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Loop HOADI, you are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors that have written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, The most shocking Killers in true crime History and the authors that have written about them. On the more of April eighth, two thousand and six, residents of the hamlet of Shedden, Ontario woke up to the news that the bloodied bodies of eight bikers from the Bandido's motorcycle gang had been found dead on a local farm.
The massacre made headlines around the world, and the shocking news brought a grim light to an otherwise quiet corner of the province. Six Bandidos bikers would eventually be convicted of the first degree murder of their biker brothers. Like other outlaw bikers, Vandidos portrayed themselves as motorcycle enthusiasts who are systematically misunderstood and abused by the police. As well as feared by the public. We now know that Vandidos
were anything but simple motorcycle enthusiasts. However, unlike such biker gangs as the Hell's Angels, who run sophisticated operations, the Bandidos were highly disorganized, prone to petty infighting, and even engaged in sabotaging fellow members. This is the story of how the Vandidos self destructed over one very night. As gripping as any crime novel, The Bandido Massacre takes us inside a crumbling brotherhood bent on betrayal and self obliteration.
The book that we were featured this evening is The Bandido Massacre with my special guest, journalist and author Peter Edwards. Thank you for agreeing to this interview and welcome to True Murder. Peter Edwards.
It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Thank you very much, Peter. This is a very, very incredible story, and I think our audience primarily we have a lot of people in America and abroad. So what I'll get you to do a little bit is maybe explain this because we see for those reading the book, you'll hear Sheddon Ontario, you'll hear Iona Station. But for most people, we know the greater Toronto area no matter where they are in the world. So tell us where
the proximity where this all occurs. We're talking about London, Ontario, we're talking about shed and we're talking about Keswick, but we're talking about Toronto. Take us at least to the geography of where some of these things occur before we get too far into the story.
Really killing took place with about midway between Toronto and Detroit, right on the or just off Highway four oh one, so that's knada's busiest highway. The Toronto chapter of the Bandidos was the one involved in the massacre and they one of their members lived in the tiny place called Iona Station, which only hit one hundred people. And that's about midway Toronto and Detroit.
Right now.
We pick place actually, and it hit a farm there, like a sort of a firm that was off the highway but secluded enough that things could be done there that other people couldn't see.
Right now, Well, we're talking about that. This mass murder occurred on April eighth, two thousand and six. But for
our audience, take us back. We really do do a exhaustive examination of biker culture in Canada for those that don't know really the hierarchy, tell us a little bit about the background of the Hell's Angels and the Bandidos where they sort of originate from, and tell us just a little bit about the history of the Canadian chapter the Canaian chapters of those bike gangs, especially the Bandidos, that it is very important to this story.
The Hell's Angels had been locked into a street war with a group called the Rock Machine in Montreal and that had gone on for about six years and there had been almost two hundred people killed in that so it was genuinely a war, you know, people being shot, blown up, disappearing. The Hell's Angels were winning. The Rock Machine was basically a group of drug dealers that kind of joined together to form a gang to try and
hold off the Hell's Angels. When they saw they were losing, they reached out to the Bandidos, who are a well respected, really internationally known biker club based in mostly in Texas. That's where they got their start. They reached out to Texas for support and what they did was folded into the Bandidos and they hoped that that would hold off the Hell's Angels. The Hell's Angels kept pounding on them, and around the time of the massacre, the Bandidos had
been driven out of Quebec and the Ontario Ones. The Ontario Bandidos were basically rose to the top because everybody else was either dead or in prison. So that was the group that on paper they looked good, but they weren't really tested and they weren't really that strong.
Now to set up this story as well, that's for the people that'll know that the Bandidos are the number two outlaw biker gang in the world, and of course the Hell's Angels are the number one. Is that correct?
Yeah, definitely, And the Outlaws are always there, Like the Outlaws are have never been the top, but they've never been gone, so they're they're kind of the survivor group. The Hell's Angels are a lot of people think that that's what everybody aspires to be. And then the Bandidos were started up from Vietnam War veterans. They they got going in the sixties. The Hell's Angels roots go back to the Second World War and veterans coming back from that.
Right now, now, what was the status of the Bandidos in two thousand and six, and say even two thousand and five, in that you know, not that many years ago. What was their status in terms of full member chapters in Canada and where where were the only chapters in Canada? Tell us about that, and tell us what the status was of this chapter in Winnipeg.
And they had literally been kicked out at Quebec like the Hell's Angels, agreed to stop pounding on them if they would fold in kubbet and so. And it was interesting because the deal was applied to prison as well as on the streets. And so by them being driven out of Quebec, all of a sudden, Ontario became important. But Ontario altogether had maybe three dozen members, not that many.
Manitoba was trying to trying to get going. There's a lot of violence in Manitoba, but it's not that organized, and the Bandidos there saw an opening to pull things together and tighten it up a bit.
Okay.
I mean at the same time that Bandidos in Manitoba weren't they weren't really recognized, and they were looking to Ontario for guidance and Ontario just didn't have the smarts to give it to them.
Now, there's there's a little more background to this as well that we find out later, but we might as well say that that they're established that there was not there was conflict between the Winnipeg you call it a probationary chapter, and then the Toronto chapter is full members. If I'm not getting this incorrect, now, there was something about dues owed like again, we've already set up this a little bit in the synopsis that this is about
petty in fighting. So tell us what the relationship was between the Winnipeg Probationary Chapter and Toronto and some of the things that they may have had an issue before we get to a couple of conversations and when the ball starts rolling in this very very deadly direction.
Now, Winnipeg, the Manitoba chapter, they were supposed to be deferential to Toronto. They were supposed to send them dues for each member who got in. They were supposed to be kicking in money wise, and they just weren't really, and they weren't. They weren't even being honest. At the same time, they were trying to do an end run around Toronto and go directly to Texas. They're trying to go from being a probationary chapter to being the top
chapter in the country. And they had a big kind of Napoleonic ideas of experiding, and they just thought they'd leave Toronto behind right now.
The Texas chapter, what was there? What was their interest in Canada and what would? What would? What did they have to say about the situation between Winnipeg and Toronto? What was their take on the situation?
Uh, the Texans were frustrated with all of them, really, I mean the after nine to eleven, it became a lot tougher to cross the border. It became difficult to come up to somewhere where there was expansion and actually see what was going on, meet the members. People with criminal records, we had a lot of trouble crossing the border either way. That meant that it was mostly internet contact and people could just play stupid and not return emails.
It's it's sort of bizarre, but the Internet played a big role in this in Texas. Was breat guys. A lot of them had jobs in the oil industry, a lot of them were part of something that had grown out of a you know, real military basis. So these are people who knew how to take orders, who knew discipline, he knew to actually do things, and he generally came to see the Canadians as drug using the idiots for lack of a better word.
Now, tell us about the first off, I guess you can tell us about the crew, the No Surrender Crew, and tell us just introduce the characters, because that's what this is all about, is these characters as opposed to another group of characters. So tell us about the No Surrender Crew, who was involved, and one by one, give us a little bit of background on these people. These men.
The one that is kind of worthy of the most attention, although you know, probably worthy of well, it's worthy of the least respect. At the same time as is Wayne Kellestine. And he was in his late fifties, a long time outlaw biker. But none of the big clubs wanted him. The Outlaws had taken a look at him, they didn't want to be near him. The Hills Angels had had
tried to kill him. There's a feeling among some Hell's Angels that some people are too crazy to be dealt with, and that they that you just get rid of them. And so he was on in that category. He wore a lightning bolt on his vest, which was his way of saying that he had he had killed and gotten
away with it. The feeling was that he had, excuse me, killed someone who had killed a police officer, and that that had given him a pass, that he was kind of on the he had an inside track to some of the police through through murder that they were giving him a bit of a wide berth. And he's someone very very unstable drug use or Nazi lover, did really bizarre things that even in the biker world were considered too too strange.
