Unrepentant Page 12

Rounding out the “Port Hope Eight” was Armand (In the Trunk) Sanguigni, Campbell’s 28-year-old clubmate from the Toronto suburb of Mississauga. His nickname came from his serious mob ties, which explained his dealing of bennies and his access to counterfeit currency and heroin. He wasn’t physically imposing, but if you stared directly into his eyes he could look back in a way that made your knees buckle. He wasn’t a drinker, but he liked his heroin, a drug he felt he could control. It wouldn’t have been shocking to hear that he had taken part in an underworld hit, but the public nature of the Matiyek killing seemed much too sloppy for a mob guy.

  As police probed the Queen’s Hotel murder, Campbell was almost always in their sights and often in their custody on a string of other charges. One punch-up involved him trading blows with off-duty police officers after they directed Campbell’s friend to quiet down in a Scarborough Chinese restaurant. Police might accuse Campbell of a lot of things after the Port Hope shooting, but no one could say he was hiding out.

  After one of his many court appearances for assault during this time, Campbell and Larry Vallentyne were handcuffed together on their way to a prisoner wagon when the elderly guard leading them tripped and fell over into a snowbank.

  “Come on! Let’s go!” Vallentyne said.

  “We’re not going.”

  “We’ll fuck off and go to the clubhouse,” Vallentyne offered. “By the time they get there, we’ll be drunk.”

  “They’ll say we knocked him over.”

  At that point, the guard was crawling up out of the snow.

  “Are you okay?” Campbell asked.

  “The old guy just got up and said, ‘Thank you.’ ”

  With that, Campbell and Vallentyne were led into the prisoners’ van and another night in jail.

  CHAPTER 12

  Stepping Up

  And the guilty man stood free outside

  When he took the stand to pay his debt …

  STEVE EARLE, “Justice in Ontario”

  Curiosity propelled Campbell to attend the preliminary hearing in Port Hope in February 1979 for the murder charges against his eight clubmates. The site of the hearing—the town’s quaint red brick town hall—seemed a bit incongruous for what was being packaged as a cold-blooded gangland hit. It was built back in the 1850s, when some serious people thought Port Hope could one day be the capital of Canada. By the time of the trial’s preliminary, the town’s glory days were long gone. Rather than being a centre of power, Port Hope was fast establishing itself as a favourite destination for hard-core antique collectors and visitors happy to eyeball its impressive architecture and soak in what one newspaper described as its “pleasingly old-fashioned and somewhat sleepy vision of civic orderliness, right down to the white picket fences, lovingly-arranged flower gardens and cats napping on porches.”

  Campbell attended in the hope he could somehow insert himself into the legal proceedings and get his clubmates off the charges. It baffled him how eight Satan’s Choice members could be charged for killing Bill Matiyek while he—the real and only gunman—wasn’t one of them, even though it seemed every cop in the area knew who he was and that he was plenty violent. He had heard rumblings that so-called eyewitnesses were getting ready to testify, with reasons of their own for co-operating with the Crown. Perhaps after he took a look at things for himself, it might all make more sense.

  Pillman came with him. Peter Rabbit was close to a dead ringer for Campbell, and sometimes Campbell himself had to squint when looking at a photo to see which of them was in it. Peter Rabbit was slightly taller and slightly younger-looking, but not much. He wasn’t eager to make the trip, but he also knew it would be considerably less aggravating to go than to refuse Campbell’s invitation.

  Campbell was curious to see if any of the so-called witnesses would recognize him. He and Peter Rabbit attended on the day the coroner took the stand and other Crown witnesses sat in a room near the courtroom, awaiting their call to testify. No one seemed to pay them any attention as they walked back and forth past the open door of the witness room. “Three or four times I walked by with Rabbit. I didn’t stare in, just walked by.”

  One might have expected a startled reaction from at least one of them. It wouldn’t have been shocking if the police were called and told that the real killer—and his double—was parading past the witness room. What happened instead when they walked past the witness room was nothing. It was as if the people gathered inside had never seen either of them before. “None of them said, ‘I believe it was him.’ It just befuddles me. I thought, ‘How the fuck could that happen?’ They knew me. I hung around Port Hope.”

