.
Local Bandidos president Michael Sandham, 36, member Dwight Mushey, 36, and "striker" Marcelo Aravena were arrested Thursday evening and Friday morning by a joint Winnipeg-Ontario Provincial Police operation.
First-degree murder
The three men are charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in connection with the massacre of eight Ontario Bandidos last April.
The Texas-based gang hit a snag in February 2005 when seven hopefuls -- Ron Burling, 36, John Adam Curwin, 23, Daniel Pereira, 23, Jason Michel, 24, Billy Joe Ducharme, 23, David Rink and Daniel Blair -- were each charged with two counts of kidnapping, extortion and aggravated assault.
Burling is in Edmonton serving an eight-year sentence(mid-2005-2013) on unrelated charges, while Curwin, Ducharme, Pereira and Michel are in custody in Winnipeg awaiting trial. Blair and Rink are free on bail.
"Those guys being eliminated from the street during the formation time didn't stop the Bandidos from attracting more people," said a source who wished to remain anonymous.
"Someone will always step forward to fill the void. No matter who has to be replaced, somebody will always step forward."
The arrests of three prominent Hells Angels -- president Ernie Dew, plus members Ian Grant and Jeff Peck -- has not put the local chapter of the world's largest outlaw motorcycle gang out of business.
"Gangs are like an octopus," said a person close to the biker scene. "You cut off a tentacle and another one grows. The Winnipeg Bandido chapter is a tentacle. The head is in Corpus Christi, Texas."
The trio of Sun sources agreed Sandham and Dew could continue running their respective gangs from behind bars or have a trusted comrade run things.
If convicted, Sandham is looking at a minimum of 25 years while Dew is awaiting trial on three charges of trafficking cocaine.
The Hells still have 11 members on the street. It's unknown how many Bandidos affiliates are not in jail.
"There will be a head check on who can be brought on," said a Sun source. "You can be sure they'll hear something from Corpus Christi."
========================
Biker trial behaviour ranges from bad to bawling
National Post
Kelly Patrick, CanWest News Service; National Post
Published: Wednesday, January 10, 2007
LONDON, Ont - One defendant cried and covered his ears. Another wiggled his tongue at a female reporter.
Those were the extremes of behaviour from the prisoner's box Tuesday as the Crown began to lay out its case against eight people charged in Ontario's largest mass murder.
Eight members or associates of the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gang were found shot to death and stuffed in four cars abandoned in a field in Shedden, Ont., southwest of London, last April. Six men face eight counts each of first-degree murder; another man and a woman are charged with acting as accessories after the fact to the killings.
A publication ban prohibits the printing of evidence presented on the first day of the preliminary inquiry, which is expected to last at least three months
Tuesday's hearing was held under tight security in a high-tech courtroom constructed in 2003 to accommodate complex trials with multiple-accused.
Everyone, including lawyers and Ontario court Justice Ross Webster, had their bag searched and was forced to pass through two heavily policed checkpoints.
The first accused to enter the courtroom was Michael Sandham, 37, a short, balding former Manitoba police officer, wearing a long-sleeved black shirt. Sitting alone in the box closest to the judge, Sandham squeezed his eyes shut and placed his hands over his ears as some of the evidence was presented. A court worker handed him a wad of tissue at the first break in the hearing.
''You can see for yourself (how emotional Sandham is),'' Donald Crawford, his lawyer, told reporters. ''Eventually as this thing plays out, you'll probably understand why. This case is far from over.''
Most of the defendants sported dress shirts, suit jackets or both. The exception was Wayne Kellestine, 57, a notorious local biker whose rural property is alleged to be the site of the execution-style slaying.
Kellestine wore a green sweatsuit and made obscene gestures at the media.
''He's got a lot of pressure on him,'' Clay Powell, Kellestine's lawyer, explained outside court.
Kellestine was arrested two days after the grisly discovery of the bodies April 8. Also arrested were Frank Mather, 33, Brett Gardiner, 22, Eric Niessen, 45, and his common-law wife Kerry Morris, 47. The latter are charged with being accessories.
Sandham, a former Winnipeg-area police officer who became a full-patch member of the Bandidos, Dwight Mushey, 39, and Marcelo Aravena, 37, were arrested June 15 and 16.
The eight men killed were: George Jesso, 52; Frank Salerno, 43, George Kriarakis, 28, Luis Manny Raposo, 41; Paul Sinopoli, 30; and John Muscedere, 48. The other victims were associate member Michael Trotta, 31 and Jamie Flanz, 37, a prospect for membership in the gang.
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January 10, 2007
Biker trial behaviour ranges from bad to bawling
The seven men are charged in connection with the brutal killings of eight men, whose bodies were found last spring in vehicles abandoned along a county road near Shedden, not far from London.
It's Tuesday morning (Jan. 9), the first day of what promises to be a long and tedious legal process. There will, no doubt, be mounds of evidence. There will, no doubt, be piles of paper, a deluge of diagrams and days and weeks -- and maybe months -- of testimony.
But for now, I can only watch.
I can't tell you about the proceedings from yesterday's preliminary hearing. Not yet, at least. A publication ban has been imposed on the proceedings and nothing related to any evidence can be described until the trial ends.
I can tell you, however, that there are about a dozen reporters, about two dozen lawyers and about 20 other spectators sitting here in Courtroom 21 at the London courthouse.
I can tell you this high-tech courtroom on the 14th floor is fitted with about two dozen computer screens. There are screens for the prisoners, too, although (somewhat conveniently, I find myself thinking) the big screen at the front of the room is not working on this day.
I can tell you that the judge, the Hon. Mr. Justice A. R. Webster, arrives late and apologizes for his lateness.
I can tell you that each of the accused sits on a bench behind a transparent divider. In many ways, their surroundings resemble a hockey bench. Except, of course, there's a pole running beneath each bench and their leg shackles are snapped around this horizontal pole.
I can tell you that the man in the box closest to the judge is Michael Sandham. He is an unremarkable- looking man, balding, in a casual black shirt. If he passed me in the street, I would likely not remember him.
On this day, however, I will remember him because he leans forward and holds his head in his hands, his hands covering his ears as the hearing unfolds.
Next to him is 30-year-old Marcelo Aravena. I would notice him wherever I saw him. He is a huge, powerful-looking man with short-cropped hair and the shadow of a neat goatee. He seems relaxed and focused.
In the next box sits Eric Niessen. He reminds me, perhaps unfairly, of the old Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic books that emerged in the late 1960s. With his thick bush of black hair and prominent nose, Niessen resembles Phineas. During the proceedings, Niessen evinces a slight sense of contempt for all he sees.
Next to him sits Dwight Mushey. He is tall and athletic-looking. Think of L.A. Law actor Jimmy Smits, with long, sleek dark hair pulled into a pony tail. Mushey looks calm and capable.
In the next box are three men. On one end sits Frank Mather, a slim 33-year-old man whose chopped red hair seems to bear vestiges of a Mohawk cut. One side of Mather's mouth seems perpetually turned up in a half-hearted smirk.
On the other end of this box sits Brett Gardiner. If I was playing the old "what-thing-here-doesn't-seem-like- the-others" game, I'd pick Gardiner. With his splayed-open collar and pudgy face, Gardiner resembles an unctuous game-show host from the 1970s. There's nothing even remotely menacing in his demeanour.
And sitting between Gardiner and Mather is the star of this show, Wayne Kellestine. When he enters the courtroom, he seems to be huffing and puffing. He wears a green sweatshirt and green sweat pants. Continually peering over the top of his eyeglasses, the grey-haired Kellestine reminds me of Geppetto, the old man who carved Pinocchio out of wood.
At one point, Kellestine glares at the courtroom sketch-artist sitting beside me and pointedly pushes his eyeglasses up the bridge of his nose with an upturned middle finger.
And I can tell you that before a midday break, most of the reporters wait and watch until Kellestine shuffles out.
We watch, it seems to me, in fascination.
I can tell you that. But I can't begin to explain why.
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The biker lived on the property until charged with eight counts of first-degree murder.
Kellestine farm to be auctioned
Randy Richmond
Sun Media
June 27, 2007
The farmhouse at the centre of the intense police investigation into the Bandidos biker massacre is up for sale, its notorious occupant in jail and unable to pay taxes.
"We don't advertise that property as the one people may have seen in the news." -- Ken Loveland, administrator for the Municipality of Dutton-Dunwich.
The taxes on the property long inhabited by biker leader Wayne Kellestine have not been paid for four years, said Ken Loveland, administrator for the Municipality of Dutton-Dunwich.
The municipality will auction off the two parcels that make up the Kellestine property June 28.
In all his years of auctioning, he's never sold off a property with so much notoriety attached, Loveland said June 26.
"I can't say as I have," Loveland said.
"We did have some discussion with the police to make sure they were done with the property."
The auction has garnered an average amount of interest.
The value of the farmland, not the history of the house, has potential buyers calling, Loveland said.
"We don't advertise that property as the one people may have seen in the news."
