Biker gangs linked to murders
Victims 'known to each other'; Police raid farmhouse of ex-gang leader Bandidos member has disappeared, crime expert says

By Nicolaas van Rijn, Peter Edwards, Richard Brennan
Toronto Star, April 10, 2006, page A1

Ontario Provincial Police investigators carried out a raid on the farmhouse owned by a known member of a biker gang yesterday as they continued to investigate the worst mass murder in Ontario history, which claimed the lives of eight Toronto-area men.

About a dozen police cruisers were parked outside the home of Wayne Kellestine in Dutton-Dunwich, who local residents say has lived in the house for some 20 years. Kellestine, the former leader of the St. Thomas Annihilators and the now-inactive St. Thomas Loners bikers gangs, lives about 22 kilometres west of where the bodies were found.

Police investigators remained tight-lipped about developments, as they have since St. Thomas-area resident Russ Steele, out for an early walk with his wife Mary at 8 30 a.m. Saturday, stumbled across three cars and a tow truck abandoned on and near their property 20 kilometres southwest of London.

The farm, near the tiny hamlet of Shedden, is 200 kilometres southwest of Toronto.

After spotting two bodies in one of the vehicles, according to sources near the investigation, the Steeles rushed home and called police. The couple is now receiving counselling to help them deal with the traumatic discovery on their land.

Kellestine had no comment on the slayings when the Toronto Star reached him by telephone before the police action at his residence.

The man, who has survived two underworld assassination attempts, uttered a profanity, and then slammed down the telephone.

In another possible connection, organized crime expert Antonio Nicaso said he learned from a reliable source that a member of the Toronto Bandidos disappeared from his home on the eve of the massacre.

He would not name the man but sources have identified him as Frank Salerno, a founding member of the gang. Police wouldn't comment on Nicaso's information. Official information was scarce.

"We're in the middle of an active investigation right now," OPP Const. Dennis Harwood said, declining to provide additional information.

The slayings, the worst single-incident mass murder in modern Ontario history, got the immediate attention of the provincial and federal governments, and news of the deaths was transmitted around the world.

Premier Dalton McGuinty said he was "shocked" at the killings, but had no further comment. "I'll wait to see the results of the police investigation," McGuinty said in Chicago.

"Obviously this is an extraordinary event in the annals of Ontario crime," McGuinty added. "I hope that it remains such - a unique and extraordinary event."

And, in reference to talk of outlaw biker gangs surrounding the incident, the premier added "I haven't been apprised of any new wars or new activities. Bikers are part of the criminal element in the province. I guess that's not news."

Federal public safety minister Stockwell Day was also monitoring events, but remained uninvolved in the investigation.

OPP Det. Supt. Ross Bingley, speaking to reporters near the scene yesterday morning, said police know the identities of the eight white adult men, and that the Toronto-area victims share a common connection.

"We are confident that all the victims were known to each other, and from the Greater Toronto Area," Bingley said. But he stopped short of identifying them, and would not say how they came to die. Police have also refused to speculate on whether the men were killed somewhere else and driven along the isolated area's unlit roads to be dumped in a field.

"Obviously we are not used to having eight people in one homicide scene," Bingley said. The 27-year veteran policeman added, "I don't recall that number of (victims) in any one location, so obviously it is fairly significant."

Police have refused to confirm the eight died of gunshot wounds, conceding only that "trauma" was involved.

Although Star sources say the OPP's Biker Enforcement Unit has been called in, Bingley refused to make a biker connection in the crime, which occurred in an area that has long been home to biker gangs, including the Bandidos, Hells Angels and the now-defunct Loners.

"The Hells are present in Ontario. Everybody knows that," Bingley conceded. "But as far as me discussing the Hells or anybody else, we're working on this murder case, and we're not talking about the Hells."

But others were not so reluctant.

"I could certainly be proven wrong, but I don't think so - this murder is the result of organized crime," said law enforcement consultant Chris Mathers, a former undercover RCMP officer who now runs a Toronto consulting firm.

