Lorne Edgar Campbell

Lorne Edgar Campbell (born 2 September 1948) is a Canadian former outlaw biker and gangster. One of the earliest members of the Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club, which he joined in 1965 at the age of 17, Campbell remained a life-long member of the club, staying on until Satan's Choice joined the Hells Angels in 2000. Campbell served as the president of Satan's Choice Oshawa chapter from 1985 to 1997, and of the Hells Angels' Sudbury chapter from 2001 to 2006, amassing a number of convictions.

Campbell is one of the leading figures associated with the highly controversial "Port Hope 8" case, where he testified that he killed William "Heavy" Matiyek on the night of 18 October 1978 in Port Hope, a crime that six other men were convicted of. The conviction of six of the eight accused of Matiyek's murder despite Campbell's testimony on the witness stand that he had killed him was highly controversial in 1979 and remains so. Campbell's role in the Port 8 Hope case and his life in general has been chronicled in a number of books, most notably the bestsellers A Conspiracy of Brothers by Mick Lowe and Unrepentant by Peter Edwards, and more briefly in the 1990 protest song "Justice in Ontario" by Steve Earle.

Early life

Campbell was born in Whitby, Ontario, the son of Lorne Campbell Sr. and Eileen Chaten. His family was of Scottish descent on his paternal side and English and German descent on his maternal side. Campbell's father was a World War II veteran, who was frequently in trouble with the military police during his service, being convicted four times of going AWOL as he took to leaving his military base without permission. Lorne Campbell Senior enlisted in the Canadian Army on 11 November 1941 at the age of 19, having married a woman named Rose Prest, also aged 19, just before his enlistment. Campbell Sr. was assigned to the Lorne Scots regiment. While stationed in England, he fathered a daughter by an Englishwoman named Doris in 1944 and promised her that he would marry her after the war ended. Upon his return to Canada, he married Campbell's mother in 1945. Campbell Sr. worked as a house painter and lived a nomadic lifestyle, constantly moving from address to address, so much so that Lorne Jr. has lost track of all the places that he lived while growing up. The Campbell family was poor and very abusive, with Campbell's father beating his children on a regular basis.

Campbell recalled in a 2011 interview: "Every time I turned around, I got hit by my dad. He said, 'When you grow up, you're going to learn to be a fighter'... Everybody loves their father when they are growing up. So did I. I was his only son. He wanted me to grow up being a fighter. His heart was in the right place. I think that I'm a lot like him". Campbell's childhood heroes were John Wayne and Lee Marvin as he liked the taciturn, tough, macho characters played by the two actors. Campbell saw the 1953 film The Wild One in his late teens and while he despised the Johnny Strabler character played by Marlon Brando as a "faggot" and a "sissy", he greatly admired the Chino character played by Marvin. Much of Campbell's ideals of masculinity were based upon the sort of characters played by Wayne and Marvin.

When he was eight years old, his parents divorced, and the young Campbell was for a time assigned to the custody of an uncle who ignored him as much as possible. Campbell's father had continued to write love letters to Doris in England, and finally left his wife for Doris. As a student, Campbell had an 84 average with his grades. As a child, Campbell was angry and violent as he recalled: "I fought everyday at school". At the age of 14, Campbell was classified as "unmanageable" and was sent to a youth camp at Bowmanville and then another in Cobourg as a ward of the Ontario government. At the camps, Campbell was frequently and savagely beaten by the supervisors, leaving him with a lifetime of physical and emotional scars. One of the supervisors would clench his fist and use the rings on his fingers to rip apart Campbell's skin and flesh. After surviving the youth camps, Campbell was returned to his mother's custody in Oshawa. Her apartment was so shabby that Campbell recalled: "I was embarrassed to bring a girl – or anyone else – to our apartment. I would never take anyone there, except close friends".

Satan's Choice As a teenager, Campbell became fascinated with the Phantom Riders Motorcycle Club and their president Bernie Guindon, who would always lead his club in riding down the streets of Oshawa in formation every Saturday night. Guindon eventually became a surrogate father for Campbell. In 1965, Guindon merged the Phantom Riders into a new club called Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club. Later in that year, Campbell joined Satan's Choice at the age of 17. Guindon ran what he called his "fight club" in the basement of his house in Oshawa where he and other young men would engage in brawls. Campbell attended a session of Guindon's "fight club", where he won two boxing matches in Guindon's basement, which led Guindon to personally sponsor Campbell into Satan's Choice. Campbell, a martial arts fan, had the phrase "the gentle art of karate" in Japanese characters, together with "Elinor", tattooed on his arms. In 1967, his girlfriend Elinor gave birth to their daughter Janice. Campbell expressed much contempt for the hippies who looked up to outlaw bikers, saying: "They were professing peace and love and everything and I didn't advocate that at all". Campbell had a reputation as one of the more violent members of Satan's Choice in the 1960s as he recalled: "There weren't machine guns or knives back then, but there were pretty serious fights".

