Bullet fragments focus of attention at biker slayings trial

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This article was published 28/08/2009 (6186 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LONDON, Ont. — Of all the guns in the arsenal at Wayne Kellestine’s southwestern Ontario farmhouse, a Mossberg .22-calibre rifle and a black and silver Hi-Point 380 auto pistol were the most deadly, a murder trial jury heard on Thursday.

The Crown’s final witness, Wayne Arendse, a gun and ballistics expert from the Centre of Forensic Sciences, described his findings after examining 16 guns from the Kellestine farm and the projectiles and cartridges collected during the investigation in the weeks after the eight Toronto-area bikers were found shot to death on April 8, 2006.

Their bodies were found stuffed in four vehicles and abandoned on a rural road near Shedden, Ont., 14 kilometres from the Kellestine property.

By the end of the day, two tiny lead fragments known to the court as Items 17-1 and 17-2 became a focus of both the Crown and defence.

How they ended up in Luis (Chopper) Raposo’s chest has been a contentious issue at the trial since it began five months ago.

Raposo is believed to have been the first to die inside the barn. He also had his middle finger shot off, had a graze wound on his arm and the wooden stock of his double-barrelled sawed-off shotgun shattered.

The Crown’s theory is they are fragments from a .303 rile projectile shot by accused Michael Sandham, of Winnipeg. The jury has heard Sandham was carrying a Lee Enfield .303 rifle and a shotgun. A used .303 cartridge was found in the barn loft, along with shotgun spray on a wooden beam under the loft that likely came from a sawed-off shotgun used by Raposo.

A distorted copper jacket similar to rifle ammunition was found on a ledge behind where Raposo would have been standing.

Assistant Crown attorney Brian White asked Arendse if one .303 projectile could have caused all the injuries.

Arendse said it was possible that after the bullet shattered Raposo’s finger and gun stock, it could have separated into two projectiles — the copper jacket and the lead core.

He agreed the lead could have fragmented and entered Raposo’s chest.

But one defence team has been arguing the fragments were from shotgun pellets that came from a black shotgun and fired by the Crown’s star witness known as M.H., an ex-Bandido turned police informant.

Their theory is the pellets mortally wounded Raposo and hit Trotta.

Arendse dismissed both ideas and said Trotta’s facial wounds could have come from .22 calibre shot and said he believed it was a single projectile that caused Raposo’s injuries.

The jury will be on a break until Sept. 8 to allow the lawyers to discuss some legal issues.

— London Free Press