The ramshackle house, sheds and barn on Aberdeen Line have been the scene of biker activity for decades, as Kellestine moved through the Annihilators, Loners, and, most recently, the Bandidos biker gangs.
Police surrounded the farmhouse in April 2006 hours after the bodies of eight dead Bandidos were discovered stuffed in vehicles on a rural road about 20 kilometres away.
Three people in the house at the time -- including Kellestine -- were charged with eight counts of first-degree murder and two were charged with accessory after the fact. Another three people in Winnipeg were later charged with first-degree murder.
Police spent 64 days combing the property looking for clues.
At the time of the killings, Kellestine's wife and young daughter lived with him in the farmhouse.
The new owner can make arrangements with any occupants still at the house, Loveland said.
"That is their (the owner's) responsibility."
Two parcels of land are for sale -- a one-hectare (2.75-acre) piece that includes the house and barn and is owned by Kellestine's former wife Linda, and a 21-hectare (52.2-acre) piece of farmland owned by Kellestine himself.
According to Dutton- Dunwich records, the couple bought the smaller parcel for $50,000 in 1982.
Five years later, Kellestine bought the adjoining larger parcel for $52,500.
In 1992, Kellestine deeded the original, smaller lot and house to his wife for $1 and "natural love and affection."
They later split up and Kellestine took up with Tina Fitzgerald.
As of last year, Linda and Wayne Kellestine each owed about $10,000 on their pieces of property.
The back taxes now total about $15,000 each, Loveland said.
The minimum bid accepted on the farmhouse and land is $16,203.56 and on the farmland, $16,028.24, he said.
The extra money pays for the township's expenses.
With farmland going for $2,000 to $4,000 an acre, Loveland expects the township to recover its money and the property to sell quickly.
------------------------------------------
Taxes paid on farm linked to Bandido killings
Randy Richmond
Sun Media
June 28, 2007
The house at the centre of Ontario's biggest massacre will stay in the hands of a biker accused in the killings.
Only a day before the house where Wayne Kellestine lived was to be auctioned off, a lawyer representing the biker leader paid off the back taxes on the property, municipal officials said June 27.
"We're not going to have an auction," said Ken Loveland, administrator of the municipality of Dutton-Dunwich. "I think he (Kellestine) sold the 52-acre parcel to pay off the smaller parcel."
The property is made up of a one-hectare (2.75 acre) piece owned by estranged wife Linda Kellestine and a 21-hectare (52.2-acre) piece of farmland owned by Kellestine himself.
Four years of property taxes, about $15,000, was owed on each property.
The smaller parcel includes the farmhouse, barn and outbuildings that were the scene of biker gatherings for 20 years.
The property gained even greater notoriety in April 2006 when police surrounded it, then arrested Kellestine and four visitors in the killings of eight Bandidos bikers. Police then spent 64 days combing the property for evidence.
Three more people were arrested in Winnipeg.
The preliminary hearing into the killings finished last week.
Dutton lawyer Martin Joldersma acted on behalf of Kellestine, Loveland said. Joldersma could not be reached for comment June 27.
According to Dutton-Dunwich records, Wayne and Linda Kellestine bought the smaller parcel for $50,000 in 1982. Five years later, Kellestine bought the adjoining larger parcel for $52,500.
In 1992, Kellestine deeded the original, smaller lot and house to his wife for $1 and "natural love and affection."
==========================
Thu, July 12, 2007
Accused killers want trial moved
Three Winnipeggers on trial in Bandido slayings
LONDON, Ont. -- One of the biggest criminal trials ever expected in London, Ont., may be heard elsewhere.
Lawyers for eight defendants charged in the shooting deaths of eight Bandido bikers plan to ask that the case be moved out of the area.
Four defendants also want to quash an Ontario court decision made at a preliminary hearing last month to have each of them tried on eight counts of first-degree murder in the 2006 slayings.
A hearing on those applications won't be held until the fall, and either side could appeal to Ontario's highest court.
LONG WAY OFF
It all means setting a trial date is a long way off for those charged in the deaths of the biker gang members and associates.
The bodies of the victims were found 15 months ago stuffed into vehicles in southwestern Ontario's Elgin County.
"I sense that to have a trial on before the fall of 2008, I would be really surprised," said defence lawyer Tony Bryant, representing Marcelo Aravena, 31, of Winnipeg.
In court yesterday, lawyers set a date for a judicial pre-trial with a Superior Court justice to discuss trial-fairness issues.
One issue to be addressed early is "changing the proceedings to another jurisdiction," Bryant said in court.
An application for a venue change can be made if it's believed an accused can't get a fair trial -- for example, because of pre-trial publicity that might affect a jury pool -- where the charge was laid.
If successful, the case would move to another community.
The case was officially moved yesterday from St. Thomas, Ont., to London, where the three-month preliminary hearing was held in a high-tech, high-security courtroom.
Justice Lynne Leitch said Justice Dougald McDermid will conduct the pre-trial Aug. 28 and 29.
The next court date for the defendants is Oct. 10.
FIRST-DEGREE MURDER
By then, the applications should be filed to appeal the preliminary hearing decision.
Leitch said she wouldn't schedule a date for the appeal until everything is filed.
Bryant has already filed for Aravena, who faces eight counts of first-degree murder.
Also charged with eight counts of first-degree murder are five others: Dwight Mushey, 39, and Michael Sandham, 37, both of Winnipeg; Brett Gardiner, 23, of no fixed address; and Wayne Kellestine, 58, and Frank Mather, 33, both of Dutton-Dunwich, Ont.
Eric Niessen, 46, and Kerry Morris, 47, of Perth County, face charges of accessory after the fact to first-degree murder and obstruction of justice.
--------------------------------------------------
Sat, July 14, 2007
Ad trumpets Hells Angels foes staking city turf
The motorcycle gang that took on the Hells Angels in Canada's bloodiest-ever biker war may be establishing itself in Winnipeg.
An "announcement" in the classified section of a Winnipeg newspaper yesterday says a "Rock Machine Club House" is opening in Winnipeg on Sept. 15, indicating the club may be looking to set up shop in Manitoba. It's unclear who submitted the classified ad.
"Our officers do not have confirmation that that is fact, that they're coming here," said Const. Jacquie Chaput, a spokeswoman for Winnipeg police.
The Rock Machine went head-to-head with the Hells Angels during Quebec's deadly biker wars in the late '90s that claimed an estimated 170 lives. In 2000 most of the club's members "patched over" to the Texas-based Bandidos, the Angels' largest rivals worldwide.
ROCK MACHINE
A source told Sun Media yesterday that if the Rock Machine is in fact coming to Winnipeg, it would likely be in the capacity of a puppet club to help get the Bandidos back on their feet in Manitoba.
Three Winnipeg Bandidos affiliates are in jail after being charged in the massacre of eight men affiliated with the Bandidos in Shedden, Ont., in April 2006. Others are locked up in Stony Mountain Institution for various offences.
That leaves too few, if any, Bandidos on the streets of Winnipeg to have a full chapter here, said the source.
Winnipeg police had previously identified a group called Los Montoneros as the Bandidos' puppet club here, but the source said prospects in that group must go through a five-year probationary period before becoming full-patch Bandidos. It's possible the Rock Machine is being brought in, if they are in fact coming here, to speed up the rebuilding process, said the source.
That scenario would seem to support postings on the Bandidos' official Canadian website. Its guestbook has seen several recent comments related to Winnipeg.
A June 25 comment posted by a user who identifies himself as the secretary-treasurer of "Bandidos Mid West" reads: "Congratulations to the new Prospects in Winnipeg chapter Frank, Norm & Derrick on there (sic) new Status in the Bandido Nation ... Great job boys."
Winnipeg police declined to comment on the possibility of a local Bandidos resurgence when contacted by Sun Media last month.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Sun, July 15, 2007
Notice baffles bikers
Rock Machine no more?
By PAUL TURENNE, SUN MEDIA
If the Rock Machine is coming to Winnipeg, it's news to the Bandidos.
A Bandidos source told Sun Media yesterday the motorcycle club has no idea who is responsible for placing a classified ad in a Winnipeg newspaper on Friday announcing that a clubhouse for the Rock Machine will open in Winnipeg in September.
The Rock Machine waged Canada's bloodiest-ever biker war against the Hells Angels in Quebec during the 1990s but most of its remaining members became Bandidos in 2000.
A source had suggested to Sun Media that if the Rock Machine were indeed coming to Winnipeg, it might be to help speed up the process of building the Bandidos' ranks here. However, the Bandidos source said yesterday that the club is already well-established.
"We have 15 members on the streets in Winnipeg," he said.
The Bandidos source also noted the Rock Machine no longer exists, and if someone plans on re-establishing a chapter they're doing so without the Bandidos' knowledge or consent.
The source said Winnipeggers don't have to fear any kind of turf war with the Hells Angels.
"We don't party with them on a regular basis but we're not at war with them either," he said.
The Bandidos have two support clubs in Manitoba, Los Montoneros and another group, Red Power, which operates in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, said the source.