Uh.
He saw himself as very very heroic. So he and and a huge gun collector, tons of weapons, and he didn't take care of his guns, but he had weapons all over the place, hidden all through his house. He had been hidden behind cabinets, in the eaves, troughs, just just sort of everywhere. Dangerous guy. There's another one, Jamie Flans. He was not a full member. He was a nod fit for the bikers because he was Jewish, and to be Jewish and trying to get into a chapter with
a Nazi lover is pretty strange. But I think he was just playing it. I think it's more of a fashion thing for him. There's another guy, George Justin. He a tow truck driver, very popular. He was dying cancer and didn't want to be alone, and he wasn't nothing famim about the guy. Another guy George Caracas. He was a nice Greek immigrant kid who was more of a rugby player than a biker, and he honestly thought that by being clean he could clean up the entire club.
He was briefly Canadian president. And here's a rebel, but the Texans liked him because he actually was solid. There's a guy, John Boxer mushedri Boxer's just his nickname. He was a factory worker, a very solid guy, had been a good boxer, not a great boxer, but a good boxer, a ton of heart, not a thinker, but a real heart type of person. And he was very vulnerable because if he thought that someone was his brother, he do anything for them, and so Kelstine could manipulate him. There's
one guy on Louis Riposo. He was a very very tough guy. He was a survivor of the Quebec biker Wars and had done jail time. Was bitter because nobody visited him when he was in jail. Another guy, Frank Salerno was he looked imposing. There was a very very needy guy. He had a drug addiction, a gambling addiction. He used to actually phone in the Toronto Sun newspaper and asked for sports scores late at night, you know, in the sort of three internet time, because he wanted to,
you know, keep up on his bets. Likable, but kind of a needy sort of guy. There's another guy, Paul Sinoptly. He weighed somewhere between four and five hundred pounds, and one of his friends said that he was basically in the club because he wanted women and how else was he going to get them. He wasn't really that active doing anything, but kind of a lonely sort of guy. Another guy, Michael Trotta, he was he wanted out of the club. A lot of these guys actually wanted out
of the club. I think he just needed a title, he needed to be part of something, and he wasn't that active doing anything. He'd barely gotten into the club when he got killed, and he wanted out. So this wasn't someone who who you'd really fear, and that the ones I've described that's the Toronto chapter. You want the Winnipeg ones as well. Well.
Yeah, and just one thing too as well, when you talk about Kelestine too, because it's not necessarily written in stone that this happened. But Jamie Flans, like you say, is Jewish, which is kind of unusual. They liked him because he had money and he could they could borrow money from him, he said, so.
Yeah, and you also hit a nice townhouse that people could use.
For parties exactly, and he looked like a biker. There you go. The thing is and the thing is that what you mentioned about Kelstein too is part of this a little bit you figure is that not only is he you know, a neo Nazi or you know, Nazi supporter and has some interest in that, but he's also an anti semi too, so you say that it's a little bit in the mix as well.
Yeah, and he just he basically disliked anyone who wasn't him. He there was one Christmas party where he threatened to shoot a disc jockey for playing playing black music. And it was odd because the wives wanted to dance and they loved the stuff is being played. And then he told the guy even more Leonard skinnerd or you can have a bullet in you and the kind of wreck the night, like the Wise couldn't dance to the sort of Southern rock that he wanted to. But you know
that that was him. He crashed the Gay Pride parade, like he actually crashed it. We're leaving the Nazi flags and you know who knows what's cooking in his mind that he feels the need to do that. Yeah, he's like a very angry guy. He'd sing the German national anthem, you know, sort of burst out when he stoned and
sing it. On the other hand, he could be kind of charming, like when he was dried out, he'd go to bake sales and buy a whole bunch of pies from old woman in the area, and they'd all think he was great for a little while.
Oh wow, Oh there's a balance, isn't there. Wat some pie wats some pies there. You go that that counters everything. What I was going to say too, is that we've got to make sure that the audience really understands though, too, that this guy was rejected by biker gangs like these these people want to belong to an our organization and not all of them are possessing of a certain charm. But we're talking about Kalestein being fifty eight or fifty
nine years old at this time. So this is this plays into I think what happens of course, and of course he's the you know, the major character in it.
So maybe definitely they were expanding into Ontario and they still didn't want them, like they were taking they sort of through the through the doors open in two thousand. It's like when the two clubs were scrambling to get control of Ontario, they were taking all sorts of untested people, and they still wouldn't take this guy. He'd been around for a quarter century. I mean, he was He'd be like the NHL goes from thirty two one hundred teams
and you still don't get a tryout, you know. Yeah, it's kind of parveen Stone where you are right now.
Yeah, And I think what was we'll you know, you'll be able to explain to the audience a little bit later. That plays into this whole deadly scenario later. Now, now weeks before the before the two thousand and six massacre, Here weeks before the Bendido's national secretary Treasurer Lewis manny Roposo, as we mentioned, was upset with the Probationary Chapter in Winnipeg. He said he wanted contact at least once a week.
And then this we're talking about the emails proposal was contact was contacting Michael Sandham, who was president of the Probationary Chapter. And Sandham tell us what he said in reply to because I think this is well, well, obviously this is very important, tell us what he said in response to this, you know, this this request for contact.
What did Sandal He basically bloom off like he patronized him. Then he bloom off and he treated him like an idiot. I mean, the odd the odd thing about Sandem was that he he had been in the military, he actually had been a police officer, and he he thought that he somehow was a bit better.
You know.
The weird thing is that in this culture that makes you a lot worse, not the military part, but the police part. And so if they had done their due diligence, if they had checked this guy out, then he never would have gotten them within ten miles of a clubhouse. But because they had been sort of drunken stoned when
his name came up, they just took him in. He was a very delusional guy who pretended he had black belts in martial arts that some of them that didn't even exist, and he invented this martial art and made himself the grand master. So he was a bit like George Costanza on Seinfeld, you know, just this guy totally into his own fantasy about himself. But he talked down to Riposo. And Roposo was a real biker. I mean, Roposo had done some serious time in Quebec, Reposa had
been part of the biker wars. Reposo wasn't someone you kidded around with. He wasn't the biggest one physically, but he was the guy who actually would put a ball within you and feel good about it. And so I'm reposed of knew he's being talked down to, and I think he got a whiff that this guy was an idiot on the other end of it, and that that bothered him.
Well you say that he said, he listened. He says, I'm not available, and he said stop calling the brothers, homes and families like that's on the end of don't don't even bother me, don't bug me.
Yeah, and this is just sort of on the scheme of things. You got someone who's a national officer, the other one who's not really even a full member I mean Winnipeg. Yeah, sort of in their world didn't even exist. They were just you know, maybe they'd get in, maybe they wouldn't then. Yet this guy is talking down to a National executive member who who had done serious day all time, and you just don't do that now.
Two days before this killing, Kellestine and and and Cameron acorn a Bandito have a talk and this is and Cameron is is incarcerated and so what's the conversation about? Tell us what that conversation sounded like, and what was it about.
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It with two d's Massacre dot com, where you can hear some of the conversations because I got them from court records. But Acorn caught on that something was happening. Kelstine told him. Kelstine basically spelled it out. There are going to be two sides, and you want to be on the right side. Acorn, and it's almost like out a Shakespeare. He he could see what was happening, and he let his brothers from Toronto walk into the trap. I mean he could have Boxer had been very very
good to him. He could have worn Boxer instead. He played stupid and let Boxer walk right into it. So Acorn seemed shocked, but he didn't do anything to pull the other people out of the fire. And I think for Acorn's future, I mean, that's something that that I know a lot of people aren't aren't really impressed by. You know, your your job is supposed to be to stick up for your your your president, and your brothers.
