“What are you talking about?” snapped Muscedere. “I’m right behind you, and I’m not doing nothing.”
When they got to the car, Kellestine ordered him to get inside. Muscedere refused. “I’m gonna get two bullets in the back of my head,” he said, challenging Kellestine. But, after a brief stare-down, he relented. As he sat down, Kellestine shot him in the face through the open door.
Aravena testified that he initially thought that Kellestine had missed because Muscedere “had a big smile on his face.” Then he saw the hole in the man’s head.
Kellestine then leaned into the car, put his gun under Muscedere’s shirt and shot him again.
Then, Aravena later testified, Kellestine pointed his gun at the Winnipeg prospect’s chest and threatened him. “I ain’t doing 25 years for you,” he snarled. “If you say anything, I’ll kill you and your family.”
“I ain’t saying shit,” Aravena replied as calmly as he could. “I’m not a rat.”
Inside the barn, M.H. reported that he heard more “pops” of gunfire.
When they returned, Sandham took the visibly shaken Aravena aside and told him that Muscedere was the only one they were going to kill, that the others were going home.
Gardiner came running from the house to the barn where he met Mushey at the door. “Did you fucking hear that?” he asked, clearly disturbed. “I should go check on Wayne.”
Mushey ordered him back into the house. Kellestine and Mather made sure he went.
Kellestine and Mather came back into the barn. Nobody spoke until Kellestine ordered Mushey to help him take Kriarakis outside. They did. M.H. heard more pops. Aravena was recruited to stow Kriarakis’ body in the tow truck. He later testified that he thought they would take him to a hospital because “it was still warm” (despite having helped dispose of Raposo’s body and having seen Muscedere murdered before his eyes). Kellestine said that they would drop the body off in Toronto where they could “make it look like a drive-by.”
Back in the barn, Sandham later testified that he considered shooting Kellestine to put a stop to the murders, but had already given up his gun. Then Kellestine asked for someone to help escort Jessome outside. M.H. said he volunteered. With their guns trained on Jessome, they walked out to his tow truck. Kellestine ordered him to get into the rear passenger seat. As Jessome was complying, M.H. said that he saw Kellestine shoot Jessome in the head, then lift his shirt, put the gun under it and shoot him again in the chest. He then ordered M.H. to push the body into the truck and shut the door.
Kellestine then sized up the logistics of his operation. He told M.H. to move the bluish-green Chevy tow truck to the farm’s entrance, and then park Flanz’s gray 2003 Infiniti QX4 SUV behind it. M.H. then got in the other side of the tow truck, with a man he had just seen get murdered in the back seat, and followed orders.
Kellestine waited for him, and walked back from the site of Jessome’s murder to the barn, complaining bitterly all the way. “He was bitching about doing ‘wet work,’ ” M.H. testified. He also told the court he took the phrase to mean murder.
Michael “Little Mikey” Trotta
Back in the barn, Kellestine ordered Trotta and Flanz — both of whom were still prospects and not full-patch Bandidos — to clean up the barn with bleach and water. Sinopoli, the reluctant one, was led out of the barn — still crying and complaining — by Kellestine and Mushey. They shot him in the head and stuffed his giant corpse in the back of Flanz’s Infiniti. Yet again M.H. reported hearing “pops” from outside the barn.
When they returned, it was Salerno’s turn and he knew it. He got up and faced M.H. Salerno offered his hand. M.H. did not shake it. Neither did Aravena, who later testified he wouldn’t shake Salerno’s bloody hand because he was “wearing new clothes” and didn’t want to get them dirty. Salerno then turned to Mushey and shook his hand before leaving the barn with him and Kellestine.
M.H. testified he heard still more pops.
In an effort to break the tension, Flanz asked Sandham about how his kids were doing.
Mushey and Kellestine took Trotta out of the barn. Once again, M.H. heard, but did not see, him get shot.