  The only real reaction from anybody that day came from Sanguigni, who clearly wasn’t comfortable with Campbell’s fact-finding stunt. He didn’t explain why he was upset with Campbell in the courthouse and Campbell didn’t ask. Whatever his objections, a complaint from Sanguigni wasn’t to be lightly dismissed, so Campbell reined in his little experiment and went home, still wondering how the case could proceed without the real shooter in custody. It seemed the worst thing the accused had going for them was the fact that they were all members of Satan’s Choice, and who—besides their families—would cry if eight bikers were packed off to prison on a flimsy case? Who would feel less safe? “We were the scourge of the country,” reflects Campbell.

  Campbell decided there was really only one thing left to do. So one day he announced to Charmaine that he was going to step up and confess to the shooting of Bill Matiyek. To that point he hadn’t told her a thing about what had happened that evening in Port Hope. He believed in handling his business by himself, but this couldn’t be kept quiet any longer. Charmaine now had a life-changing decision to make. It was likely that he would be heading for a serious stretch in prison, and it didn’t seem fair to make her wait for his return. Charmaine was young and deserved a chance to start a new life. “I told her it was going to happen. [I said], ‘We’ll part. Get on with your life.’ ”

  Charmaine refused the way out he offered her. “No,” she said, “I’m with you.”

  The Crown appeared amenable to a deal. Their case was far from airtight, since they were trying to make first-degree murder stick without much evidence. They also didn’t have a clear motive and were just guessing about the identity of the shooter. A month before the trial was to begin, the Crown offered a deal that meant everyone charged could walk free and Campbell would get a life term for first-degree murder, with no parole eligibility for twenty-five years. Campbell verbally agreed, but a few days later, without explanation, that deal was withdrawn and a new offer tabled: Campbell could plead guilty to second-degree murder—an acknowledgement that the shooting was reactive and not premeditated. That sounded accurate enough to Campbell. He would get a life term with parole eligibility after ten years. The rub was that everyone else, rather than walk free, would get four years as accessories to the crime.

  The bikers were solid that they had to vote unanimously in favour of any deal or it would be rejected. The Crown also wanted a blanket deal: it had to be everyone or no one. Tee Hee Hoffman balked at the offer. He hadn’t even been in Port Hope at the time, and a police wiretap at the Kitchener clubhouse would later back his alibi. The idea of serving prison time understandably didn’t sit well with him, and the others respected that. The deal was rejected. Campbell waited for a new offer, but the Crown’s mood had cooled. The optics of wheeling and dealing with the province’s toughest outlaw biker club on a high-profile murder case weren’t good. Far safer for the Crown to proceed to trial and take their chances with a jury.

  Port Hope is a small town and the Queen’s shooting was big news. All the local publicity could easily prejudice a jury, so the trial shifted down the highway three hours west to London. That meant the defence lawyers from eastern Ontario would be picked up in a chartered plane that hopped to London at the start of each week and flown back to eastern Ontario at the end of the week. It was highly unusual for the public to pay for lawyers’ air travel, bu
t it was considered acceptable under the circumstances.

  The trial was now set for the newly built London courthouse, a mound of bricks and glass in the city’s core that could pass for an insurance company’s or bank’s headquarters. Just a couple of blocks away, overlooking the Thames River, sits the old Middlesex County Courthouse, a local landmark with personality to spare. Resembling a gothic castle or medieval movie set, it had been the scene of a notorious miscarriage of justice a century earlier. The Donnellys were a nineteenth-century version of an outlaw biker club, known for fast horses, ready fists and rough, unflinching brotherhood. After a gang of supposedly respectable men clubbed and pitchforked them to death in 1880, truth took a holiday. Despite two trials at the Middlesex County Courthouse, a combination of lying witnesses, political meddling, police bumbling and widespread prejudice meant no one was convicted from the mob that murdered five members of the Donnelly clan. Campbell could only hope that the local delivery of justice had improved with the passage of time.