And he let them march right into a trap. And he had phone contact with Boxer hours before the murderers, and he I think I counted seventeen love you bros in there in the conversation, and yet he never went said watch out, don't go, be careful. Yeah.
Incredible.
Yeah, it seems there's a bit of a joke that some of these guys, as they say, love you broke more than three times, run for your life because you didn't getting set up.
Well, you know, I do often cover some books that are dealing with mobsters, and jeez, you know, these guys really are organized crime bikers, but we don't think of them in the same way. But in this way, they're very much the same. In terms of the mobsters always say that the best friend comes and gets you and.
Don't worry about your enemies that your friends. It'll do you.
Yeah. So that's what we as illustrated in this story too. There's a caution to those best friends for sure.
Even the Hell's Angels. I mean they bump off a lot of their own in Quebec. Sure, for all them killing in the Viker Wars, a lot of it was injured gang. You know, it wasn't one group against the other group.
Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. I remember the Quebec murders that really got everybody's attention in Canada. You know, they were you know, they were about there was numbers like this as well. Weren't they eight or nine or somewhere around they were?
They got up to five, you know, the big one was five. But they hit a lot sort of you know, kind of in around that range or a little a little less they.
Did.
I think it in a way makes sense because with these guys, I know, me dealing with them, the biggest thing is don't betray them. Like if you don't want to do something, if you don't believe something, if you're not comfortable with something, say it flat out. Don't don't be sneaky about it. I'm talking to one guy now for a new book, and his worst insult is to call someone a canniver. If you're upfront with him and you say, I don't do this, I don't do that,
don't tell me. If you don't want me to know, and you know, then then everything's fine. But if you fake friendship, fake brotherhood and then turn on him, that's what sents. That's some off. And so I think you know, when you look at it in that context, then betrayal is betrayal is the thing that will get you killed. You know, betraying someone being on the other side won't necessarily get you in trouble because it's clear cut who
you are and they can avoid you. Well. I actually know one guy from from the Hells Angels who knows where the undercover cop lives who put him in prison. And he I asked him, you know how you know what what is this? I thought you guys hated the police, and he said, no, the guy did a good job. He said, who who the guy would hate would be the or or who he'd really look down his nose at. It would be the member of his club who set him up with the cop. That would be the real runt.
Sure, Oh yeah, yeah, sure, I think the I think there is some mutual respect where police are not getting families involved, and that I think that would be think that would be very important because we've seen that, we've seen police take it to our personal level, bring the family involved. And of course nobody wants that, right.
And there are a lot of things too where they wouldn't want to say it publicly, but they agree with the police. I mean the oh, you know, traffic safety. I mean they want good traffic cops out there. They don't want idiots, you know, weaving around on the highway and endangering them. They don't want you know, drunks on street corners, they don't want people breaking into houses. A
lot of it. They're just like you and me. It's just on you know, some things of their world, things where it all differs.
Right right now, explain the and introduce the Winnipeg Probationary chapter for our audience please, and for the audience as well as long time listeners, will know, I reside in Winnipeg right now, and I have for eighteen years now. So Winnipeg is one wild place, and so I'm not so surprised because we've got this is the murder capital of Canada many years running, So introduce this probationary chapter.
And because I found it very interesting after reading coverage of this a few years ago that getting more and more detail about these characters here in Winnipeg.
It's funny because I was actually born in Saint Boniface, like the suburb of Winnipeg. So you know, that made this burden pretty interesting to me. And it really is wild West, like it's it's just you can when you use the phrase organized crime, generally the problem is justifying the organized side, like there's tons of crime, but it's just how organized. One person with Winnipeg chapter was Marcelo Aravena.
He I'm kind of an odd guy because he was a very very good mixed martial artist, but he didn't train very hard and so he gave a lot of people really good fights, but he didn't win that many. And you'd you just think, if there's any job where you're going to practice a bit harder at it would be amma. You know, like why do you want to take a meeting? And if you're good enough to get in the ring with someone like that Butterbean guy, you
know he's really tough four hundred pounder. If you're good enough to get in the ring with him, and he fought some former world champions. Why not train hard so that you you don't absorb a whole bunch of punches. And I think there was something in that guy's psyche where he just had sort of loser stamped on his on his soul. Somewhere. There's another guy, Brett Gardner. He was.
He's kind of intriguing because he was very young. He very nice family, really nice parents, nothing criminal about them. Seems like a smart kid. Read a fair bit sort of odd because in this trial he struck me as a very bright guy. But he tried to use the stupidity defense and yeah, which is kind of a smart guy trying to act and not pulling it off. He kind of makes your head spin a bit. He didn't shoot anybody the knight of the massacre, but he was the guy who sat in the farmhouse and listened to
police scanners, And so he's an interesting moral one. You know, he didn't touch a gun that night, but he says he didn't know, But I mean, people were killed in a barn right behind the farmhouse. How did he not know he saw the guns coming out, How didn't he know? And and couldn't he have couldn't he have helped? Like he's the one who I've heard some debates on this one, but he's the one who could have made one phone call and saved everybody's life, so right, you know, that's
that's really what he went to prison for. There's one guy mh. You can't say his real name. He had been connected to the Hell's Angels, very heavy duty guy. He turned in former very quickly. He's a survivor. He's got a new name now. He actually tricked his wife into going into a witness program with him. Very very uh. The guy who knows which way the wind's blowing, which club to be and made a fair bit of money
selling cocaine. And he's another one who struck me as very very bright, but then he had a learning disability and he could play stupid when it was was to his advantage. Hard guy to figure out, but a very tough guy. Guy Frank Mais. He's a kind of a I think that one of the fattest of the bunch because he wasn't a biker at all. He was just he was like a sort of a lonely, stray animal who just wander in where it was warm and then
be nice to whoever open the door for him. He had done prison time with Kalestine, and Kelstine had said if you ever need a place to stay, come by. His girlfriend was pregnant, and so he went by Kelstine's house, and then he just didn't. He was the type of guy who had enough of prison culture, wasn't going to rat on anybody, and so when it happened, he just went along with it, stood by with a gun. But I've never heard of him actually ever doing anything violent.
But then on the other hand, he was part of the group that had guarded the prisoners before they were executed one by one. Another guy who I think I got real mixed feelings about, Dwight Mushy. His nickname is Big d. He was someone who you really would take seriously. Who could have been Not that there's such a thing as a great gangster, but he could have been very very good at being an organized criminal if he was around the right people. Smart guy, guy, discipline too, very disciplined.
He worked out. He had his black belt around two forty, around six three, very focused, would do things. And I think he thought that somehow he was getting away from the chaos of the Winnipeg streets and getting into something organized where he could actually make some money. He owned a night club. He was way way too smart for this group. And I think by the time he caught on that that they but some of these guys, they
act crazy and you think it's just an act. And then about three murders in that night, he would have realized, no, these guys are crazy. But it's too late to get out. He's already caught up in it. And so and he's someone who could kill There's one of the killings that he did it himself just because the other guy panicked. Didn't put the guy away. He was suffering more and it's kind of but he just put a bullet in
him to end it. It's a tough guy, and I think he felt incredibly betrayed and let down and by the idiots he was surrounded with. The person he probably despises the most is Michael Sandam, the former cop. They used to call him a little beaker behind his back with you know, the sesame street a gockey bird, which kind of shows the lack of respect for them. He quit pretty much anything. He quit being a husband, the father. He was a theology student, he was a soldier, he
was a cop. He tried to get in with the outlaws. He pretended to be in a whole bunch of martial arts and always just kept moving on to the next thing. And he was more than one person said that if anyone ever played him in a movie, be Jason Alexander, the guy who played George Costanzo and Seinfeld like, even even after he got the what was supposed to be a big spot in the Big Club, he still looked like an idiot. And he cried in court the first day of court. He was just crying his eyes out
like a like a schoolgirl. You're not what you expect at all.