MURDERS IN SHEDDEN
The Bandidos have also established the Mid-West chapter with members scattered between Saskatoon and Calgary, as well as four chapters in Ontario, said the source.
"We're larger now than we were before the murders that happened in Shedden," he said.
Eight men with ties to the Bandidos were killed in April 2006 near Shedden, Ont. Eight people have been charged in connection with the slayings, including three from Winnipeg.
The Bandidos source said the Canadian members are trying to shed their outlaw image.
"I know you've heard it before, but we're not a criminal organization. We're just trying to be a motorcycle club," he said. "The lion's share of the guys are businesspeople. We have pilots, we have retired people -- these are guys who have been legitimate businessmen all their lives."
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Trial set in biker killings
Winnipeg Sun
LONDON, Ont. -- A trial is to start in 11 months for eight people accused in the biggest mass slaying in modern Ontario history.
Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney set Sept. 8, 2008, to begin the trial of eight people charged in connection with the deaths of eight Bandido motorcycle club members in Elgin County on April 8, 2006. The trial is expected to last three to six months.
Wayne Kellestine, 58, Frank Mather, 33, both of Dutton-Dunwich, Ont.; Brett Gardiner, 23, of no fixed address; Michael Sandham, 37, Marcelo Aravena, 31, and Dwight Mushey, 39, of Winnipeg, are each charged with eight counts of first-degree murder. Eric Niessen, 46, and Kerry Morris, 47, of Monkton in Perth County, Ont., are charged with accessory after the fact and obstruction of justice.
----------------------------------------------------------
Fri, October 19, 2007
Bandidos no more?
Outlaw gang toast after Shedden massacre: Website
By CHRIS KITCHING, SUN MEDIA
Michael Sandham is one of eight charged with murders. (Ken Wightman, Sun Media File)
Eighteen months after Bandidos affiliates were murdered or charged in a mass slaying, a website suggests the motorcycle club no longer exists in Canada.
Since the Shedden, Ont., massacre in April 2006, there have been mixed signals about the outlaw biker gang's status in Canada.
Persistent speculation the club, headquartered in Texas, had collapsed north of the border was met recently with hints it welcomed new prospects in Manitoba and opened a midwest chapter with members in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
But a recent post on the Bandidos Motorcycle Club Canada website states: "As of October 2, 2007, the Bandidos MC 1% Canada is officially shut down. There isn't no more Bandidos MC membership in Canada."
The person who updates the website did not respond to an e-mail before press time last night.
A Winnipeg police spokeswoman had this response about the website's claim: "The Bandidos website is not clear to us. Therefore, we are not able to confirm the existence of a chapter in Canada."
The Shedden murders happened at a time when the gang's national membership was dwindling, observers believe, and many members were behind bars.
MYSTERY
Eight Bandidos were slain. Of the eight charged, three were part of the gang's Winnipeg chapter -- president Michael Sandham, 37, Marcelo Aravena, 31, and Dwight Mushey, 39.
The trio is charged with eight counts of first-degree murder. A trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 8, 2008.
In recent months, comments within a guestbook on the Bandidos Canada website suggested the club was gaining momentum in Western Canada.
There were congratulatory messages for supposed new affiliates in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba, while another announced the launch of a probationary chapter in Calgary, something police in that city did not confirm or deny at the time.
Adding to the mystery was a newspaper ad in July that announced a "Rock Machine Club House" would open Sept. 15 in Winnipeg.
Yesterday, Winnipeg police were unable to comment on whether a clubhouse opened.
In 2000, most remaining Rock Machine members patched over to the Bandidos following the Rock Machine's deadly biker war with the Hells Angels in Quebec.
There was a suggestion the Rock Machine, if it came to Winnipeg, would prop up the Bandidos. A Bandidos source, however, previously told Sun Media the club did not need the help.
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Sat, October 20, 2007
'Going to be a war'
U.S. gang eager to scoop up Hells-haters: Source
By ROB NAY AND PAUL TURENNE, SUN MEDIA
A U.S. biker gang seeking to gain ground in Canada has set its sights on recruiting Bandidos members across the country, a source told Sun Media.
The California-based Mongols Motorcycle Club has been trying to recruit Bandidos members in Canada over the past three months, said the source, a former Bandidos member.
As reported yesterday, the Bandidos organization, a Texas-based biker gang with worldwide membership, claims on its official Canadian website that it no longer has any members in Canada.
Meanwhile, a Canadian flag is now featured on the Mongols' website along with messages on its guestbook from people claiming to be members of Red Power, one of the Bandidos support clubs in Manitoba.
In one of the messages posted on the guestbook, a user calling himself the Red Power president in "Peg city" welcomed the Mongols.
"Greetings from canada ... hope to see your club riding through out our regions ..."
Winnipeg police spokesman Sgt. Kelly Dennison said he's not aware of recruiting by the Mongols in Canada.
If the Mongols do intend to establish themselves in Canada, violence could break out with the rival Hells Angels motorcycle club, said the former Bandidos member.
"There's going to be a war for sure," he said.
Edward Winterhalder, a leading authority on biker clubs, said the Hells and Mongols generally don't get along.
"They don't associate," said Winterhalder. "And when they meet there's usually a fight, at least a fistfight."
Winterhalder, a former high-ranking member of the Bandidos and author of a number of books on bikers, said the Mongols are among the top three or four biker groups in the U.S.
TENSE RELATIONSHIP
In 2002, a clash inside a busy casino in Laughlin, Nev., between the Mongols and Hells Angels left three gang members dead.
It wouldn't be surprising, said Winterhalder, if Bandidos members turned to the Mongols because the Canadian Bandidos chapter has had a tense relationship with its U.S. counterpart.
"The U.S. Bandidos leadership has failed to acknowledge that the Bandidos even exist in Canada," said Winterhalder.
Despite website claims the Bandidos in Canada were "shut down," sources told Sun Media last summer the club is in fact growing in Western Canada.
Ontario Provincial Police Det. Insp. Dan Redmond, who runs Ontario's provincial joint forces biker enforcement unit, would neither confirm nor deny the Bandidos still operate in Canada but said police aren't about to take the website's claim as gospel.
"We will remain vigilant in our mission, which is outlaw motorcycle gangs," said Redmond. "We are aware of the Bandidos website, the accuracy of which should be taken with a grain of salt."
Redmond said it would be "naive" of police not to recognize that Canada represents a potentially lucrative market for outlaw motorcycle gangs.
======================================
Man pleads guilty to obstruction of justice in Bandidos massacre
Last Updated: Friday, December 7, 2007
A known associate of the Bandidos biker gang has pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in Ontario's worst mass slaying.
The new detail in the case comes after CBC News won a court challenge Friday to disclose key facts involving the discovery of the bodies of eight men linked to the motorcycle gang on April 8, 2006. They were found in abandoned vehicles in a rural area outside Shedden, which is near London.
Eric Niessen, who was visiting the residence of one of the men charged in the deaths, has been sentenced to two years in prison as a result of his guilty plea.
He had initially been charged with first-degree murder. That charge was dropped but he was facing a charge of being an accessory after the fact.
According to an agreed upon statement of fact, Niessen did not witness the deaths and does not know who killed the men.
Court documents say that Niessen and his common-law wife Kerry Morris went to visit Wayne Kellestine, one of the men accused of first-degree murder, on April 8 in Dutton-Dunwich Township.
The documents say that when they arrived, there were only three people there: Kellestine, and Frank Mather of Dutton-Dunwich Township and Brett Gardiner of no fixed address, who are also charged with first-degree murder in the case.
Saw police vehicles
Niessen also noticed a number of marked and unmarked police vehicles surrounding the property, according to the documents. Some time after his arrival, he realized police were there in connection with the discovery of the eight bodies in nearby Southwold Township.
On April 9, Niessen was seen carrying buckets of water from the house to the barn.
"Forensic evidence collected and analyzed from the floor of the barn provides evidence to establish" one or more of the men had been shot there, the court documents state.
Niessen saw Gardiner filling up a pail of water, saw Mather with a pail by the doorway to the barn and saw him take another pail into the barn. But Niessen does not know if anyone washed the surface of the barn floor to destroy evidence, the documents say.
On April 9, Niessen searched the ground of the Kellestine property, looking through the grass, and under the porch of the home, the documents say. These were areas where the men were shot and where shell casings could have been left, according to the documents.
But there is no evidence that Niessen found anything significant, say the documents.
In his guilty plea, Niessen admitted he lied to police and "participated in an alibi" for Kellestine he knew to be false.
Niessen, a Monkton, Ont., native, also admitted that while he was searching in the grass and helping to get water to the barn, he was aware that people at the house were destroying physical evidence and that some of it may have been related to the homicides.
An accessory after the fact charge against Morris has been dismissed.
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BANDIDOS MASSACRE
Gag order lifted
Jane Sims and Randy Richmond
Sun Media
December 8, 2007
The Supreme Court lifts a ban on reporting that a Bandidos supporter pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the biker slaying case.