In 1972, Campbell completed a drafting course at Durham College and started a mechanical technician's course, which he never completed. Shortly afterwards, Campbell was appointed the sergeant-at-arms of Satan's Choice Oshawa chapter in charge of enforcing discipline. In 1974, he broke up with Elinor and lost custody of his daughter Janice. Campbell stated: "I wasn't cruel to my daughter, but I was abusive to her mom. I was too nuts, too radical. She was just a beautiful mother and everything. I was too wild to settle down. I was abusive to her mentally and physically. It's not an excuse, but it's a learned behavior from seeing how my dad treated my mother". In 1974, he began to work as an ironworker.

Campbell, together with fellow Satan's Choice member, John Foote, began to work as debt collectors for the Mafia, beating up people behind in their debts to loansharks and drug dealers in exchange for being allowed to keep 50% of the debts when the debtors paid up. Campbell stated of his work: "I collected money for people. I just look at it like they were playing a game. They're not innocent people. They were aware of the consequences. I was totally without remorse. They chose to be in this world". Campbell and Foote usually started with breaking the fingers of their victims as an initiative to pay up. In 1975, Campbell was living at the Oshawa chapter's clubhouse-whose landlord was Bill Stack-with his girlfriend, and he recalled: "We used to screw under the willow tree". The president of the Oshawa chapter, Peter "Rabbit" Pillman, announced at a chapter meeting: "Somebody's fornicating on the front lawn and Bill doesn't want that". Pillman's speech caused much laughter and one member told him: "You know, Peter doesn't what 'fornicating' means. It's too big of a word. Peter, do you know what 'fornicating' means?" Pillman replied: "No, I don't, but I want it stopped!" Campbell was finally forced to explain the meaning of fornication to Pillman and promised no more sex in public least the landlord evict them from their clubhouse.

After Guindon was convicted of drug charges in May 1976, Campbell took a strong dislike to the new Satan's Choice national president Garnet McEwen. Campbell said of him: "He was just a fat, stinky guy. That's all he was. He was just a dirty guy who looked like a 1950s biker. He was filthy". At a party at the clubhouse of the Montreal chapter, Campbell was shocked to hear David Séguin of the Windsor chapter declare: "If I broke down on the 401, I wouldn't phone anyone from Oshawa. That's how much I hate Oshawa". Campbell, insulted at the remarks directed at his chapter, responded by assaulting Séguin, who screamed in pain under the blows of Campbell's fists and begged him to stop, leading Campbell to mockingly say "Not till I'm finished with you, Dave. This ain't hurting me". McEwen and several members of the Montreal chapter in turn rescued Séguin by beating up Campbell, who was nearly expelled because of the incident. At a kangaroo court held at a cottage near Coboconk, McEwen presided over a "trial", where he pressed for Campbell to be expelled. However, Campbell was a popular member and as the opinion of the "jury" was against his expulsion, he was instead demoted down to from a "full patch" member to a "prospect".

On 4 November 1976, Foote was murdered by another Satan's Choice member, John Harvey. After a disagreement, Foote smashed Harvey over his head with his pool cue, causing the latter to return with a gun, which he then used to shoot Foote. After Foote's murder, Campbell continued to work as a debt collector alone while becoming more mistrustful of those around him and always being on his guard. Campbell recalled about one man: "I beat him so badly I put him in the hospital". Campbell came into conflict with a former member of the Golden Hawk Riders and a drug dealer, Jimmy Brockman, who had threatened to kill a member of Satan's Choice. A fight with Brockman at the Royal Hotel in Whitby ended with Brockman pulling out a gun and shooting Campbell in the arm. Campbell followed the outlaw biker code and refused to name Brockman as the man who shot as he told the police his bullet wound was merely the result of an accident. Still intent upon killing him, Brockman tracked down Campbell to the Jewel's Bar in Oshawa and during the ensuring battle, Campbell's friend Richard "Smutley" Smith came to his aid with a plastic ketchup bottle. Campbell claimed that Brockman found the sight of Smith waving about his useless ketchup bottle like it was a deadly weapon that he broke out laughing, which put an end to the murder attempt. As a member of the Oshawa chapter, Campbell sometimes associated with the Golden Hawk Riders club based in Port Hope. He was involved in several brawls with them under the influence of alcohol. At a party in 1976, one of the Golden Hawk Riders he punched out was their sergeant-at-arms, William "Heavy" Matiyek, a humiliation that Matiyek neither forgot nor forgave.

On 1 July 1977, McEwen arranged for several Satan's Choice chapters to join the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, an act that Campbell sees as a loathsome betrayal. In common with the other bikers that remained loyal to Satan's Choice, Campbell expressed much hatred of McEwen and the Outlaws for fracturing and weakening Satan's Choice. The American journalist Mick Lowe described Campbell as: "Dark, dangerous and deceptively soft-spoken". Through Campbell's official job was as an ironworker, it was known that his primary source of income was his work as a debt collector. Besides for his fists, Campbell was well known for using a baseball bat in his debt collection work.