Yeah, yeah, no, not at all. Now, to complicate this, this story, this intriguing story, you have the York Regional Police Surveillance Team. I'd been trailing a couple of characters, Jamie Flans because tell us about the what happened on December eighth, where a man walking his dog found a body and what happened as a product of this what what initiative was undertaken by the York Regional Police Surveillance team. Hello Peter, Hello Peter, Peter. Well, we're having some technical difficulty.
Peter just dropped out of the conversation when I was in a question and we've lost the signal. But I'm sure he's going to re engage and then I will have him back on. I just asked him about the York Regional Police Surveillance team that had been They had found a man. A man was walking his dog. His dogs found a body. On December eighth, a small black man was found bound, gagged and badly burned in a
forest area in Durham Region in Durham County. So the corpse was all that was left of this drug dealer named Sean Dows. Dows was last seen alive as he exited a cab late night on Saturday, December two, and he was to attend a party at Flans's townhouse in Keswick, which is outside of Toronto. Now again we spoke about Flans. His father was a senior partner at a prestigious Montreal
law firm and his nickname was Goldberg. He ran a small computer consulting business on tech on site tech support for business and he was Jewish and like Peter had said, that seemed odd that there was any was no real financial, economic motivation for him to be in this gang. So it was to be to lead an exciting life. Certainly, we still don't have Peter Edwards back on the line. I'm hoping we can still have him. We're about halfway through.
We haven't spoken about again the surveillance team. We haven't spoken about the actual murder. Here. We have Peter back one. Ah, it can happen. It can happen anyway. What I was asking asking you was about the York Regional Police surveillance initiative as a result of a man walking some dogs. I talked to the audience about this. On December eighth, he found a small black man, bound, gagged and badly burned. A corpse was all that was left of a man
named Sean Dowsey, reported drug dealer. Now. He was last seen alive as he exited a cab late night on Saturday, December second to attend a party at Jamie Flans' townhouse in Keswick. So take take us from there. What what happened as a result of this, and this is about this surveillance went on for four months but tell us just what happened and what they thought was their target and how they how this plays into the story.
It was one of those things where it's almost like out of a movie where police had been been following the suspected killers of of Dows. They had a pretty good surveillance, and it wasn't it wasn't that tricky really to get these guys on the radar, because the guy had shown up at a party at Jamie Flans's house in a taxi and then just never never was seen again.
And so they they knew, you know, that he had been at this party and that it was a biker place, and the the killing was pretty pretty off the charts, and so there there was DNA all over the place, even though they tried to clean up. The Flans was he wasn't a racist, and a lot of these guys were.
Dous was black, and he was believed to be involved with someone who another biker who was white, one of his family members, and so the guy basically couldn't take some and that he knew sleeping with the black man. It was pretty much that simple, and so they they killed him for it. They lured him in and killed him and then and beat him to death in this townhouse.
And the police naturally suspected the guy who owned the townhouse, and so they were following him around and that's how they They actually picked up a lot of these guys on tape and the hours leading in and leading out of the massacre, and on my website, I've actually got some of that tape that you can listen to.
Now, how how much did they know from that this surveillance? What did what did they know before this meeting? Did they know about the meeting itself? Did they know what the meeting meant? How much did the Ontario Provincial Police surveillance team? What how much did they learn from this in the in the in those months and then just before this What did they know?
See, that's a big mystery, and that's where there's a lot of debate, and I don't think it's totally clear. I mean, they knew there was going to be a meeting, They knew the guy who was holding the meeting bragged that he was a killer. They knew that there was
tension in the club. They knew that. I mean, they picked it up on tape that the main killer, Wayne Kalestine, was talking about how they're going to be big changes and that you can be on one side or you can be on the other side, that there's going to be a huge fallout in their world. And they knew all of this, and yet they saw the cars go into the into the farmhouse of the guy who was the main killer and did nothing. You can argue that, you know, any night is a potentially dangerous night for
these guys. But on the other hand, the tensions that night were pretty high. There was one cop who individually was trying to watch the thing and really couldn't do all that much. And the way the farm was laid out, he just couldn't couldn't get an eye on it. Really. Now, you know, you know what did they know? What should they have known? You know, hindsight of obviously they blew it. But you know, any night with Kelistine is the night they could be murdered.
But the thing is how much did they how much did they information did they gain from the surveillance in terms of again you say that, well, there's going to be big changes. If they had that conversation, if they knew of that conversation and they knew of Kellestine's murderous sort of bent. You know that this meeting with with Winnipeg members in Toronto chapter in an isolated place, was there not? Precedent?
Was there?
Is? It?
Is?
It? Was it a failure in terms of them not thinking that, you know, why couldn't they put the barn under surveillance? Why did they not have enough time to do that? Why did they do not? Why didn't they do more? And what's your take on if this was a failure on their part based on precedent, based on the information that they had.
I think you don't want to point the finger at any one person, but overall, definitely was a failure. And one thing where there was huge failure on with that Telestine had two lifetime weapons stands and yet he had literally dozens of guns in his place, including automatic weapons. And so how do you how do you get to the point where you're doing target practice in your backyard with automatic weapons and yet you've got lifetimes and weapons stands? I mean, how does that come about? I don't know.
You get all these comments about you need probable cause to search and everything. I think if someone said one or two lifetime weapons stands, that should be probable cause on its own. I don't see why you have to give them a free pass again. And it would have any fool could have found weapons at.
His place, right amazing. Now, there was one person that was sick, or at least they claimed to be sick, and they didn't want to attend the meeting. Who did they speak to and who convinced them to attend the meeting and what in what way did they convince them to it?
In this meeting, there was one guy's monopoly and he just really wasn't that much of a biker. He's kind of a very very heavy guy, kind of an insecure guy. One of his friends said that he just needed to be around people. He weighed four to five hundred pounds and he wanted out of the club just to get his weight under control. I mean he was he had trouble walking. A massive guy, but just sort of waiting for a heart attack and so. And he wasn't a
big drug dealer. He's just sort of, you know, a guy who's kind of in the environment but not really doing all that much. He was feeling very sick. He wanted out, and he talked to Jamie Flans tried to get out talk to a boxer. Boxer wasn't so crazy about it, but he's going to let him out. But the rest of them, and Frank Salerno, who wasn't kind of all over the map. Sometimes he'd be talking like the ultimate biker. Other times he wouldn't wouldn't really fit
in at all. He he got very upset and wanted him there. He wanted to, you know, a show of forth. On the other hand, he was someone who privately had said he was going to quit the club as soon as he became a father, and he had just become a father at the time of the massacre.
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Aiant things listening to the tapes is the at one point you can hear his little son MARYO the baby. I'm crying in the background while he's talking. And so he left the baby and went off and got killed.
Yeah, it's just dripping with irony too. What he says is the Selerona, Like you say, he said, as soon as I'm a father, I'm out of here. And meanwhile he's there, like you say, incredible, and then he says, listen, you know, if you don't show up at the meeting, you're gonna get kicked out of the club.
Yeah, it's funny because they you know when you hit it right on the notes there when you said irony. Because you talk to their friends and you listen to tapes. Most of these guys wanted out of the club, but what they didn't want was to be kicked out of the club. And so privately, a lot of these guys wanted to leave, and I talked to some former members
who you know, they weren't looked down upon. These guys envied them for getting out, but they didn't want to be told to get out, like they didn't want to be ordered out. And so when they were ordered out. They they fought this day and even though privately they wanted to quit.