Then Kellestine took Flanz outside. According to M.H, everyone who was still alive — himself, Sandham, Mushey, Mather, Aravena and even Gardiner — followed. M.H. watched as Flanz was forced into the back seat of his car. By this time, Sandham had acquired a handgun. But then M.H. said he turned around, and then he heard a gunshot and saw a flash. He turned back around. This time, Mushey had the gun in his hand. M.H. turned around again. He heard another shot and saw another flash.
Sandham later gave his own perspective on the death of Flanz. He said that Kellestine and Mushey ordered him to kill the last remaining victim. Sandham said he refused, and that Kellestine told him he could “get in the car and join them.” At that point, Sandham said, Kellestine turned away, Mushey grabbed the gun and killed Flanz. Sandham said that Mushey told him he “owed him one.”
All eight targeted men had gone to their deaths without a fight.
By this time, dawn was approaching. Kellestine told the other men to collect the keys for the four cars the Toronto Bandidos had come in, and one extra so that they could return after dumping the bodies far away. Since Muscedere’s body was still behind the wheel of his VW Golf, nobody wanted to drive it. Instead, it was decided that it would be attached to Jessome’s tow truck.
Although they had intended to drive far away to dump the bodies, one of the vehicles was almost out of fuel, so Kellestine made the call to ditch. They were traveling northeast on Highway 3 (which many locals call the Talbot Line) and pulled over into a lightly wooded spot less than 10 miles from Iona Station, next to a farmer’s field down an unlit dirt road just outside the tiny hamlet of Shedden, Ontario — the self-proclaimed “Rhubarb Capital of Canada.”
When they returned, the men collected the slain bikers’ possessions. They assembled all of their IDs, cell phones, keys and anything else that could potentially be incriminating, which Kellestine put in a bag that he later burned. Kellestine took all the change taken from the dead men’s pockets and put it in his daughter’s “Potty Mouth Jar” — an old glass jar she was expected to put money into each time her parents caught her swearing.
Sandham, Mushey, Aravena and M.H. went back to Winnipeg. Gardiner decided to stay at Kellestine’s farm, joining Mather, who had already been there for a few days.
The following morning, at about 8 a.m. a neighbor saw Flanz’s Inifiniti in a lot owned by Mary and Russell Steele. She called her friends and told them about the car on their property. The Steeles drove out to where the friend had spotted the car and discovered the slate-gray Pontiac Grand Prix Trotta had rented for the trip. At first they thought some revelers had been partying on their lot and had passed out or been too drunk to drive back home. But when they saw the tow truck with the Golf, it unnerved them. They went back to the house and called 911.
Curious, they went back to the site before the police showed up. Russell — or “Rusty” as his wife calls him — went up to Flanz’s SUV, but he couldn’t see inside the car because the windows had frosted over.
Just after they went back home, an OPP officer arrived. The officer approached the Infiniti SUV and noticed that the driver’s side window was open. He looked inside and saw Salerno’s body in the back seat. Undaunted, he went around to the back of the car. He put his hand on the handle of the latch. It was unlocked. He opened it. The next thing he saw was Sinopoli’s gigantic belly. His body was folded up in the Infiniti’s cargo area. By that time, another OPP officer had arrived on the scene. Circling the Infiniti, he noticed Trotta’s body on the other side of the back seat.
They called for help. Two more OPP officers arrived. They found the VW hooked up to the Superior Towing truck. Inside, they found the corpses of Muscedere, Kriarakis and Raposo.
They called paramedics. While on scene, one of the paramedics looked in the back seat of the tow truck. He discover
ed the body of Jessome. The cops kept searching, and discovered Flanz’s corpse in the back seat of the Grand Prix.
By noon, dozens of police were keeping hundreds of media and curious locals away from the crime scene.
At about 8 p.m. that evening, two old friends of Kellestine’s — Eric Niessen and his common-law wife Kerry Morris showed up at the farm with a couple of cases of beer. They had driven unannounced from their home in Monkton, about two hours to the north. Niessen was an official Bandidos supporter — a position for which he was required to pay $25 a month, although he later said he’d only paid it once. Before that, he was an Outlaws supporter. A piece of lined, legal-sized paper later recovered from Salerno’s house and used as evidence against him noted that he was a “hangaround.”