A Bandidos supporter pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and all charges against his common-law partner were withdrawn in connection with the largest mass slaying in modern Ontario history.
The dramatic development in the Bandidos massacre case happened two months ago, Oct. 15, in a London court.
But only now can the details be reported, after the Supreme Court of Canada Dec. 7 lifted a temporary publication ban slapped on the guilty plea.
Sun Media and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. had fought the order that banned reporting the resolution of Eric Niessen's and Kerry Morris's criminal charges.
Niessen, 46, of Monkton, in Perth County, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to two years in prison for his part in the slaying in Elgin County of eight Bandidos bikers April 8, 2006.
George Jessome, 52, of Toronto; George Kriarakis, 28, of Toronto; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham; Luis Manny Raposo, 41; Frank Salerno, 43, of Etobicoke; Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick; and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga, were found dead.
The Crown withdrew two charges -- obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact -- against 48-year-old Morris, Neissen's common-law partner.
An accessory charge against Niessen also was dropped.
Niessen's sentence was on top of time served in custody since his arrest after the bodies were found shot and stuffed in vehicles on a quiet rural road near Shedden, southwest of London.
With credit for his pre-plea time in custody, the sentence is equivalent to five years.
At the guilty plea hearing, Niessen's lawyer, Jonathan Bliss, said his client has a background in insurance and auto body repair.
He said Niessen's time in custody was "an illuminating experience."
The couple's cases are the first to be resolved in the complex prosecution of the case.
Six men are all charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in the mass killings.
They are Wayne Kellestine, 58, Frank Mather, 34, of Dutton-Dunwich, Brett Gardiner, 23, of no fixed address, Michael Sandham, 38, Marcelo Aravena, 31, and Dwight Mushey, 40 of Winnipeg.
Their trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 8 in London and expected to last six months.
Superior Court Justice Dougald McDermid presided over Niessen and Morris's hearing and heard a nine-page statement of facts read by assistant Crown attorney David D'Iorio.
Niessen had known Kellestine since 2004 and visited his home a number of times. He'd attended Bandidos biker functions with Kellestine and other Bandidos members before.
He knew Kellestine was a high ranking member of the Bandidos. He'd only known Mather a few months, but knew he was a supporter of the motorcycle club.
Niessen described himself as an official Bandidos supporter and had to pay $25 a month. He only paid once.
Before that, Niessen had been a supporter of the Outlaws motorcycle club.
Niessen knew Kellestine was trying to develop and lead a new Bandidos chapter.
Before April 7, 2006, five men from Winnipeg -- Sandham, Mushey, Aravena, Gardiner and Maurice Hudson -- travelled to Kellestine's farm near Dutton.
The victims were all part of the Bandidos' Toronto chapter and came to Kellestine's home on April 7, 2006.
Sometime later, into the early hours of April 8, 2006, the eight Toronto men were shot and killed.
Niessen was not there.
He and Kerry Morris left their Monkton home and arrived at Kellestine's house about 3 p.m. on April 8.
He was introduced to Brett Gardiner when he and Morris arrived.
When they got there, Niessen saw marked and unmarked police vehicles surrounding the property.
There were three men at the Kellestine house -- Kellestine, Frank Mather and Brett Gardiner.
The woman and child who live there were not there.
Niessen and Morris did not bring any firearms, ammunition, weapons, acid, documentation relating to the Bandidos or anything else -- just beer.
Nieseen observed no one left the home until police arrived to search it the next day.
After Niessen arrived at Kellestine's home, police continued to surround the property. It was clear to Niessen the police were there because of the discovery of the eight bodies.
Then there were phone calls made to Kellestine's home about the deaths.
That evening, Niessen saw TV news reports and recognized Raposo's VW and a Superior Tow truck driven by Jessome.
Niessen talked on the phone to Muscedere's brother, Joseph, just before midnight on April 8. He told him he thought two of the bodies were that of Raposo and Muscedere.
Niessen also knew some of the people at the residence were destroying evidence, some of which may have been related to the slayings.
Niessen was also seen carrying buckets from the house to the barn and filling them with water from an old freezer that collected rain water.
But D'Iorio said Niessen did not have actual knowledge anyone washed the barn floor to destroy evidence.
Forensic evidence collected from the barn floor suggests one or more of the victims were shot in the barn.
Niessen was also seen searching the grounds of the property, specifically in areas believed to be where the victims were shot and where shell casings and other forensic evidence could have been, D'Iorio said.
There is no evidence Niessen found anything.
The Crown said Niessen did tell the police three lies.
He said he and Morris had arrived at Kellestine's at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 7, 2006.
They had a drinking party with Kellestine, Mather, Gardiner, Kellestine's common-law spouse and possibly Kellestine's daughter.
And he said the reason police saw his vehicle arriving at the farm Saturday was because he was returning from a beer run.
D'Iorio said Niessen didn't know or take part in burning any fires in an outdoor fire pit over his time spent there.
Niessen does not concede to knowing Kellestine, Mather and Gardiner were responsible for the deaths or anyone else.
The Crown applied to ban the entire hearing from publication, fearing a fair trial wouldn't be possible for the rest and an impartial jury wouldn't be found.
Elgin Crown Attorney Kevin Gowdey argued the information could force moving the trial.
McDermid disagreed.
"The mere fact that he pleaded guilty does not in any way implicate any other person in the homicides that occurred," he said in a written decision.
"it is important for the public to know what is happening in the courts as events unfold there," he added.
McDermid did place a ban on some of the agreed statement of facts "in order to prevent a real and substantial risk to the fairness of the trial."
The Crown appealed the ruling leading to Dec. 7's Supreme Court decision.
Niessen and Morris were among the five initial arrests -- along with Kellestine, Mather and Gardiner -- and charged with eight counts of first-degree murder.
Sandham, Mushey and Aravena were arrested in June 2006 and also charged with eight counts of first-degree murder.
Murder charges were dropped against the couple and replaced with charges of accessory after the fact.
Morris was released on bail in May 2006. Niessen was denied bail following a hearing in July 2006.
Earlier this year, after a lengthy preliminary hearing for all the accused, Ontario Court Justice Ross Webster ordered Morris and Niessen also be charged with obstruction of justice.
The lifting of the publication ban relieved Morris's friends and acquaintances, who defended her after the murder charges were laid.
"That's good to hear. She was always the peaceful type," a dispatcher at Star Taxi, her former employer, said last night.
"She never appeared to be anyone who would harm somebody."
Niessen, however, "seemed like a bit of a roughneck," the dispatcher said.
The two appeared as a couple in Monkton only a few years ago.
Niessen had lived there earlier with another woman, and two sons.
He worked at an auto body shop. To neighbours, they seemed like an average family.
But about 10 years ago, the family moved out.
Niessen returned with a new woman, Morris, and they ended up in a farmhouse just outside town.
The couple always seemed to struggle for money, said Lori Cooper, who employed Kerry Morris as a taxi driver for almost two years in Mitchell.
Morris was a kind woman who took in stray cats and helped out stranded passengers along her taxi routes, Cooper told reporters when the charges were laid.
Morris left her taxi job about 18 months before the killings to spend more time with her family, taking a part-time Tim Hortons job in Mitchell, Cooper said
She then got a job at Alpine Plant Food in New Hamburg, where she was working at the time of the arrest.
At his bail hearing in July 2006, Niessen said he had a degenerative back condition and had only spent one night in jail before his arrest in the Bandido case.
He said he didn't own firearms -- "never have, never will" -- and his only other criminal conviction was for impaired driving.
Of Morris, he said: "I would die for her."
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February 16, 2008
Bandidos gang back in Canada
Bandidos website: 'Stay tuned'
By CHRIS DOUCETTE AND ROB LAMBERTI, SUN MEDIA
The Toronto Sun
The Bandidos biker gang is back in Canada.
The group, which at one time stated on its Canadian website that it was no more, now has a new site saying, "Big changes coming soon ... Stay tuned."
The message is signed off by the letters NSCC, an acronym for the No Surrender Crew Canada, a nickname used by the Canadian wing of the Texas-based one-percent motorcycle club.
The former Toronto leader of the club, Francesco "Cisco" Lenti announced on the site last October "There isn't no more Bandidos MC membership in Canada."
The statement followed Lenti's arrest for second-degree murder. He's awaiting trial in the December 2006 shooting murder of Toronto West Hells Angels sergeant-at-arms David (White Dread) Buchanan and the wounding of two other Hells members.
Buchanan was reputedly a supplier of firearms to street gangs in Rexdale.
The Bandidos was also left shattered when eight of its Toronto area members, including its Canadian leadership, were found dead, their bodies stuffed into vehicles, in Shedden, near London, in April 2006. Trial is expected to start next fall for eight people charged with first-degree murder in the deaths.
"They want the word to get out about their re-opening," said an associate who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They don't want any misconceptions because of what was listed on the site ...
"They did close down for a short period of time," he said.
"It's been (nearly two) years since ... Shedden. What they've gone through, and the odds that they were up against, basically shook the club apart," the associate said.