Now, before we get into the actual slaughter itself, unless I got this wrong again, but what I've read in your book was basically these guys, at least as far as Texas was, at least as far as any kind of official order, there was no order to kill, but there was an order that or at least there was the intention of taking these guys patches and any kind of memorabilia associated with the Bendido's Motorcycle Gang. There was
no specific order to kill all these people. So what you do say, again this is just again you talk about pathetic, is that these people could have just given up their patches and that would have been it, right.
Yeah, And some of the patches were counterfeit. I mean some of them weren't even real patches, and a lot of these guys were fighting over fake patches in the club that in a sense didn't exist. I mean, Texas didn't want any of them anymore, and so they're fighting for a bigger piece of nothing. It was. You know, when you said pathetic, that was right on the nose.
Yeah, it's sad, very sad. Now, like walk our audience through the day in question. Kealestine's behavior throughout this is chilling before we get to the trial. But tell us about the event that day, how it was done, Who was in the rafters, who again we spoke about, who was the lookout in the car or at least a police scanner. Give us the whole scenario of what happened, how the victims reacted. Again, very chilling and harrowing, unbelievable actually,
So tell us about this whole event. Go take our audience into this incredible one of the worst mass murders in Canadian history and one incredible, incredible evening what they call church. Tell us about that.
Please tell us then, you First, they had to gather up the guns, which he had dozens of them, but a few of them actually worked, and most of them were pretty cheap, and so they had to scrape the rust off them. They had to clean the guns so they actually come together. There's sort of things that if you knew about guns, you wouldn't want to fire them because they might blow up on you. They went around and got shells and had to clean up shells as well because they had rust on them. So they they're
all getting loaded up. Some of them are putting on gloves. They they get the Toronto chapter to come down. It's supposed to be a church meeting, which is a a chapter meeting. They're going to have it in the barn at Helstine's barn, which you know has a Nazi flag hanging in it. When they when they come in, there's there's someone hidden in the rafters. That's Michael Sandam. He was the former military member, former cop and he had said he was a sniper. He was up there in
the rafters. He had two guns with him when he was up there. And this is the guy who gets very very nervous. He shook. So you've got an old dusty barn. This guy shakes. Dust would have come down, wood would have come down, would have made a noise. Riposo, who's a very very alert guy, very street wise, part of product of the biker Wars in Quebec, he had a thought off shotgun that was kind of like a pistol,
almost like a pirate sort of gun. He reacted quickly and fired fired up at at the noise, and he caught on quickly that there was a sniper up there. Sandom hit a bulletproof vest On, and so he was hit but it didn't kill him, and then he was able to shoot shoot Riposo and kill him. At that point, you've got kind of equal numbers of people on one side and the other side. But everybody stunned. Kelstine had said, if we kill one, we killed them all. Most of
them thought that was just sort of tough talk. All of a sudden, that became what he wanted. A boxer who was the one of the visitors, he was very, very respected. He was the one who both sides thought the most of I'm sure that Kelstine would have been happy to have him on his side. He was something you really don't want to get mad at you. And what he did though that I thought was extremely brave. Was he stuck up for the Jewish guy. He stuck up for Flans. Kelstine had said that he wanted to
kill Flans last. He wanted him to suffer most because he was Jewish. A boxer said, no, he's solid. Don't do it. You've got it wrong. He he's not a rat, he's a good guy. Kelstine couldn't stand someone standing up to him like that. He couldn't stand someone who he thought was his sidekick actually contradicting him. He also couldn't stand the idea of a Jewish guy who is basically a winner. You know that Boxer took his side rather than Kelstine's side, So that how that basically cooked Boxer.
He said, do me first, I want to go out like a man, and his phone rang. It was kind of amazing because the cell phone went off, he was allowed to answer it. It was his wife on the phone. They just had a baby and his wife wanted to know if everything was all right, wanted to talk. He didn't want a rat on anybody. Even though he was in the midst of being marched out to be killed. All he had to do was say, I'm at at
Wayne's farm. Called the cops. He could have said that quickly enough and the just by saying it it would have stopped the execution. But he, I think, was so into the biker code. If you don't bring in police, you don't go outside that he he just said love you and see you later, and and that was it. And minutes later he was marched out and executed by the person that he considered his best friend. And so when when he was dead. The rest were We're easy pickings.
What they did was march them out one by one and make them sit in vehicles and then shoot them. There was Salerno. The new Father was a really really I was really poigned in court when they talked about his execution because he he was begging his his killers to be good to his kid. He he also wanted to shake the hands of his killers. He wanted some sort of a human contact. He wanted something that made
it seem less ugly than it really was. And so they wanted to shake their hands, and they wouldn't shake his hands. They just shot him instead. It was they, I think a lot of them thought that there's only going to be one more killing and then it'll end. And so they picked them off one by one, marched them out. And some people like to put all the blame on Kalestine, but if you think about it, he turned his back on the group seven times to kill people,
and nobody put a bullet in it. So you know, in a way, by not doing it, they went along with it. I mean, he totally exposed himself to everybody else with the gun that night, and and none of them turned on him, and so that's why they're all doing twenty five years in prison right now.
Yeah, yeah, Now, the one of the most incredible events in this whole incredible event is Kellestine's behavior singing, dancing, praying, you know, very much evidence of his psychotic nature. Tell us a little bit about what his behavior was like with some of these people.
It was, you know, the first words, just insane. I mean, he's just supposed to be his brother's supposed to be the guys and that he cares so much about in the club, and yet he was singing and dancing, He started singing the old German national anthem. He taunted people frankly, you know, having a good time, which you know as he killed. Then he started to whine sort of midway
through the murders. He talked about how he had to do all the work, that he called it the wet work, that he had to do at all, And so he was kind of whining as if he was a real victim that night, that he was a hard worker. I actually talked to Kelestine between the night of the murderers and two days later when he was arrested. I knew that he either would have been killed or had done the killing. I mean, there were only one hundred people
in iona station. And so when you hear there's a biker murder and it's in Kealestine's town, then you know Hamlet really then you know, how can I not be involved? And so I phoned his place and he was laughing on the phone. I mean, this was less than a day after he had taken part in the execution of each of the people that he said he loved and that were his brothers, and he was happy as a kid who just won a football game. And you could
hear laughter in the background. I mean he I interrupted a party to phone him.
Incredible. Wow. So they put them in vehicles and was there any was there any idea by these guys that they would hide these bodies or this is a public display. Hey, we've killed them, it's a gang land slaying. They're going to find these people. Tell us what course of events happened after these murders, what transpired and how what kind of time are we talking about before these people were discovered and what was the idea for the bikers to do this? Was it? Was it a public display? It
was a message. What was they trying to do? And with what they did with the bodies.
Kelstine's original plan was to dump them in a Hell's Angel area and then everybody will think that dead Bandidos must have been killed by Hell's Angels, you know, like publicly they're you know, the two groups obviously don't mix. And so Kitchener, Ontario, which would be about i'll say an hour down the road, is a very very strong Hell's Angel chapter that had been a very strong Satan's
Choice chapter and then flipped over in two thousands. So Kelstine's plant was, we dump them all there and everybody will blame the Hell's Angels and we get off with it. The stupidity, though, and it's it almost seems like it's out of Shakespeare with that. They the one of the cars, the most expensive car, the Jewish Guy's car, the Jamie Flans's car. It didn't have gas in it. Could it hit about enough gas to go about five or ten miles,
and that was it. And so they hid this guy, a body of a five hundred pound man in the back of it. When they killed the guy, they didn't have him far enough into the van to get the hatchback down. And so this huge body isn't really secure, and it's in a vehicle that has very little gas in it. And Flans had been to a gas station for a meeting, but and police had been watching, but he hadn't bought it to fill it up with gas. It was almost like his last joke in a way.