The Port Hope 8 case On the night of 18 October 1978, Campbell was consuming alcohol while watching a hockey game at Satan's Choice Toronto clubhouse when a telephone call from Richard Sauvé of the Peterborough chapter was received. Sauvé stated that he heard that William "Heavy" Matiyek, the sergeant-at-arms of the Golden Hawk Riders, wanted to talk to him at the Queen's Hotel (now the Walton Hotel) in Port Hope. As Matiyek had a reputation as a violent man, Sauvé wanted some other members of Satan's Choice to be present at the meeting at the Queen's Hotel. Campbell, together with Garry "Nutty" Comeau, Jeff McLeod, Larry Hurren, and Armand Sanguigni of the Toronto chapter, drove out to Port Hope. Campbell armed himself with a .38 handgun. Campbell was considered the most mature and toughest member of the group that went to Port Hope and had the most experience handling guns. Matiyek who was very drunk kept talking very loudly about shooting the Satan's Choice members present in the barroom of the Queen's Hotel to impress the two Outlaws he was drinking with. Matiyek kept flashing his handgun and saying he had "nine friends" with him, which was interpreted by those present to mean that he had nine bullets in his gun.

Campbell arrived at the Queen's Hotel shortly after 10 pm. As Campbell approached Matiyek-whom he knew-the latter tried at first to hide his gun and then pulled his gun out. Campbell shot Matiyek three times. The first bullet went through Matiyek's neck, the second through his skull and the third likewise. Campbell states that he shot Matiyek in self-defense, saying: "As soon as I said: 'How are you doing?" he went for it...I totally wish he hadn't gone for it. I've had to live with it. It hasn't been easy. But he went for it and I happened to be faster...It happened so fast that I just reacted. When you see somebody going for a gun and you've got one, with the upbringing I've had, you'll be fast. I'm glad I had a gun...I never questioned my decision. Not once. Not for a second". Campbell denied that the shooting was a case of first-degree murder as alleged by the Crown, saying that Matiyek was drinking with two Outlaws, Fred Jones and Sonny Broson, whom he could have easily killed as his gun still had three bullets left. Campbell uses the fact that he spared Jones and Bronson instead of killing them as evidence that he killed in self-defense. After fleeing from the Queen's Hotel, Campbell went to the Cadillac Hotel, his favorite bar in Oshawa, to start drinking. During the police investigation, photographs of various Satan's Choice members were shown to the witnesses at the Queen's Hotel by the police, but none of Campbell. The witnesses to the shooting all stated that the gunman was a "big, blonde, bearded man". The police took no fingerprints from the crime scene and interviewed the witnesses as a group instead of individually, both of which are violations of the accepted methods of investigating a crime. Shortly after the Queen's Hotel shooting, Campbell was arrested for assaulting two police officers during a brawl in a Chinese restaurant in Scarborough, which he was convicted of, causing him to spend Christmas 1978 behind bars.

On 23 February 1979, eight members of Satan's Choice were charged with Matiyek's murder with Campbell being conspicuously absent. To spare his biker "brothers" from going to prison for a crime he had committed, Campbell confessed to killing Matiyek. In August 1979, the Crown offered a plea bargain under which Campbell would plead guilty to second-degree murder and spent the next 10 years in prison while the rest of the "Port Hope 8" would plead guilty to being accessories to murder and spend the next 4 years in prison. Campbell was willing to accept the Crown's deal, but several of the "Port Hope 8" such as David "Tee Hee" Hoffman and Gordon "Dog Map" Van Haarlem objected under the grounds that they were not at the Queen's Hotel on the night of 18 October 1978, and should not have to do any prison time.

The trial began on 4 September 1979 in London, Ontario. The Crown Attorney (prosecutor), Chris J. Meinhardt, presented the case as a first-degree murder, calling it "a foul, horrible, planned execution" of Matiyek. As a result of the mass "patch-over" in Sorel, with 168 outlaw bikers becoming Hells Angels, the greater Toronto area went from having no Hells Angels chapters to having the highest concentration of Hells Angels' chapters in the world. For Campbell, the acquittal on the gangterism charges as the jury accepted the defense's thesis that he and the other members had paid off Bahman's drug debt to protect him was a triumph, as he insists that it validates his thesis that the downtown Toronto chapter was not a criminal organization. In sentencing Campbell, the judge added in the four years he spent in jail awaiting trial, so he served no prison time.

Retirement In June 2011, he retired from the Hells Angels as a member in "good standing". Campbell admits that he put his biker lifestyle ahead of his family, and after the last trial felt he wanted to spend more time with his daughter and granddaughters, saying: "Before there was always something. Now there's time". In 2013, Lowe described Campbell as suffering from spinal stenosis, which causes him to walk with a cane. In September 2017, Campbell expressed much disapproval of a new club using the name and patch of Satan's Choice, saying it was an "insult".