"This isn't a dispute between the 4-H Club or the Lions or the Masons," Mathers added. "Who else in the world settles disputes in this fashion?"

The Hells themselves denied involvement.

"The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, or any of its members, are not involved in this crime in any way, shape or form," said a notice on the biker gang's website, www.realdealnews.com. "Newspaper reports and speculation to the contrary will be proven completely wrong in the coming days."

There's no mention of the incident on the Bandidos website, www.bandidosmc.ca, where visitors are warned to "enter with respect."

After the vehicles and bodies were transported to Toronto in closed transport trucks early yesterday, OPP investigators looking for evidence scoured every centimetre of soil on the Steele farm, plotting their precise position by satellite-relayed GPS signals. They also searched along adjacent ditches and roads.

Dr. David Evans, regional coroner for Toronto West, said the bodies were in the provincial coroner's headquarters on Grenville St. in Toronto, where they were to be autopsied today and tonight.

"It's going to take a bit of time," Evans said, noting "it may take all day and sometime into the evening to have it all completed."

The four vehicles involved - a silver 2001 Volkswagen Golf, a grey 2003 Infiniti SUV, a grey Pontiac Grand Prix and a green Chevrolet Silverado tow truck operated by Superior Towing of Etobicoke - will be torn apart here and at OPP headquarters in Orillia by forensic investigators looking for fingerprints, DNA evidence such as blood, hairs and saliva, and other clues.

The Volkswagen Golf is registered to Luis Manny Raposo. A man with the same name was a low-level member of the Bandidos biker gang, and once faced charges in Quebec and accusations of wrongdoing in Ontario.

The Infiniti, found with the body of a heavyset man curled in the back cargo area, was leased by a Montreal company to an Ontario man who has a home in Georgina; yesterday a York Region police car was parked outside the house, which records show was purchased in 2001 for $140,000.

According to industry sources, the tow truck was being driven by George Jesso, a man in his 50s who has long trawled Toronto's highways for stranded cars and collision scenes.

Cindy Stunden, owner of First Image Towing, said she was shocked to learn that Jesso was likely among the eight victims.

"I just think he was at the wrong place at the wrong time," Stunden said. "I'm going to be so in shock if I find out that he had any involvement with anything."

8 Death in Canada Linked to Biker Gang

Mon Apr 10, 3:44 PM ET

Canadian police said eight men found dead inside vehicles on a farm over the weekend were affiliated with a biker gang and that five people have been arrested on murder charges.

Police called the killings "an internal cleansing" of the Bandidos motorcycle gang and said that the eight victims suffered gunshot wounds. Their bodies were found Saturday on a farm in Shedden, Ontario, about 90 miles northeast of Detroit.

Police on Monday searched a farmhouse owned by a gang member near the site where the eight men were found dead, stuffed inside abandoned vehicles in one of Canada's biggest mass-murders in a decade.

Toronto-based organized crime expert Antonio Nicaso told The Associated Press that he learned from a reliable source that members of the Bandidos have been missing since Friday.

Nicaso said the Bandidos were not that big or influential in Canada, but they are the major competitor of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang in the United States.

"If it is confirmed that the eight bodies were all members of the Bandidos you could say that someone decided to erase the Bandidos from the biker map," Nicaso said. "That's why I have a hard time believing that retaliation is on its way."

He said all messages of condolences had been taken off the Bandidos Web site, leading him to speculate that the murders may have been an inside job by club members.

The eight victims knew each other and were all from the Toronto area, police have said.

The gangland-style killings are the biggest mass murder in Canada since spurned husband Mark Chahal went on a shooting rampage in Vernon, British Columbia, killing nine people, including his estranged wife and himself in 1996.