  As the trial began, heavily armed members of the OPP’s tactical unit could be seen on rooftops and on the streets and in the hallways of the courthouse. It was as though the paramilitary officers were standing guard against a modern-day horde of Cossack warriors on Harleys; in one headline, the London Free Press described the courthouse area as “like an armed camp.” Inside, the Port Hope Eight were all neatly dressed in conservative suits or sports jackets. Their hair was groomed and beards trimmed or shaved off altogether. Despite their gussied-up appearance, none of them denied they belonged to the Satan’s Choice.

  Crown attorney C.J. Meinhardt showed the jury mug shots of their hairy, pretrial, bikerish selves, lest anyone be mistaken about how they looked the night Bill Matiyek died. Meinhardt told the jury he was about to prove that Matiyek was the victim of a premeditated, gangland-style execution; he was slain to make an example of him, and the guilt for his death was shared by at least eight members of the Satan’s Choice. Bikers who guarded the doors to make sure Matiyek couldn’t escape were just as guilty as the one who actually pulled the trigger—or so went the Crown’s theory.

  The jury also heard that Matiyek had a .32 calibre semi-automatic pistol in his left breast pocket, loaded with a clip of eight bullets. The breech of the gun was empty, meaning Matiyek hadn’t cocked it for firing when he was hit with three close-range bullets. That was a mystery for the bikers, since Matiyek had talked about having “nine friends.” The assumption had been that he was talking about nine bullets in his pistol. No one could name nine Golden Hawks. If there had been a bullet in the chamber, where was it now? Campbell wondered if it was ejected by a police officer to make Matiyek appear more like a victim.

  The jury heard that one shot grazed Matiyek’s upper left arm and shoulder, then hit his jaw and deflected down and out the right side of his neck. The second blast went in the back of his head and out his right ear. The third went in through his right ear and was stopped in his brain. That was the bullet that ended the life of Bill Matiyek.

  All shots were fired from Matiyek’s left side, and a pathologist said it was impossible to tell how many gunmen were involved. He also noted that Matiyek’s blood alcohol level was double the legal limit to drive.

  Under questioning from Comeau’s lawyer, Howard Kerbel, 23-year-old labourer David Gillespie admitted that his statement to police the day after the shooting was made “with some haste and some fright … after I’d had a few drinks.” Then he added a potentially damning statement. Gillespie told the court he’d overheard Comeau ask Sauvé and Blaker: “Are we going to do it to this fat fucker now, or what?” If the jury accepted this, then the Choice members were on the hook for first-degree murder, since the comments suggested planning and deliberation before the killing. But despite claiming to have overheard Comeau say this to Sauvé and Blaker, Gillespie also said he couldn’t be sure if he had seen Sauvé close to Matiyek’s table on the night of the shooting. He also wasn’t positive about whether Comeau was at the table either.

  “Look at him!” Kerbel ordered. “Look at Mr. Comeau! Now, is he the man you saw at Mr. Matiyek’s table before he was shot?”

  “He looks like the man.”

  Upon further examination, the court heard that one of the witnesses had once said that another man, named Ray Snider, “could be the gunman,” but he was never further identified or charged. The Crown’s case appeared even shakier when a police identification officer admitted he didn’t have any prior experience showing photographs to prospective witnesses. He also conceded that perhaps he should have shown individual witnesses the photos separately rather than as a group, although he added that he couldn’t recall them talking while they viewed the pictures.

  When Queen’s Hotel waitress Gayle Thompson took the stand, she testified she was certain that Comeau was the killer.

  “So there is no doubt in your mind that you were able to identify Mr. Comeau by his hair and by his beard?” Kerbel asked.

  “Correct.”

  “No doubt—not even the slightest doubt?”

  “No.”

  “And there is no doubt in your mind, not the slightest doubt, that Mr. Comeau is the man you saw get up from Mr. Blaker’s table, walk toward Mr. Matiyek’s table and shoot Mr. Matiyek.”

  “Correct.”

  Upon further questioning, she admitted that this was a change in her story from earlier in the proceedings, when she had told authorities that Comeau was only “possibly” the gunman.