But he was no biker. Niessen attended Bandidos parties and knew all the guys — he even knew Kellestine had plans to reform the Toronto chapter and relocate it to London with himself in charge — but he wasn’t the type to actually be in a gang. And although he was never charged with any drug-related offenses, according to police, Niessen’s name came up in several different meth-related investigations.
When they arrived, he saw that the house was surrounded by police cars and what he — hey, he’d been around — recognized as unmarked police cars. He told Kellestine, who he later said didn’t seem surprised.
Also inside the house were Mather and Gardiner. As he began to make himself comfortable, Niessen saw more police arrive. After watching television, Niessen realized that the cops were there because of the bodies found in Shedden. Although Niessen never publicly said he suspected his old friend of the crime, he realized it wasn’t a huge intellectual leap for the cops to think that the baddest biker in the area may have had something to do with eight bodies found less than 10 miles away. Especially since the TV news had reported that all eight of the dead were bikers themselves.
Kellestine fielded phone calls about the murders all day. Niessen recognized Raposo’s car and Jessome’s truck from Toronto-based Superior Towing on the news. Just before midnight, Niessen called Muscedere’s brother to tell him that he believed the bodies found in the field were Muscedere’s and Raposo’s. He did not mention any others.
Niessen began to harbor suspicions when he noticed the other people in the house destroying things that could potentially be used as evidence. Later, at Kellestine’s request, Niessen went out to an old freezer Kellestine used to collect rainwater and brought a number of buckets of water to Gardiner who was cleaning up the barn.
Police later reported they saw Niessen searching the farm, especially in areas where they later determined the murders had occurred. They did not, however, find any hard evidence that he had destroyed or hidden anything that could be used as evidence.
Later that day, the police moved in. After an uneventful standoff, they apprehended everyone inside the house — Kellestine, Mushey, Gardiner, Niessen and Morris. They were all arrested and charged with eight counts of first-degree murder. Inside the barn, the police found blood spatters and bits of human flesh and hair among the beer bottles and Nazi flags. Gardiner had done a lousy job cleaning up.
Interestingly, at her trial later on, Morris testified that she thought the Hells Angels were attacking when the police moved in.
The media leapt on the story. Sinopoli’s giant so-white-it’s-blue belly was on the front page of every newspaper and led every night-time newscast. They called it the biggest mass murder in Ontario history. They called it the Shedden Massacre (even though the killings happened in Iona Station and the bodies were dumped just outside Shedden).
About a month later, on May 6, all murder charges were dropped against Niessen and Morris. Interviews with the accused had convinced police they were not present at the farm at the time of the killings. Instead, they were charged with being accessories after the fact.
Back in Winnipeg, Sandham continued as though nothing had happened, raising money and recruiting prospects for Bandidos. But a new rival emerged. One of the few surviving Ontario Bandidos, Aragon, who didn’t make the trip to Kellestine’s farm because he was out on bail and cautious of being watched by police, was attempting to reorganize the Toronto chapter with himself as president. He saw Sandham as an obstacle to this and began a campaign against him. He told the Americans that Sandham was a former cop. Sandham, lying, explained to the Texans that his only experience with the police was a mandatory special-weapons course he participated in while he was with the military. And he retaliated against his accuser, claiming that Aragon — like many Toronto members — was breaking a Bandidos’ bylaw by not owning (or even knowing how to ride) a Harley.
The American reaction showed anger at the pair of them, frustration that the Canadians still couldn’t get their act together and confusion as to why two Bandidos “brothers” would be so openly hostile to each other. Houston’s Carlton “Pervert” Bare was given the duty of communicating with them. He told Sandham that cops and ex-cops could never be Bandidos and that if he found out Aragon’s allegations were true, he’d pull Sandham’s patch. And he told Aragon that without Harleys, he and his men couldn’t consider themselves Bandidos either.