8 Deaths in Canada Linked to Biker Gang

Police Say 8 Deaths in Canada Linked to Biker Gang; Five People Arrested on Murder Charges

The Associated Press

LONDON, Ontario - Canadian police said eight men found dead inside vehicles on a farm over the weekend were affiliated with a biker gang and that five people have been arrested on murder charges.

Police on Monday searched a farmhouse owned by a gang member near the site where the eight men were found dead, stuffed inside abandoned vehicles in one of Canada's biggest mass-murders in a decade.

Toronto-based organized crime expert Antonio Nicaso told The Associated Press that he learned from a reliable source that members of the Bandidos have been missing since Friday.

Nicaso said the Bandidos were not that big or influential in Canada, but they are the major competitor of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang in the United States.

He said all messages of condolences had been taken off the Bandidos Web site, leading him to speculate that the murders may have been an inside job by club members.

The eight victims knew each other and were all from the Toronto area, police have said.

Belfast Telegraph Home > News

Five arrested over mass murder
of biker gang

11 April 2006

Police in Toronto said they had arrested five people last night in connection with the murders of eight men, which they said looked liked an " internal cleansing" of a feared biker gang called the Bandidos.

The victims' bodies were found on Saturday stashed inside four vehicles that had been abandoned on a farm in a rural area in southwestern Ontario. The discovery marked the worst mass killing seen in Canada for almost a decade.

Officials confirmed that the victims had known one another and were all associated with the Bandidos, a Texas-based gang that sees itself as a rival to the much larger Hell's Angels. The victims had each suffered fatal gunshot wounds to the head, detectives said.

The announcement of the five arrests came after autopsies had been carried out on the eight men. Also yesterday, police searched a modest house belonging to a Bandidos member close to the site where the victims were found.

Speculation had already been widespread that the murders had been a gangland killing. Last night, it appeared as if almost the full membership of the Bandidos in Ontario had been wiped out.

"If it is confirmed that the eight bodies were all members of the Bandidos, you could say that someone decided to erase the Bandidos from the biker map," said Antonio Nicaso, an expert on organised crime in Toronto. Based in Texas, the Bandidos have 600 members worldwide, a fraction of the Angels' numbers.

South-western Ontario, along the shores of Lake Erie and bordering the United States outside Detroit, has been fought over by biker gangs for many years, in part because it is a corridor for drug trafficking from the US to Toronto. Bodies were found dumped in fields in 1994 and 1998 in the area after biker-gang killings.

"I can tell you that it's Bandidos that got killed," Edward Winterhalder told reporters. A former member of the gang himself, he has written a book about belonging to the group called Out in Bad Standings.

The Toronto chapter of the Hells Angels denied any involvement in the weekend slayings. "The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, or any of its members, are not involved in this crime in any way shape or form," the group said on its web site.

Shock at the slayings was voiced, meanwhile, by the Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty. "Obviously this is an extraordinary event in the annals of Ontario crime," he said, "I hope that it remains such a unique and extraordinary event."

Canadian police estimate there are about 1,200 members of biker gangs across the country, affiliated with the Angels, the Bandidos or the Outlaws. The President of an Ontario chapter of the Outlaws, Jeffrey LaBrash, was cut down by gunfire outside a strip club in London, Ontario near the scene of last weekend's murders in 1998.

While Ontario has seen its share of biker-related violence, Quebec is more closely associated with the gangs. Four years ago, police in Quebec arrested 150 people they said were associated with the Angels. In 2000, a reporter with the Journal de Montreal, who wrote about the gangs, was shot five times in the newspaper's parking lot. He survived.

People familiar with the world of the gangs said that the Bandidos have never done much to soften their tough-guy, anti-social image. Their slogan on their Canadian web site reads: "We are the people your parents warned you about."

"This is how they deal with disputes. They don't go to court. They don't print snotty lawyers' letters. This is what happens," commented Chris Mathers, a legal consultant and former undercover police officer. " It is shocking for it to happen all at one time."