  Another Crown witness who pointed towards Comeau as the gunman was 23-year-old Port Hope Credit Union computer operator Susan Foote. She also admitted her testimony had changed between early phases of the investigation and the trial.

  Foote said that she was now positive she’d met McLeod at several Satan’s Choice parties four years before the shooting.

  Defence lawyer Bruce Affleck reminded her that she hadn’t been so certain about some details when she testified during a preliminary hearing. As for meeting McLeod at a Choice gathering four years earlier, that was unlikely: “If I were to suggest to you that Mr. McLeod was not a member of the Satan’s Choice four years prior to October 18, would that affect your story?” Affleck asked.

  She still insisted she had seen McLeod that night in the hotel when Bill Matiyek’s life ended.

  Further questioning from Kerbel brought the admission that she had also heard talk that a man named “Smutley” might have been the killer. She was also sure that the killer was left-handed. The jury wouldn’t know it, but Campbell was left-handed while Comeau and all of the other accused were right-handed.

  Former Golden Hawks president Lawrence Leon told the court that Sauvé had threatened Matiyek and himself early in 1978, saying he would not live out the year if he didn’t shut down the Golden Hawks in Port Hope. It was a potentially damning statement since, like the “fat fucker” quote from Gillespie’s testimony, it suggested the premeditation necessary for a finding of first-degree murder.

  Leon said he was no longer with the Golden Hawks and that Matiyek had been the club’s sergeant-at-arms. There is a rule among outlaw bikers that they cannot testify against anyone, even an enemy. Perhaps Leon was thinking about this while he sat at the witness stand and told the court that he had thought a great deal about threats against Matiyek and himself. “If it had been me instead of Bill, he’d have come forward too,” Leon told the court.

  None of the accused were to take the stand. They were sticking to the outlaw biker code that forbids a club member from making any comments that might implicate someone else, whether a respected brother or a hated foe. The defence strategy was to open with Campbell as a surprise witness. His account of how he’d shot Matiyek should make more sense than anything the jury had heard up to this point. Even if his story wasn’t accepted by the jury, Campbell could also bring out the fact that Comeau too had been shot that night. That was crucial for the defence lawyers. It had been established through X-rays that Comeau still carried a bullet in his body, bu
t it wasn’t proven that the bullet was fired from the same gun that killed Matiyek. Campbell’s testimony could potentially compel the judge to order the bullet to be removed from Comeau for forensic testing, and this could be huge for the defence. How could the Crown claim Comeau was the shooter if he was shot with the same gun himself?

  Campbell would be introduced to the jury by Bruce Affleck, Jeff McLeod’s defence lawyer. It was a reunion of sorts for Campbell and Affleck. Back when he worked as a prosecutor, Affleck had nailed a sixteen-year-old Campbell with a ten-dollar fine for carrying a switchblade. More notably, Affleck had also parked Campbell in the Whitby jail for a year on that imaginative charge of conspiracy to commit perjury.

  Despite their opposing roles, Campbell had found Affleck oddly likeable as a Crown attorney. Now, with them both on the same team, Affleck bubbled with goodwill at the sight of Campbell and gave him a vigorous thumbs-up biker handshake whenever they met. He explained to Campbell that he’d left work for the Crown because of a heart attack. Defence work would allow him more control of his hours, which should mean less stress. “His doctor told him that if he had another heart attack, he wouldn’t make it.”

  Affleck was also an Oshawa guy. He paid his way through law school by working as a bouncer at the Brown Derby nightclub at the corner of Yonge and Dundas streets in downtown Toronto. Like Campbell, he had a sharp brain, and often bragged about his 149—“near genius”—IQ. In their new, jovial, relationship, Affleck loved to mention tough guys and then ask Campbell, “Can you take him?” Campbell would invariably reply, “I haven’t fought him yet.” And Campbell would always think to himself, “I could take that guy.”

  Unfortunately for the new friends, Affleck’s old charge against Campbell was now working against them. He confided to Campbell that the Whitby conviction had been the result of a legal version of horse-trading, when a couple of accused men were set free in other cases in return for a lawyer convincing Campbell to plead guilty on the rare conspiracy-to-commit-perjury charge.