"A lot of the strongest members of the No Surrender Crew have come back together. They are just not willing to give it up and they've re-opened the Bandidos back up in Canada again," he said.
A police source who is familiar with the Bandidos said "the guys in Winnipeg have been down to try and get things re-established" in Ontario.
"The Winnipeg guys have ties to the States," he said, indicating the move may have the approval of the Bandidos' hierarchy in Texas.
The source said what may be behind the move back into the province is the weakened state of the Hells Angels, who were given blows by police in two undercover projects where the Biker Enforcement Unit convinced two Angels to turn on the gang.
"You got Ontario chapters of the HA weakened ... you got this other trial going on where you have a bunch of people charged with killing (the Shedden victims)," the officer said.
"So you have that bad publicity coming out of that, that they don't exist anymore, so they want to prove to people that they do. But you know what? I think their success rate will be a zero."
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Wayne Kellestine's home is 'totalled,' but officials say it's too early to say if it's accidental or suspicious.
Bandidos site burns
Patrick Maloney
Sun Media
March 28, 2008
Almost exactly two years after police probing the biggest mass killing in Ontario history swooped down on the home of Wayne Kellestine, they returned yesterday (Mar. 27).
This time they were with firefighters battling a blaze that tore through the Aberdeen Line farmhouse where Kellestine -- one of six people facing first-degree murder charges in the Bandidos deaths -- lived before his arrest.
"It's totalled," Dan Lundy, the Dutton-Dunwich fire chief, said last night. "It's totally destroyed."
One woman living in the home, whom a friend at the scene identified as Kellestine's girlfriend, Tina, was taken to hospital for smoke-related injuries. Their daughter was not home when the fire started, at about 3:30 p.m.
Lundy said it was too early to tell whether it was accidental or suspicious. Firefighters weren't able to enter the charred home.
It's expected Ontario's fire marshal will be at the home this morning to investigate.
The friend at the scene, who wouldn't give her name, last night said the timing of the fire makes the loss all the more painful.
"This isn't good, considering it's two weeks to the anniversary to the (killing)" of eight Bandidos bikers, whose bodies were found a few kilometres away on the morning of April 8, 2006.
Police descended on the home at 32196 Aberdeen Line one day later. Investigators spent the next two months combing the property for clues.
Killed were: George Jesso, 52, of Toronto; George Kriarakis, 28, of Toronto; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham; Luis Manny Raposo, 41; Frank Salerno, 43, of Etobicoke; Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick; and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga.
Six men are each charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in the killings.
They are Kellestine, 58, Frank Mather, 34, of Dutton-Dunwich, Brett Gardiner, 23, of no fixed address, Michael Sandham, 38, Marcelo Aravena, 31, and Dwight Mushey, 40 of Winnipeg.
Their trial is to begin Sept. 8 in London and is expected to last six months.
In October, a Bandidos supporter pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and all charges against his common-law partner were withdrawn in connection with the deaths.
Eric Niessen, 46, of Monkton, in Perth County, was sentenced to two years in prison.
The Crown withdrew two charges -- obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact -- against 48-year-old Kerry Morris, Niessen's common-law partner.
An accessory charge against Niessen also was dropped.
The now-destroyed home was to be auctioned off last June over unpaid taxes, but a lawyer for Kellestine paid off the taxes, allowing Kellestine to hang onto the property.
The one-hectare (2.75-acre) property includes the farmhouse, barn and outbuildings that were the scene of biker gatherings for 20 years.
According to Dutton-Dunwich records, Wayne and his now-estranged wife, Linda Kellestine, bought the smaller parcel for $50,000 in 1982. Five years later, Kellestine bought the adjoining larger parcel for $52,500.
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Cause of a fire at the home of biker Wayne Kellestine is focus of a fire marshal's inquiry.
Bandido's house fire probed
Joe Belanger
Sun Media
March 29, 2008
Investigators are still probing a fire that destroyed the home owned by Wayne Kellestine, who faces first-degree murder charges in the Bandidos killings.
The once white, two-storey frame home on Aberdeen Line northwest of Iona Station and Highway 401 was gutted by fire Thursday afternoon (Mar. 27).
The roof collapsed and fire burned holes throughout the walls, the siding blackened or burned away.
"I'm just glad it's gone and maybe it'll bring quiet back to the area," said an area resident, who, like others, didn't want his name used.
The fire started after 3 p.m.
Police searched the Kellestine property in April 2006 after the bodies of eight members and associates of the Bandidos bike gang were found stuffed in vehicles parked beside a woodlot several kilometres from the Kellestine farm, notorious in the area for years as the scene of biker parties.
A man who was working in a nearby field when the fire broke out said the flames rose three metres above the house.
"I saw smoke coming from the house and, at first, I thought they'd fired up the wood stove," said the man.
"Then I saw the smoke coming from the front of the house and I knew it wasn't good."
Kellestine's girlfriend, Tina, lived in the house with her daughter, and suffered smoke inhalation.
An investigator from the Ontario Fire Marshal's office and OPP officers were at the scene yesterday but declined comment.
One neighbour said he had no opinion about what could be the end of an era with bike gangs roaming the area.
"I never had a problem with them, so I don't really have much to say," said the man. "(Kellestine) was a good neighbour."
Those killed April 7, 2006, were: George Jesso, 52, of Toronto; George Kriarakis, 28, of Toronto; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham; Luis Manny Raposo, 41; Frank Salerno, 43, of Etobicoke; Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick; and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga.
Six men are each charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in the killings.
They are Kellestine, 58; Frank Mather, 34, of Dutton-Dunwich; Brett Gardiner, 23, of no fixed address; and Michael Sandham, 38, Marcelo Aravena, 31, and Dwight Mushey, 40, all of Winnipeg.
Their trial is to begin Sept. 8 in London and is expected to last six months.
The now-destroyed home was to be auctioned off last June over unpaid taxes, but a lawyer for Kellestine paid off the taxes, allowing Kellestine to hang onto the property.
The one-hectare property includes the farmhouse, barn and outbuildings that were the scene of biker gatherings for 20 years.
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BANDIDOS: Grisly details of the slaying of eight men released by court
Scenes from a massacre
May 29, 2008
All were shot in the head. One was rolled up in a carpet.
The grisly details of what police discovered along a quiet Elgin County road near Shedden two years ago when they found eight slain men associated with the Bandido motorcycle club were released by the court yesterday.
Seven edited pages of the released materials describe the investigation beginning shortly before 9 a.m. on April 8, 2006, before the warrants were issued.
They describe the scene on Stafford Line.
An OPP officer first went to a grey 2003 Infiniti FX3 with tinted windows, registered to victim Jamie Flanz, parked with the driver's window down. The officer saw a man seated in the right rear passenger seat with blood on his face. He was not breathing.
The officer then went to the open hatch at the back of the car and saw a second man lying on his side. He was not moving.
The officer called for back-up and an ambulance.
Another officer arrived and saw two more men sitting in the rear seat of the Infiniti. They were both bleeding from wounds on their heads.
One man was slumped to his left and had blood coming from his nose and wasn't breathing. The other man was slumped forward and had a wound to his right temple.
The officer checked the body in the hatch and saw there was a wound to one of his eyes and there was a pool of blood underneath him.
None of the men had vital signs.
Two more officers checked the tow truck and the silver 2001 Volkswagen Golf hooked to it. The truck belonged to Superior Towing and Storage in Etobicoke.
There were three men in the Volkswagen. A man was in the driver's seat with his head covered. Another man was in the front seat with his head covered with a leather jacket.
A third man was in the back of the car wrapped in a piece of carpet.
The officers checked a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix parked between the bush lot and an area of pine trees east of the other vehicles. It appeared to be backed in.
In the rear seat was a man with his head covered.
A paramedic found a man in the rear seat of the tow truck, slumped over to the truck's right side. There was a large blood pool in the truck's doorsill and blood on the back seat.
The vehicles were moved to London for examination.
In a briefing later that morning, an OPP identification officer reported:
All eight men appeared to have been killed by gunshot wounds to the head.
The victim in the tow truck was believed to be George Jessome, who had been shot in the left side of the head, causing the blood stains on the truck. A shell casing was found in the truck.
There were no projected blood stains in the Grand Prix or the Volkswagen, although there was evidence of bleeding.
The man rolled up in the carpet was believed to be Luis Raposo. He had been shot twice in the neck but there was little blood. The blood on the inside and outside of the hatch door handle suggested Raposo had been shot somewhere else.
There was a lot of dirt on the Volkswagen's tires, suggesting it was stuck before it was put on the tow truck. A sample of soil was taken for comparison purposes.
The large man in the Infiniti hatch appeared to have been shot in the car and the other two men found in the car were shot elsewhere.
Police searched the area with metal detectors but located no evidence. Three tire impressions were found on Stafford Line.
The next morning, the officer in charge of the crime scene updated the investigation after the bodies were removed from the vehicles.
He reported the body in the Infiniti hatch was removed first and had a gunshot wound to the forehead above the left eye. A shell casing -- a .38 calibre -- was found in the blood under the head. There was no identification.