And so they've got all these bodies in these vehicles, but they don't have gas in one of them. They're hitting off on Canada's busiest highway at just before rush hour, and there's a chance that the body could go flying out into the road. I mean, it was beyond stupid. And so what they did was turn off onto a side road and dump them all in the farmer's field. So too, there was a plan. But to give these guys, especially Kalestine, too much credit for thinking is a mistake.
I mean it was as stupidity involved was off the charts. I mean, the idea of bouncing down the road with a guy huge, I mean twice the size of the average pro football player, you know, lying in the back and ready to go bouncing onto the highway, you know, beyond stupid.
Yeah, so how long did it take for police to put this together and make an arrest? And who did they arrest first.
They basically did it the next day and they on the website there's film of the of the arrest of Kalisti and at his farm. I mean, it was pretty pretty easy pickings really, because I mean someone like me, who doesn't, you know, like an outsider, just as a reporter, I could figure that Kelstine's got to be involved in this, and it's pretty pretty logical to, yeah, to start watching his farm. I mean, this is a guy who who
bragged about killing. He actually had lightning bolts announcing he was a killer in Nazi stuff on his business cards. When he wrote the letter when you write people, he put little lightning bolts on it to pretend that he was the killer for the s S. I mean he So it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to get watching Kelstein's place and then to move in on him. Some of them had stuck around to set up what they thought was going to be the new dominant chapter. Other ones
went back to Winnipeg. But it was pretty easy to piece it together. Also, what they what police had was a an informer the one guy m H who was involved in the group that did the killing. He was canny enough to realize that this wasn't going anywhere, and so he quickly got a hold of police and and went on board. And so he was wired in Winnipeg and was able to pick up a lot of them
on tape. On one of the tapes that really got me was that he picked up this guy Mushi, who I've got I don't know with respect is the right word, but he if I had respect for someone in the
Winnipeg group, it would be him. And he picked up Mushy talking about how when Boxer was killed, it really was impressive that he, you know, went out like a man, that he actually laughed at Kalestine, Like when Kalestine was with getting ready to shoot him, this guy just laughed at him as if to say, you're an idiot, and even if you kill people, you're still an idiot. You're
more of an idiot. So it was kind of poetic the way this guy went out and mush he picked up on that and was was very impressed.
So how long was the investigation in terms of the recording, the COVID recording done by MH How long did they was this?
Did this last for a few weeks but didn't really take too much because you know, they hit the informer inside the group. They they also picked up Texas, you know, talking to them, you know where they were shocked. I mean, I mean one of the ironic things is that they picked up Texas. You know, there's there's sort of the epicenter of all the bandido stuff, allong these guys that they didn't want them anymore, that they're fools. So it
was it. The big question wasn't why it was done, or who did it, or or what was Donner who did it, but sort of the why, you know, the how can something so big happen over something so stupid? And a lot of people, me included, thought that there must be something about the Hell's Angels involved in here. You know, they can't be that stupid, and you know the Bandidos, but they were that stupid, and the Hell's Angels knew no more about what was going on than
the average person in the community. I mean, this one Hell's Angel said to me when I talked to him in the courthouse was that it's a great day when you wake up and your enemies have all killed each other. And I mean they just woke up and were stunned that these guys who they thought were there sort of low level enemies rivals just self destructed.
Yeah, incredible. Now what was your what was your conclusion after all this? You you know, I can almost guess, but what did you see at the as the why had they done it? Why had they done it? What was their intention to do and what? And of course the result was disastrous, But why had they done it?
And I think the different reasons for a lot of them. I mean, Kellestine needed to dominate people. He couldn't stand being laughed at. He had to be taken seriously. And yet the further win in life, the more he was laughed at. And if if people don't take you seriously when you're pointing a gun at them, you've really got got a problem. You know, he was he was just considered a fool no matter what he did, and he still is and so I think for him there was
huge amount of frustration. I think I think some of the other ones the reason they went along with it. And the odd thing is that most of the people convicted of murder actually didn't didn't pull the trigger that night. They were convicted for being guards. So they were convicted for standing by with rifles as other people killed, and they're basically being part of the crime, even though they didn't pull the trigger, which they'll still get first agree murder.
I think that some of them were flat out afreight. I think some of them thought that if they're willing to kill eight people, they're obviously willing to kill nine people, and so I'm not standing up to them and getting a bulletin me too. Once it started, it would have taken a huge amount of courage to stand up and say no, this is wrong. I mean, they would have
been killed where they had. The problem was that they were involved, you know, for days before that, getting guns ready and that sort of thing, and so it was easy to draw the conclusion that, you know, these weren't innocent bystanders, but it wasn't. It's one you can debate a fair bit, you know that if they were legitimately afraid and if they thought that they'd be killed too,
should they be guilty of murder? And I think the Crown made a really strong argument that the murders wouldn't have taken place if they hadn't been the guards, and so they're guilty too.
Yeah, No, it's as you know, in Canada, it is rare to have that kind of slam dunk conviction. First degree murders not the easiest thing to get in the Canadian courts. There's a myriad of ways of getting it down to second degree and even more lenient like manslaughter. But obviously I didn't think there was going to be anything like that. But the first degree convictions were well done and again like based on the email evidence, the telephone, wiretap,
the witness. Yeah, they put everything together to have that successful prosecution. So there was you talk about the delay at the eleventh hour, but still it's just a sad, pathetic, idiotic, ironic story. It really is fascinating because you get so close and into the mindset I guess of these people. It's quite fascinating.
So yeah, it's funny. I think it's just the irony. I mean, the you know, the part that I remember the most is the seventeen love you bros on the phone to boxers. He drove down to be killed and he's seeing them to a guy who is letting him die into a guy who he tried to mentor and be nice to. And he had actually told this kid in jail to don't waste your time, don't be like a lot of those other guys, get an education. Like he was trying to clean this kid up, and the well,
the kid appreciated it. He let him get marched off to the slaughter that you know that that's one of the parts that that would really stay with me. And I got to know some of the former members who then that's kind of how I got pulled into doing the book with Some of them started to contact me because they couldn't believe that it was that stupid, and they couldn't believe that They thought they were kind of acting crazy and a bit crazy. They didn't think that
they could actually be that crazy. It's kind of when you when you play a role and all of a sudden the role becomes real.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's a certain momentum, isn't there.
Yeah, they and I don't think they caught on, you know that tell Stein this is what he does, I mean, this is who he is, and this is where he's comfortable, you know, like he does exist for a murder and that you know, the guy's voice between the killings and the arrest, you know, the one day in the middle when I phoned, he here's the full party mode. I mean, he couldn't have been happier. You know, if the team wins the Super Bowl or the Great Cup, the fans
aren't happier than he was that night. And he had just just slaughtered eight of his brothers.
Yeah, yeah, I know, there's a situation here where actually, never mind the brotherhood of bikers, he slaughtered his own family for an inheritance, grandparents, sisters, you know, and conspired to kill about eight people in his entire family.
It's funny because when you look at murder rates, about consistent third or so are people killing people who they've loved, you know, people killing family members. And this, in a way was a huge domestic This little massacre was a huge family fight. Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's it's incredible. Yeah. You also you mentioned your website, but you also are you know, I was surprised. I mean, I know of your work, but I did not know that you had written that many true crime books. Sure, you're like the top true crime guy in Canada, hands down. Very very interesting cases that you've covered. You know, the Opperwash case, but the mill Guard case was my favorite.
It's such an incredible case. You see so much wrongful conviction in the US that it's come to be known that it's certainly they can have wrongful convictions. But in Canada we haven't had that many, really really high profile cases. In the Mill Guard story, with the movie and the books and the coverage and the compensation and jeez, it's just an incredible story for those people who aren't aware of your work. Again, maybe you can give the the
webs for that. And how many true crime books have you under your belt.
