Bikers bought shampoo to wash off gunshot residue, murder trial told

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This article was published 22/07/2009 (6221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LONDON, Ont. — In the biker world, Head and Shoulders shampoo isn’t just for dandruff.

A court heard Tuesday that, on the way back to Winnipeg in the hours after a bloody night at a southwestern Ontario farm, the Manitoba chapter of the Bandidos motorcycle club stopped at a Barrie, Ont., Walmart for supplies. Dwight Mushey, one of six men who has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder, picked up a bottle of Head and Shoulders.

“Dwight said it’s good for removing g.s.r,” said M.H., a former Winnipeg Bandido who is the star witness at the trial.

“That’s gunshot residue,” M.H. explained.

On his fifth day in the witness box, M.H., 40, described the trip back to Winnipeg and his hooking up with police investigators in the aftermath of the biggest mass slaying in modern Ontario history. The jury also heard conversations between the bikers recorded during police telephone intercepts and while M.H. was wearing a body pack.

M.H. said he and Mushey, 41, Marcelo Aravena, 33, and Michael Sandham, 31, left Wayne Kellestine’s farm in Sandham’s red GMC Jimmy the morning of April 8, 2006, after the bodies of eight members of the Toronto chapter of the Bandidos had been driven off the property and left on a quiet rural road.

They needed to stop at the Walmart because Aravena and Sandham had no footwear — theirs had been burned in the Kellestine fire pit after the bodies had been disposed of.

Along with the Head and Shoulders, they picked up some chips, pop, cheesies, a couple pairs of sandals and razors. They stopped for gas and continued on their journey.

M.H. said they stopped at an ice cream place where he tried to withdraw money from a bank machine, but couldn’t because the account was tapped. The four men went on to a truck stop in the same community — later identified as the Cobalt Truck Stop — where they each had a shower, and Sandham and Mushey shaved off their facial hair.

The four men slept four hours in the Jimmy. Once over the Manitoba-Ontario border, they concocted their alibi — they would say they left Ontario on Friday before the shootings and arrived in Winnipeg on Saturday night.

But within a day or two of returning to Winnipeg, M.H. called Winnipeg police officer Tim Diack.

At first, M.H. said, he was not truthful and stuck to the cover story.

In subsequent meetings with Diack, M.H. told him more. Then Diack took him to a hotel room where he told his story to two Ontario police officers. He drew sketches of the area and the farm and his statement was videotaped. M.H. explained he entered into an agreement with the Ontario attorney-general promising to tell the truth, co-operate and provide DNA and fingerprints. In exchange he was granted immunity.

M.H. said it was Diack who spoke of $750,000 in the negotiations. But in the end, M.H. said the agreement was made for no money.

In the weeks following the shootings, M.H. had some gall bladder problems. He was taken to the emergency room of a Winnipeg hospital where Mushey and Aravena visited him. And it was there Mushey talked about victim Jamie Flanz, and how the last man to die at the Kellestine property looked before “he went to finish him off.”

Mushey said Flanz’s eyes were “big and how Jamie was trying to say something,” M.H. recalled. Then Mushey laughed “like it was a joke or something.”

The trial continues.

— The Canadian Press