The second body in the car's rear passenger seat had Michael Trotta's identification. There were wounds to the top of the head and right temple.
The third body in the car had injuries to the right cheek, above the left eye and right ear. There were two more wounds in the thigh. A silver shell casing from a .22 calibre gun -- was found under the body. There was no identification.
The body in the tow truck -- an older man with a white goatee -- had an injury on the left chin below the earlobe.
The body in the Grand Prix's rear seat had gloves on. There were injuries to the left cheek and forehead. Police also found a brass shell casing in the latch area of the seat.
The body in the Volkswagen driver's seat had two gunshots in the area of the left ear.
The front passenger in the Volkswagen was a man in his 50s. He had one injury to his face below his left eye.
The Volkswagen passenger in the back seat wrapped in the carpet had his right middle finger "cut off at the knuckle." He had gunshot wounds to his neck.
It appeared he was carried to the car in the carpet.
--- --- ---
WHAT HAPPENED
Contents of search warrants relating to the investigation into the Bandidos slayings two years ago in Elgin County were released yesterday for the first time after being sealed in the early days of the investigation.
Sun Media, the parent company of The London Free Press, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., fought to have the search warrant materials released to the public. The Ontario Court of Appeal decided last week that edited copies of the warrants, could be released.
The warrants to search the Dutton-Dunwich farm -- Wayne Kellestine's house, garage, barn and property -- were released yesterday. The warrants issued for three addresses and a red Jimmy in Winnipeg, Man., are still under review.
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More Bandidos slaying details
The second warrant to be made public focuses on searches in Winnipeg
The London Free Press
Two months after eight Bandido bikers were found slain in Elgin County, police searched three homes and an SUV in Winnipeg for evidence that might link three men to the slayings.
Blood, DNA, clothing, receipts from a Barrie Wal-Mart, and computer communications equipment and software were among the many items listed in newly released court documents issued for the four Winnipeg locations.
The warrants allowed police on the properties from June 11 to June 19, 2006, two months after the eight bikers were found shot to death along the Stafford Line near Shedden.
Yesterday, the warrants were made available to comply with an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling in May that edited copies could be released to the media.
Sun Media, the parent company of The London Free Press, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. went to court to have the materials released to the public.
The documents needed to search the Dutton-Dunwich farm of Wayne Kellestine, 59, were released a week after the decision and detailed a search for blood, firearms and DNA.
But it took until yesterday before the edited Winnipeg search warrants were released.
Kellestine is one of six men facing eight counts of first-degree murder in the case.
Michael Sandham, 38, Dwight Mushey, 40, and Marcelo Aravena, 32, were arrested in Winnipeg and brought to Ontario two months after the bodies were discovered.
Kellestine, Frank Mather, 34, of Dutton-Dunwich and Brett Gardiner, of no fixed address, were charged just days into the investigation.
The Winnipeg searches focused on four locations:
- A house and garage at 938 Lindsay St., the home of Mushey and Aravena.
- A house at 129 Rogan Dr., the home of Mushey and Kimberly Douglas.
- Michael Sandham's home at 249 Greene Ave. The house was surrounded by mud because of the ongoing construction.
- The red GMC Jimmy registered to Kathleen Harder and located at Sandham's home.
At all four places, police were looking for:
- footwear and clothing that could have trace evidence of blood, hair, fibre and DNA from the victims.
- a black short-sleeve jersey with green sleeves and a grey stripe across the top of the chest and back with the number 23 on both the front and back.
- white coveralls.
- a black ball cap with a white oval logo on the front.
- Receipts for purchases made at Wal-Mart at 35 Maple View Drive W., in Barrie on April 8, 2006.
- Sandals, footwear and boots that could have trace evidence from the victims.
- Blood, hair, fibre and DNA.
- A computer system, related devices, media and documents containing passwords, manuals and printers.
- Cellphones, pagers, BlackBerry devices and other mobile communication devices.
- Correspondence, notes, calendar, date books, business cards, address books, hard copies of e-mail, telephone records, bank cheques, money orders and any other similar documents that could show a relationship to the slain men and other accused.
- Bank statements; credit card statements; debt lists; ledgers; journals; accounting documents; cancelled, deposited, cashed or paid cheques; bank passbooks; electronic fund transfer confirmations; and any other documents "that show a possible motive" for the slayings.
In addition, at Sandham's residence, police were looking for:
- credit card slips, debit slips, and cash sales receipts confirming the purchase of replacement tires at Wal-Mart.
- Warranty or guarantee documents for the tires.
- Keys, vehicle permit and ownership transfer documents for the GMC Jimmy.
Important details not made public include the reasons why police focused on the Winnipeg men. The first 21 paragraphs in the section explaining why the police wanted the warrants were not released to the media.
There were other areas blacked out in the text.
The warrants did include a similar description to that which appeared in the Kellestine warrants of the scene found along Stafford Line on April 8, 2006.
The men, all from the Toronto area with ties to the Bandidos motorcycle club, were found shot to death in parked vehicles.
There is some extra information in the Winnipeg warrants specifying the identity of each dead man.
Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton was the large male found in the rear of the 2003 Infiniti registered to Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick. Sinopoli had been shot in the forehead above his left eye.
Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga was found in the rear passenger seat on the driver's side with injuries to the top of the head and right temple.
Frank Salerno, 43, of Etobicoke was found in the rear seat on the passenger's side with injuries to his right cheek, above the left eye and possibly in the right ear. Two gunshot wounds were found in his thigh.
George Jessome, 52, of Toronto was found in the extended cab of the Superior Towing tow truck, a 2001 green Chevrolet Silverado. His injury was to the left chin directly below the ear lobe.
Flanz was found in the rear seat of the 2006 Pontiac Grand hands. His injuries were to the left cheek and forehead.
George Kriarakis, 28, of Mississauga was in the driver's seat of the 2001 Volkswagen Golf with two gunshot wounds near his left ear.
John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham was in the front passenger seat of the Golf. The only visible injury was to his face below his right eye.
Luis (Manny) Raposo, 41, of Toronto was found wrapped in carpet. His middle finger was cut off at the middle knuckle and he had gunshot wounds to his neck.
"It appears that the carpet was used to carry this person to the automobile," the warrant said.
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Decade in jail for biker killing
By BRIAN GRAY, SUN MEDIA
The Toronto Sun
NEWMARKET -- A Bandido member was sentenced to 10 years in prison yesterday for shooting a rival biker gang member to death at point blank range and wounding two others.
However, Superior Court Justice Michael Brown gave Francesco "Cisco" Lenti 48-months credit for 19 months of custody he has already served in segregation.
Lenti, who pleaded guilty in April, nodded his head as he was sentenced for manslaughter in the death of Hells Angels sergeant-at-arms David (White Dread) Buchanan in the lobby of Club Pro in Vaughan in the early morning of Dec. 2, 2006.
MORE SENTENCES
He was also sentenced to concurrent four-year terms for aggravated assaults on then-Hells Angels prospect Carlos Verrelli and full-patch member Dana Carnegie.
"In my view, the manslaughter in this case more resembles murder," Brown said, as a reason for sentencing at the high-end of the range available. "This is as close to murder as we could get without the necessary intentions."
FELT THREATENED
When confronted by Hells Angels members shortly after midnight, Lenti felt threatened, believing he saw the butt of a gun inside Verrelli's jacket.
He moved from a dark, secluded part of the bar to the brightly lit lobby where security cameras captured what was happening.
The argument escalated and Buchanan punched Lenti in the jaw and gave him a black eye and that's when Lenti pulled a 9-mm Luger handgun from his waistband and fired. Buchanan and Verrelli fell to the floor and Carnegie ran away.
Lenti then shot Buchanan once more through the cheek as he tried to push himself up off the floor
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COURTS: Motions begin
Bandidos trial highly anticipated
Jane Sims
Sun Media
November 18, 2008
Pre-trial motions began yesterday in London in a highly anticipated murder trial in connection to the slaying of eight Bandido bikers.
Wayne Kellestine
A publication ban is in effect for the nine weeks of motions to be heard in the Superior Court of Justice before jury selection begins Feb. 23.
The trial is due to last several months.
Six men -- Wayne Kellestine and Frank Mather of Dutton-Dunwich, Brett Gardiner of no fixed address, Michael Sandham, Dwight Mushey and Marcelo Aravena -- are jointly charged with eight counts of first-degree murder.
The bodies of eight men were found shot to death on Stafford Line in Elgin County, southwest of London, in April 2006.
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BANDIDOS
Jury selection begins in bikers' murder trial
Jane Sims
Sun Media
February 23, 2009
Jury selection begins today in London for the highly anticipated trial into the shooting deaths of eight Bandido bikers.
The selection process is expected to take several weeks as the Crown and defence lawyers choose jurors to hear the trial, expected to last several months.