I'm working on my eleventh right now, Like the eleventh will come out next early next year, and it's about a long time biker who was in the Satan's Choice and the Hell's Angels who put in four decades, So that'll be number eleven. The websites Bandido massacre dot com and Bandido his two d's, and they deliberately spell it differently. And if you go in there and click the first page, you can actually see the people we've been talking about
riding on their bikes. They're talking and see transcripts and that sort of thing. Yeah, that one kind of blew me away. The Mill Guard thing, I never forget. David in Stony Mountain penitentiary and he lost all of his appeals.
I think it was nineteen ninety two or nineteen ninety three, and it looked hopeless, like it looked like he was going to be in there forever because he wouldn't say he was sorry because he didn't do it, and so I wouldn't He wouldn't say remorse, and I needed to find out quickly of this guy's for real or not, And so I said, why don't you just say you're sorry? You know not? He was obviously sorry for the killing, but he wasn't going to say he was sorry that
he did it because he didn't do it. And he was so disgusted that the idea that he confessed to something that he didn't do that he walked away from me and went back into the prison like we were in the visiting area, and he just he just looked stunned. And I needed to find out it's this guy for real or not, So I needed to ask a rude question, and I just had a huge amount of respect for him as he walked away, even though he was disgusted
by my question. And then his mother ran in and brought him back out again, but he he was so bothered by you know, that murder and his name being connected to it when he didn't do it, that he would have spent his life in prison rather than give a false confession. I also remember him with Larry Fisher, the guy who actually did do the murder, and at that point his name had been kicked around a fair bit. And I asked David in prison, what do you think
of Larry Fisher? And I thought he'd gives some angry quote, and what he said was that he deserves a fair trial, and that David knows what it's like to be wrongly accused, and so wow, Fisher should be fairly judged. And I thought, wow, you know this is I know David's had his problems, but he did some really really classy, noble things that
a lot of people don't know about. I also remember him asking him, right after he got out, what do you like about it, you know, being on the other side, And he said, being able to look at the sun and look at everything and not have to look through bars.
And he that guy and he went to visit me in Toronto at the newsroom and we went out outside afterwards, down to Young Street and it was raining and it was kind of a warm rain, and David took off his shoes and his shirt because he wanted to feel the rain, you know, and he didn't care if everybody thought he was crazy, because he had been, you know, twenty two and a half years where he couldn't feel the rain, and he he wanted to experience it and
he wasn't going to waste a minute. And so he when he went walking away, he hit his arms out, you know, like he was an airplane or like he was making a cross. And it's because he wanted to feel all the possible ring that he could. And that's one of those images that just stays with you.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know the thing is when he had the compensation and they the authorities, still could not leave him alone. They were bothering him a few years ago to come to some hearing and threatening that they should come, and he said, well, I'm not really up to it, and they said, well you have to, and
then that insult injury of the entire thing. The sort of conclusions were that the mother interfered, and if the mother wouldn't have interfered, and meanwhile, if the mother wouldn't have interfered, he still would have been in.
There, and his mother deserves, you know, any honor we can think up for. I mean, he yeah, if if it wasn't for her, that kid would be dead or he's not a kid anymore, but I mean he'd be dead, and the real killer would have probably done more. I mean one thing, when Joyce Millgard, it was phenomenal sticking up for her kid, but she also was sticking up
for other women who were victims of Larry Fisher. I mean, when you don't convict the right guy, you're letting the you know, the real killer, the real rapists go out there and do more. And he's got impunity. I mean, you're giving him a free pass. And so I mean, Joyce did a huge, huge public service, and it's so sad to see people try and drag it down to a petty personal level when they should just be learning
from her. I mean, if it's funny, because with Joyce it's one of those things where you really feel it's the privilege to deal with someone, to talk to someone. And I remember, you know, when I thought about my own personal problems at the time, you know, then I look at Joyce and I think, gee, how can I wind when she's not complaining.
Yeah. No, it's an incredible story of fighting a system that still does not want would make that they made this grave error, and not an error that anybody can understand it was. It is an incredible story.
So from that they got the impression that a lot of kids are bullied into confessions that really aren't real. You know, especially a lot of First Nations kids. You know that a lot of people have said they've done things that they just really haven't done. I remember David Asper, who then was mill Guard's lawyer, and he talked about one guy who confessed to a murder when he was actually in custody somewhere else at the time of the murder.
I mean, it was unless the guy was a phantom, it was absolutely impossible for him to have done it. But he just figured he's going to get shafted anyway, so why not go down easy.
Well, what I have issue with in Canada is that supposedly we have these checks and these balances, but we are much more lenient to start with. Like I don't want to go on and on about it, but we we have a hard time prosecuting for murder one, whereas in Canada, we have this false assumption that, oh, we don't have the evidence for a murdered one conviction because
you'd have to have all this evidence of premeditation. Well, in America, it's one minute of premeditation, thirty seconds of premeditation. The driver that went there for the robbery, he is also convicted of murder. And you could say that this
is unjust. But I think that there are some you know, I think Canada I can learn something from, not necessarily the harshness of American law, but that there are circumstantial cases that make sense to juries that they do not you know, excuse murder as we often do in Canada. You know, you're intoxicated, so it's just it's manslaughter. And we're talking about much much less time. So I think
that's the inheritent differences. But I can't believe that we have any wrongful convictions with the lawyers that you can get paid for by the taxpayer here and in the process, the long, careful process, and I can't believe that we're still getting wrongful convictions in this country.
The one that really gets me, and this is you know, someone who works in Toronto, is that if you are going to do a gangline killing. And I mean the guy I'm writing about now, he's shot people for clubs. But if you are going to do one, I think that it should be ramped up. If it's done in a public place. I mean, to go and execute someone in the Eaton Center. Yeah, to shoot someone on Young
Street when people are doing boxing day shopping. I mean, if you're even really hardened total total, bikers will a lot of bikers will call that cowardly. You know, the idea of shooting from a distance. The paralyzing of a woman in a sandwich shop in Toronto because they didn't have the guts to walk in and face the guy they're going to shoot, and so they try and shoot around a bunch of regular folks just lining up to buy sandwiches. I think if it's in a public place,
I think that should ramp it up. Like I think that that should be there should be something that that contributes to them, both to the ends and to just to what it's called. I don't I don't think you should be allowed to claim manslaughter when you shoot someone in a crowded food coart or when you shoot someone in a crowded restaurant or when you shoot down the street.
This guy I'm talking to you now, he's it sounds funny, but I mean he's he's disgusted by the lack of courage by a lot of people now who are going around doing gang line tellings that they don't have the guts to get out of their car, don't have the guts to walk up to someone, plant a bomb and hope it hits the right person. I mean, it's they're killers, but they're cowards too well.
I've been hearing that from the mob ever since Sammy Gravano's complained about the locals and Ostra not being the way it used to be. Meanwhile, he's ratten out on sam On Gotti, John Gotti. So oh yeah, you hear a lot of that. You know, there's no there's no more honor. But I don't know there never really was, was there?
Maybe maybe they never really was, but there was. Maybe maybe there's something between honor and courage, you know, like it does take out to walk right up and do it, and any fool can can shoot from a distance. I mean, when one joke now is that some of these guys would be better for the public and when they're in prison. You gave them target practice every day. You know, at
least hit the guy you're trying to hit. Don't hit a bunch of mothers and daughters, and you know, little kids going to see movies, and at least teach them how to put the bullet where they want to put the bullet, rather than them springing all these people who don't have a clue what the dispute's about.