Sandham promised to visit Texas and iron everything out; he also promised to tell them more about Aragon. For an extra bit of ammunition, he signed on to Mushey’s e-mail account and, pretending to be him, wrote the Texans a long and strident letter in support of Sandham and his leadership skills, noting that he believed that Sandham had never been a cop.
Just as that crisis was looming, on June 16, police in Winnipeg arrested Sandham, Mushey and Aravena and took M.H. into protective custody.
The American Bandidos denied involvement, and no charges related to the Shedden Massacre were ever laid against them. There was never any evidence that the Americans ordered or even authorized Kellestine or Sandham to use force when taking Toronto’s patches away.
On December 8, Niessen and Morris came to trial. All charges were dropped against Morris, who had spent six weeks in jail before making bail. Niessen received a two-year sentence for obstruction of justice.
The accused Bandidos first showed up in court on January 8, 2007. And Kellestine was immediately a problem. When he was led into the courtroom for his preliminary hearing, he gave the collected reporters the finger and swore at the courtroom artist. When asked about his client’s behavior, Kellestine’s lawyer chalked it up to stress. “He’s got a lot of pressure on him,” Clayton Powell said. “I don’t know, it seems okay to me.”
Sandham wept openly and would sometimes cover his ears when certain grisly details of evidence were discussed.
Some of the lawyers complained about being searched on their way into the courtroom.
After suffering a brutal beating in the jailhouse shower later that month, Kellestine was moved into protective custody.
On March 27, 2008, an unknown assailant set the Kellestine farmhouse on fire. It was destroyed, but the big, ominously black barn where the initial confrontation took place still stands intact.
The trial opened in September 2009, 41 months after the incident. As in most biker trials, there were some ridiculous incidents. The accused complained there was not enough meat on their ham sandwiches. They were later caught flushing ham down toilets, which allowed the court to dismiss their claims.
Kellestine told a story of how he demonstrated to the other Bandidos how stupid Gardiner was by sending him out of the house to pick pickles off his pickle tree. He also said that Mushey pushed a note up against his cell partition that read, “You’re a dead man.” When asked where it was, Kellestine said Mushey had eaten it.
Gardiner motioned to a local reporter that he wanted to talk with her. When he did, he handed her a note, it read: My name is Brett Gardiner and I was wondering what had happen to the comic strip. I am currently residing at Elign Middlesex detention center, so you have to understand that it gets boring and redundant in this place so please understand that the best part of my day is opening up the t
oday section of your paper and reading your comic strips mostly the Deflocked strip. I love reading that stupid sheep and I keep all the one’s that I get my hands on, but know I have orderd your paper for one of those reasons. So please consider returning the comic’s as they where.
Sincerily
Brett Gardiner
Sandham too was in protective custody, and his clear plastic partition was later covered in paper to prevent the other bikers from intimidating him. He testified that he only joined Bandidos in an effort to become a highly paid police informant.
He also likened Bandidos membership in Canada to a “revolving door,” and said that members were stripped of their patches all the time in a nonviolent way. While that concept perfectly rationalized his argument that he arrived at the unpatching ceremony without any idea that violence would be involved, it did not explain why he was armed with a powerful rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest.
M.H. — who was an actual police informant — described the Canadian Bandidos succinctly: “They were at the very bottom rung of biker gangs. Some were in their forties but still lived with their parents. They were not making any money, many of them had been rejected by Hells Angels and half of them didn’t even own a motorbike.”
And various details of Kellestine’s character — beyond his Nazi fixation and fondness for firearms — came out. Sandham mentioned that he heard Kellestine muttering to himself about murdering two of the Toronto members and “cutting them into little pieces.” When the court asked why he didn’t take that as a warning sign, Sandham replied that he thought Kellestine was joking, When the court was aghast, he explained by saying, “He has a very, very dark sense of humor.” To emphasize this, Sandham told a story of how when he and Kellestine were walking in some nearby woods, they came across some deer droppings. Kellestine popped them in his mouth and started chewing. When he saw Sandham’s horrified reaction, he started laughing uproariously.
Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle Page 21