Wayne Kellestine, 59, and Frank Mather, 35, both of Dutton-Dunwich; Brett Gardiner, 24, of no fixed address; Michael Sandham, 39, Marcelo Aravena, 32, and Dwight Mushey, 41, all of Winnipeg, each face eight counts of first- degree murder in the deaths of eight men believed to be part of the Bandidos motorcycle club.
The men's bodies were found in vehicles parked haphazardly on a rural Elgin County road, southwest of London, on April 8, 2006.
The case has crept through the criminal justice system.
Pre-trial motions began in November to lead up to the February trial date.
It's expected a large pool of potential jurors will be summoned to the courthouse this week to begin the process of selecting 12 to try the case.
The shooting victims -- George Jessome, 52, of Toronto; George Kriarakis, 28, of Toronto; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham; Luis Manny Raposo, 41, of Toronto; Frank Salerno, 43, of Etobicoke; Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick; and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga -- were all connected to the Bandidos motorcycle club.
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Bandidos trial finally starts
8 bikers were murdered in April 2006
By JANE SIMS, SUN MEDIA
Last Updated: 23rd February 2009, 5:16am
LONDON, Ont. -- Jury selection begins today in London for the highly anticipated trial into the shooting deaths of eight Bandido bikers.
The selection process is expected to take several weeks as the Crown and defence lawyers choose jurors to hear the trial, expected to last several months.
Wayne Kellestine, 59, and Frank Mather, 35, both of Dutton-Dunwich; Brett Gardiner, 24, of no fixed address; Michael Sandham, 39, Marcelo Aravena, 32, and Dwight Mushey, 41, all of Winnipeg, each face eight counts of first- degree murder in the deaths of eight men believed to be part of the Bandidos motorcycle club.
The men's bodies were found in vehicles parked haphazardly on a rural Elgin County road, southwest of London, on April 8, 2006.
The case has crept through the criminal justice system.
Pre-trial motions began in November to lead up to the February trial date.
It's expected a large pool of potential jurors will be summoned to the courthouse this week to begin the process of selecting 12 to try the case.
The shooting victims -- George Jessome, 52, of Toronto; George Kriarakis, 28, of Toronto; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham; Luis Manny Raposo, 41, of Toronto; Frank Salerno, 43, of Etobicoke; Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick; and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga -- were all connected to the Bandidos motorcycle club.
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MURDER TRIAL
Picking Bandido jury 'enormous' task
Jane Sims
Sun Media February 24, 2009
Jury selection began yesterday for the highly anticipated Bandido murder trial, but the initial stages were more about organizing potential jurors than choosing them.
"I ask you to be patient." -- Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney.
The first of 2,000 possible jurors -- the largest jury pool summoned in recent London history -- was at the Middlesex courthouse, to be divided into smaller lots and ordered to return next week.
Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney called the process "a very enormous undertaking."
The trial is expected to last four to six months.
A group of about 200 potential jurors was summoned yesterday morning.
Another 200 were called for the afternoon.
Each group is divided into lots of 10. Most of the morning group, once divided into sub-groups of 10, was told to return March 3, when 125 potential jurors will be screened.
The rest were told to return March 4. The same process will continue until Friday.
Six men are charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of eight men with ties to the Bandido motorcycle club in April 2006.
The men's bodies were found in vehicles parked haphazardly on a rural Elgin County road, southwest of London, on April 8, 2006.
Wayne Kellestine, 59, and Frank Mather, 35, both of Dutton-Dunwich; Brett Gardiner, 24, of no fixed address; Michael Sandham, 39, Marcelo Aravena, 32, and Dwight Mushey, 41, all of Winnipeg, each face eight counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the eight men believed to be part of the Bandidos.
All six accused appeared in another courtroom yesterday, away from the jury panel. An audio-video link was in place so the panel could see the accused in the prisoners' box and the accused could see them from their courtroom.
Mather was there only briefly. His lawyer, Robert Lockhart, told Heeney that Mather -- who appeared pale -- was feeling unwell and asked he be excused for the day.
None of the potential jurors' names was read in court, only their juror numbers and occupations.
Heeney noted all the panel members had received questionnaires to be returned.
He said he wouldn't deal with any reasons to be excused from the process -- such as financial hardship -- until next week.
"I ask you to be patient," he said.
One defence lawyer, Donald Crawford of London, representing Sandham, was pleased at how smoothly the morning session went.
"My client is nervous, as I am," he said. "Things are finally starting. The court staff has done a good job at organizing the panels."
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Toronto bikers snubbed by Winnipeg chapter
LONDON, Ont.–Tensions were clearly escalating within the Bandidos Motorcycle Club in the weeks before the largest mass murder in modern Ontario history, a court was told yesterday.
The club's national secretary-treasurer, Luis Manny Raposo, 41, was upset with the Manitoba probationary chapter of the Bandidos, according to an email introduced into evidence.
"I need contact with everyone there at least once a week," Raposo wrote Michael Sandham, 39, president of the Winnipeg probationary chapter, on March 6, 2006.
"I'm not available," Sandham tersely replied. "Stop calling the brothers' homes and families."
Raposo is one of the six GTA men whose bullet-riddled bodies were found on April 8, 2006, in abandoned vehicles near the hamlet of Shedden, west of London.
Sandham faces eight first-degree murder charges, including one for killing Raposo.
Also facing eight first-degree murder charges are fellow Winnipeggers Marcello Aravena, 32, Brett Gardiner, 24, and Dwight Mushey, 41; Wayne Kellestine, 59, of Iona Station, Ont.; and Frank Mather, 35, of no fixed address.
A copy of the tense email between Raposo and Sandham was found when police searched Raposo's Volkswagen Golf. The car also held Raposo's body, wrapped in carpet.
The jury was earlier told by Crown Attorney Kevin Gowdey there were tensions among the Bandidos over club dues, which members of the Toronto chapter felt were owed to them by the Winnipeggers.
Earlier yesterday, family members of the eight slain Bandidos bikers sobbed and gasped in court as dozens of close-up crime scene photographs of their loved ones were shown on monitors. The gruesome photos of the men's bloodied faces were shown during the testimony of OPP Const. Ross Stuart, an OPP identification expert.
Court heard that six of the eight murder victims had their faces covered when they were found in the abandoned vehicles. One of the bodies was found slumped by a child's car seat in the back of a car.
Under the seat of another car was a black vest bearing the crest of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club and a patch with the words, "Our colours don't run," Stuart said.
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Downsizing hits Bandidos Nation
Apr 01, 2009 04:30 AM
Rosie DiManno
LONDON, ONT. — It is just as suspected. For all their bad-to-the-bone desperado-ness, biker gangs are just as corporately anal as any other transglobal conglomerate.
They send scolding productivity emails from the head office.
They issue snippy corrective commands to recalcitrant branch chapters.
They have administrative headaches.
They headhunt.
And, when rescinding privileges of irksome members, they demand the return of gang patches, much in the same way as taking back keys to the executive washroom.
They are business suits in bandanas and chaps and one-percenter belt buckles.
The internal culture of biker gangs is at the crux of a murder-times-eight trial that finally opened here yesterday – jury selection took more than a month – with six members of the now gutted Bandidos fraternity in the box.
Actually, they are each in their own glass cubicle, arrayed like window display exotica, or D-List celebrities on Hollywood Squares.
Slain in a massacre on April 8, 2006 were: Boxer, Chopper, Bam Bam, Pony, Crash, Big Paul, Little Mikey and Goldberg; a.k.a. John Muscedere (purportedly president of the Canadian Bandidos affiliate), Luis Manny Raposo, Frank Salerno, George Jessome, George Kriarakis, Paul Sinopoli, Michael Trotta and Jamie Flanz.
Six were full-patch Bandidos and two were probationary members.
Their photos are mounted on a large board next to the jury box and they look scary.
Charged with first-degree murder of the eight "brothers'' are: Wayne Kellestine, Brett Gardiner, Michael Sandham, Marcello Aravena, Dwight Mushey and Frank Mather.
The alleged executions, as Crown attorney Kevin Gowdey told the jury in his opening address, occurred on Kellestine's farm, about a half-hour drive from this London courtroom, in the bucolic environs of a town called Shedden.
"This is a big trial," Gowdey stressed, of a proceeding expected to take four to six months, with a slew of witnesses, dozens of retrieved emails and many wiretapped phone call audiotapes.
"Eight men were shot dead, one by one. Good or bad, nice guys or not, they never deserved that.''
In a preview of what's to come – "a real story of conflict" – Gowdey quoted from an email exchange between the Bandidos head office in Texas and the Toronto chapter to which all the victims belonged.
It starts, in typical corporate-memo language, "To whom it may concern ..." and expresses disapproval over insufficient contact with a Canadian chapter that had apparently not been meeting requirements of club membership.
"It has been decided that, due to lack of communication, the Canadian charter is being revoked. Return all patches."
Toronto's response was miffed. "We've always conducted ourselves as gentlemen and righteous brothers."
The Toronto branch called upon chapters from across the globe to show support for and solidarity with their big-footed chapter.
"Are we a dictatorship or a brotherhood?" their all-email demands to know. "What have we become?