Well, you know the thing is, too we do have we have, As I talked to the American audience sometimes or primarily American audience, I say, you know, we have about one tenth of the murder rates that say a typical American city would have, you know, not the did you can compare exactly, you know, but a fraction, say ten percent,
will say for comparable place Winnipeg, say Detroit comparison. But the thing is, if you really think about it, what we are under the assumption in Canada, and it may be true to a certain extent, but for other reasons, is that we're a kinder, gentler country. We're not as violent. And you hear this from Canadians, the violent Americans, you know that they think it's like their entire culture is
based on violence, which is is incorrect. And yet if you look at the Vincent Lee, if you look at the case of Colonel Williams, you look at the case that I was involved with, Sidney Tierhughes, you look at Mark Twitchell from Edmonton, and now you look at Luca Magnata. We are very very competitive, aren't we.
Well, then are biker works too? I mean the are there around two hundred people murdered and all you know, others disappeared, a lot more injured just in Quebec and mostly not even Quebec, but really in Montreal, and they're only one hundred and twenty or so Hell's Angels in all of Quebec. I mean, at one point the biker
violence accounted for seventeen percent of the province's murders. And so yeah, it's sort of like when we do it, we go right off off the deep end, you know, to plate Canadians just turn psychotic when they turn the switch.
Yeah. No, I think we're very very competitive, And like I said, I think I think Canadians should dispense with this sort of notion and realize that certain people UH deserve to be in prison for the rest of their lives because they are dangerous individuals and we need not try to rehabilitate everyone because there's certain characters that absolutely cannot be rehabilitated. There's isn't even a device for consecutive convictions for murder. There is no actual life sentence without
the possibility of parole. I don't know, you can't. I can't see how any political party is tough on crime. What they just don't get.
That have seen some Ofwene Kelston's parole records, and you know when officer said, the problem is the guy likes being the criminal, you know, like he like, that's what he wants to be. And so how do you rehabilitate someone when that's that's his self image, that's who he wants to be, that's what he thinks is right. You know, where do you go from there?
Well, you can never rehabilitate the victims families because if they have a parole hearing, regardless of whether you and I knowing that, well it's unlikely that you know, well, Robert Picton will not be paroled, but you have there's still a parole hearing.
So yeah, and every time there's a victim there's there's a whole bunch of waves of secondary victims. You know, the other people who are heard, who've lost trust, who've been nervous, will never be the same. And so it's you know, it's not like it stops with one person that it just it keeps on going. Yeah, now, I it's kind of numbing, really, you know when you when you think about it, and when one thing I think,
I mean, it sounds like me in the soapbox. But if people are upset with a with a organized crime drug war and stop buying the drugs, you know, and I know it's not quite that simple, but everyone who bought drugs from someone connected to the Hell's Angels and Quebec was contributing, you know, was basically buying bullets where the biker were. I mean, these guys don't operate in a vacuum and they don't force the drugs on people. I mean one of them said, you know, we don't
ram it up their noses. They buy it from us. And so I know that doesn't make the guy innocent, but it sometimes we try and make all the crime on the other side of the fence. You know, look what they're doing, and look how bad they are. But you don't have a drug war without people buying drugs.
Well, you also don't have a drug war when you know, again it's idealistic, but I think it's it's irresponsible that we didn't learn anything from the first prohibition of alcohol and alcohoone. Imagine what alcohol will be like and the society would be like of alcohol was still solemn booze.
Right, Yeah, we went into the treatment, you know, like I've it bugged me when they hear about people with drug problems in there they've got a huge, huge waiting time for treatment. Or in Toronto where there are three dozen to basically work in these high risk communities and their two thirds of them are being laid off. I mean that the money would be better spent helping people,
you know, find better things to do. There's some people like Callithon, You're just not going to You can spend all the money you want, you know, surveillance on them, he's still not going to stop them.
Yeah, And I think the thing is is that you know, and I'll just leave it at this statement in terms of my position is that I really think that the sooner we try to regulate all drugs. What will happen is that we need to separate regular society, whether it's a cocaine user for the first time or a cocaine
user that's been using it for years. The reason why some of this biker activity is normalized, why women will go out with bikers while they see an attractive, well dressed biker with an expensive bike, they see the allure they see you know, there's charming people. They're charming guys
that are outlaw. So I think the sooner that we separate regular society from being in contact with any kind of organized crime via drugs, then there will always be an element that will be an organized crime, that will
be gangsters, that will be people who are violent. But when you take the drug profits out of the equation, and then you take the contact and the glamour and the normalization out of it, you're going to have the pirates of the world, the outlaws that went into a small innocent town and robbed the bank and killed whoever
was got in their way. You're going to still have those people, but you're not going to have that collateral damage like you had in the biker wars, and you have with all of this, all of these bikers, all of these prospects, All of these people had families, like you say, you know, the president of the Probationary Chapter or pardon me, the Toronto Chapter talking on the phone with his wife. You know, all these people have families, they have children, they have you know. So again, so
that's my bit too. You're right to somebody supported organized crime by buying those drugs, but we also have people have to be realistic about how all of this works. And I think it's time that the you know, the drug war is a failure, a dramatic failure. And like you say, if people are addicted to drugs, maybe they should be given in the opportunity to get off those drugs and they get for sure.
I mean, if they got the guts to finally step out and and face it, then we should all be cheering them on and helping them. We shouldn't be saying, you know, wait another five months and maybe you can get in.
Yeah.
And also, I mean it sounds like me in the soapbox, but you know a lot of these guys, when you talk to him one on one, they're very, very needy, and they really want to belong to something that seems like something, and they sure, and so I mean better sports, better community programs, better something. So when they're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, they can belong to something that that gets some respect, that doesn't involve carrying a gun, doesn't involve blowing things up.
I mean a lot of them. They when you get them one on one, you think, Jesus, guy would have been a good football player. This guy would have been a good hockey player. This guy, he's got some rating ability. This guy sounds odd, but would have been good in the military, would have been good in business. You know a lot of them, and they can see it themselves, and they just but they want to be in something. And they've got kids who don't know who their fathers are.
His fathers couldn't give a damn about them. One thing that jumps out at me too when I deal with these guys one on one is it's a very short list of the amount of them who had a good father at home. I mean, a lot of them don't know who their fathers were, or they their father would would slap them around. There's not a long list of people in organized crime. I'm outside of them, the mob,
which is a different thing. But a lot of these guys got into it because they needed some sort of you know, male figure who could guide them a bit, and it turned out to be a you know, a guy who's making money illegally.
Yeah, but you know, all that is still, you know, there's all kinds the people who got hard luck stories and so are people still. It's just these people still chose to belong to an organization that's known that they will kill. And I mean, you know that's the bottom linees Like anybody that joins La Causa Nostra, you can't be that naive. You've got to know what's what's possibly
in store here. So as much as they it's just a sad story that wasted lives, wasted opportunities, you know, no sense to this murder at all, but a great book and a great story. And again, like you say, there's so many incredible things, almost like sopranos when you see the surveillance team, and yet they can't, you know, they can't prevent this from happening.
Well, it's better for me because for the website, I mean I could pick through all sorts of video and all sorts of audio, you know, before the murder and you think, geez, if I've got this stuff from you know, didn't the light go off that maybe something bad was going to happen? I mean, you know, couldn't they patch it together, that maybe something terrible was just about to to go down?
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely, well, Peter, I want to thank you very much for your time. It has been a very very informative interview. And for those people listening, we've been talking about the Bendido massacre by Peter Edwards and go to his website give.
You that to us one more time, Bendido masac dot com and Bendido with t DS.
Yeah, B A N D I d O. Okay, Well, thank you very much, Peter. We'll post that up on Facebook and I'll send you a link as well, and if you'd like to share this interview with people. So thank you very much, and we'll be looking forward to your eleventh true crime book, so get a hold of me definitely when that's going to be coming out. We'll be looking forward to that. And thank you again for this interview.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you very much. I did too, and have yourself a great evening, Peter, Thank you doctor.
Good night,