Five charged over murder
of Canadian bikers

� Suspects and eight dead all Bandido members
� Police say killings were 'internal cleansing' of gang

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday April 11, 2006
The Guardian

Five people in Canada were charged with murder yesterday after the bodies of eight men were discovered in a farmer's field in a mass homicide described by police as an "internal cleansing" of outlaw biker gangs.

Four men and a woman were arrested at a farmhouse about six miles from where the bodies had been dumped, stuffed inside three cars and a tow truck on a former dairy farm.

The suspects and victims were members or close associates of the Bandidos, the second biggest criminal motorcycle gang after the Hells Angels, police told reporters in London, Ontario.

All eight victims - white males from the Toronto area, 125 miles away, had suffered gunshot wounds. Their bodies were discovered in abandoned cars in the brush on an isolated field near the hamlet of Shedden in southern Ontario.

The killing had prompted immediate speculation in the Canadian press of a reprise of the gang wars that caused havoc in Quebec during the late 1990s, when more than 160 people were killed in a feud between the Hells Angels, and Rock Machine, a precursor in Canada of the Bandidos.

But Ross Bingley, a spokesman for the Ontario police, told the press conference: "This is an isolated incident."

On their website, the Hells Angels also disavowed any connection with the killings.

The names of the dead were being withheld, pending the release of postmortem results later yesterday.

Police refused to speculate on a motive, but biker gangs have been fighting for control of drug trafficking routes in southern Ontario for years. Wayne Kellestine, one of the men charged and the owner of the farmhouse where the suspects were seized, survived an assassination attempt by the Hells Angels in the late 1990s.

Antonio Nicaso, an expert on organised crime in Toronto, told the Guardian: "Apparently there was an internal turf war to get rid of an entire crew of the bandidos. There is speculation that the decision for this massacre was orchestrated outside of Ontario, probably with the assistance of other Bandidos from other provinces."

He described a situation in which motorcycle gangs had gradually moved into organised crime, especially small-scale drug distribution. He also said the tow truck industry had been infiltrated by biker gangs which use the vehicles as a cover for drug trafficking.

"The biker elements have become increasingly organised. They want control. They want money. They want turf," he said. That may have brought them into conflict with their killers. Otherwise, the Ontario chapter of Bandidos was a marginal force - too small to pose a threat to the Hells Angels or organised crime syndicates. Edward Winterhalter, a former Bandido who has written a book about his former life as a biker, said the gang had perhaps a dozen members in Ontario although it also had chapters in western Canada.

But the Bandido presence in Canada represents just a fraction of a global membership that extends from North America through Europe - where it has up to 800 followers - to Indonesia and Australia.

Among US motorcycle gangs, the Bandidos are sworn enemies of the Hells Angels and that enmity has bubbled over in Canada in the past. In the late 1990s, 160 people were killed in Quebec during a gang war between local chapters of the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine, the precursor of the Bandidos.

Following the gang wars in Quebec - which Mr Winterhalter tried to adjudicate for the Bandidos - Canadian bikers regularly switched affiliation between Hells Angels, Bandidos, and yet another group called the Loners with which Mr Kellestine had been linked.

The bodies had been discovered early on Saturday morning by Russell and Mary Steele. At first, Ms Steele said yesterday she thought the cars had been dumped by joy riders. But as she and her husband walked deeper into the brush and discovered an abandoned SUV, another car, and a tow truck they began to suspect something was terribly wrong. The couple, retired dairy farmers, called the police.

The boot on one of the cars was slightly ajar. "Lots of kids go for joy rides around here, and drop the vehicles," Ms Steele said. "You rationalise everything in your mind and think these are stolen vehicles but when we saw the fourth one we thought: 'oh boy'.

"I can say for absolute 100% that I have never seen a motorcycle go past my lane-way," said Ms Steele. "The only thing around here are farm boys with dirt bikes. There's not a motorcycle that goes by and I say: 'Oh my gosh, it's a biker!' "