"We would like a worldwide vote from all our brothers ... before we return our Bandido properties."
There appeared to be resentment on both ends and rebellion festering. But while the Toronto chapter was in bottom-up conflict with Texas, it was also in top-down collision with an aspiring Winnipeg branch that had not yet received full-fledged chapter status, as Gowdey told the jury.
The murdered Bandidos – found by police on that bright April morning, stuffed into four abandoned vehicles – were allegedly summoned to Kellestine's farm and ambushed by the 'Peg crew. Kellestine, a notorious local character better known as "Weiner," was purportedly their Bandidos ally. He would later tell police, said Gowdey, that he was a "retired" Bandidos (though he still wore a one-percenter belt) "with nothing but love for his dead brothers."
Yet it was Kellestine, the Crown claims it will show, who set up the ambush plan to wipe out his own chapter of Bandidos.
Kellestine, with his long grey ponytail, scribbled notes furiously throughout the opening address.
Gowdey continued: "In the Bandidos world, the Bandidos Nation, there was a political structure, jargon, paraphernalia, a culture.
"What does it mean to possess Bandidos stuff? What does it mean to be a one-percenter?''
These issues will be explored at trial, the Crown promised.
But from what was revealed yesterday – and the defence lawyers, 13 of them in all, haven't had a crack at any of this previewed material yet – it certainly seems like bikers, who present themselves as overtly anti-establishment, have a plethora of internecine rules and administrative guidelines to which they are held accountable by up-the-chain gang masters.
Except, in Bandidos Nation at least, boardroom struggles can apparently result in massacre and massive bloodletting.
While the Bandidos were never much of a factor on the Canadian biker landscape, they are believed to be second in numbers globally only to the Hells Angels.
And the Angels were quick to disassociate themselves from the bloodbath in Shedden.
They made that announcement on their website, natch.
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Accused prayed, sang during slaughter, trial told
Apr 01, 2009 04:30 AM
Peter Edwards
STAFF REPORTER
LONDON, Ont. – Wayne Kellestine sang, danced and prayed the night he helped slaughter his eight Bandido biker clubmates one by one, a jury was told yesterday.
"There was no gunfight," Elgin County Crown Attorney Kevin Gowdey said on the opening day of the largest mass murder trial in modern Ontario history.
"There was no flurry of bullets. ... One by one, the Bandidos were led to their deaths."
One was killed in an ambush and the rest were systematically slaughtered, Gowdey said.
Kellestine, 59, faces eight charges of first-degree murder, along with Winnipeggers Marcello Aravena, 32, Brett Gardiner, 24, Michael Sandham, 39, and Dwight Mushey, 41; and Frank Mather, 35, of no fixed address.
Gowdey told the jury that not all of the accused fired guns on the night in April 2006, when eight men were shot to death on Kellestine's farm west of London.
Found dead in vehicles abandoned near the farm were: George Jessome, 52, George Kriarakis, 28, Luis Manny Raposo, 41, Frank Salerno, 43, all of Toronto; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham, Ont.; Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick; and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga.
They were all members or associates of the Toronto chapter called "The No Surrender Crew."
Gowdey said biker politics was at the root of the slaughter. The Toronto chapter of the Bandidos opposed granting full club status to the Winnipeg probationary chapter of the club.
Kellestine sided with the Winnipeg chapter and lured his fellow members of The No Surrender Crew to his barn for a meeting.
"Only one of The No Surrender Crew is with us now – Wayne Kellestine," Gowdey told the jury. "He set up the plan to ambush the Toronto Bandidos, his own chapter."
Kellestine briefly became president of the Canadian Bandidos after betraying his Toronto clubmates, court heard.
Gowdey said the jury can expect to hear of bizarre mood swings from Kellestine on that night. This included singing, dancing and praying in his barn with some of the victims, between executions.
Gowdey said the original plan was to kick the bikers out of the Bandidos by taking away their club crests and paraphernalia. This order was given to Kellestine by officers at the Bandidos headquarters in Texas.
Kellestine armed members of the Winnipeg probationary chapter with guns when they arrived at his farm in late March, Gowdey said.
Raposo was the first man killed that night, in an exchange of gunfire with Sandham, hidden in the rafters of the barn, Gowdey said.
That set into motion a deadly plan drawn up by Kellestine before the murders, Gowdey said. "Kellestine said, 'If one person had to be killed, they all had to be killed.' "
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Amid the death, trappings of daily life
Apr 02, 2009 04:30 AM
LONDON, Ont.—The discordant note is not only in the blood, a vivid and viscous red.
Or the singed bullet holes to forehead and cheek.
What jars further – not belonging, not expected in the photo – is the evidence of children and family rides: a kid's car seat, brightly coloured backpacks, story books, toys.
This automobile, a grey Pontiac Grand Prix leased to the common-law wife of a murdered Bandidos biker, was among four abandoned vehicles discovered alongside a rural road not far from town.
Nestled among the trappings of childhood is the body of Jamie Flanz, 37, slumped over in the back seat. He is believed to be the last man shot, the final victim marched from barn to car and executed in the early-morning hours of April 8, 2006.
When the grotesque image appeared on the monitor yesterday, a wrenching sob erupted from the small group of family members huddled in the third row of the courtroom. The dead were all associated with the Bandidos' Toronto chapter, allegedly massacred by the six men on trial here for first-degree murder.
In life, they may not have been particularly good human beings. Yet they all had siblings and parents and lovers; some had children.
"A bunch of bad guys, huh,'' hissed one of the grieving women, clearly dismayed by how the victims have been portrayed as less worthy mortals because of their biker status.
Another relative bolted from the room when her loved one, in hideous post-mortem contortion – wrapped in an area rug, eyes partly open – was flashed on the screen.
Justice Thomas Heeney had warned the jurors that the photographs they were about to see – snapped by crime scene investigators – would be upsetting. "Some are of a gruesome nature. Simply steel yourselves.''
But that was asking too much of the family members, their weeping almost turned into keening.
The Grand Prix was left not 10 metres off the roadway, backed into a grassy area surrounded by trees and shrubbery, yet clearly visible. Close by was a green Chevrolet Silverado tow truck, keys still in the ignition. In its rear bench seat, police discovered a body in black jacket, blue jeans and cowboy boots. A facial profile shows the victim with blood on his forehead, cheeks, dripping from nose and mouth. That was George Jessome, 52.
Hooked to the truck and slightly elevated was a grey Volkswagen Golf, keys left on the hood. In the driver's seat, wearing jeans and running shoes, a gunshot wound below the left ear, was George Kriarakis, 28. In the passenger seat, upper body covered in a black leather jacket, was John Muscedere, 48. And tucked into the hatch, wrapped in the carpet, with a bullet hole in his neck, was Luis Manny Raposo, 41.
A bit separate from this ghastly cortege, in a farmer's field, police found an unlocked Infiniti FX35 with its rear hatch open. In that cargo area, curled into a fetal position, bleeding from the eye and left temple, wearing what look like pyjama bottoms, was the hulking frame of Paul Sinopoli, 30.
In the driver's side rear seat, clad in a blue hoodie – a bullet exit wound to the top of the head, entry wound in the right temple – was Michael Trotta, 31. Next to him, in black and white track suit, blood splatter all around his mouth, was Frank Salerno, 43.
This carnage, Crown Attorney Kevin Gowdey has told the jury, was the one-night handiwork of the half-dozen defendants. Though all may not have actually pulled the trigger, said Gowdey, all participated in the event. Each has been charged with eight counts of murder in the first degree.
In his opening statement Tuesday, Gowdey alleged that the victims were lured to a farm and ambushed by members of a Winnipeg-based Bandidos chapter – these would be their brothers-in-patches – along with a London-area Bandido, Wayne (Weiner) Kellestine, purported mastermind of the plan. It was on Kellestine's farm, 14 kilometres from where the vehicles were discovered, that the murders occurred, one by one, the prosecution has asserted.
That property was actually under surveillance by Durham police who had been investigating another, unrelated murder, tailing some of the Toronto Bandidos. These officers, and another local cop, observed smoke from a bonfire overnight but, lacking a search warrant – that would be obtained the following day – they could not go onto the premises.
The prosecution alleges that the victims were forced into their vehicles, shot, then transported to the Stafford Line spot. At least one motorist, as the Crown maintains, saw the convoy turning off the highway onto Stafford.
While dozens of items – keys, bullet casings, coins, zippers, belt buckles, cellphones, spectacles – were found in the ashes of the bonfire, other personal identifying bits were retrieved from the vehicles. These include a letter to "Mr. & Mrs. Michael Trotta'' from the Halton Catholic District School Board, a DeVry College badge, notice of a reinstated driver's licence from the Ministry of Transportation, a black leather vest with multiple patches.
And, tucked into the pocket of the Golf's driver door, a heavy silver ring with a diamond-shaped bracket on which was mounted the iconic biker ideogram that can only be earned: 1 per cent.
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Biker sentenced to 3-1/2 years for drug deal
10 years ago
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