Yves Trudeau

Yves Trudeau (4 February 1946 – July 2008), also known as Apache and The Mad Bomber, was a Canadian outlaw biker, gangster, contract killer, rapist, child molester, and serial killer. A former member of the North chapter of Hells Angels in Laval, Trudeau was the club's leading assassin and a major participant in multiple biker conflicts throughout Canadian history, including the Popeyes–Devils Disciples War, the Satan's Choice–Popeyes War and the First Biker War. Frustrated by cocaine addiction and his suspicion that his fellow gang members wanted him dead, he became a Crown witness after the Lennoxville massacre. In exchange, he received a lenient sentence – life in prison but eligible for parole after seven years – for the killing of 43 people from September 1973 to July 1985.

Trudeau was granted parole in 1994, and given the new identity of Denis Côté. He was arrested in March 2004 for sexually assaulting a young boy and received four more years' imprisonment. In 2007, Trudeau learned he had cancer and was transferred from Archambault penitentiary to a medical centre,

Background The years 1936 to 1960 are a period in Québec history known to Québécois as the Grande Noirceur ("Great Darkness"), when Quebec was mostly ruled by the ultra-conservative Catholic Union Nationale party. Starting with the 1960 Quebec general election, which saw the Union Nationale defeated by the Quebec Liberals, Quebec society experienced sweeping changes known as the Quiet Revolution that saw Quebec go in the space of a decade from being one of the most conservative societies in North America to being one of the most liberal. As part of the reaction against the "medieval" Catholic social mores of the Grande Noirceur, the Québécois embraced a culture of hedonism in the 1960s with Quebec having for example a significantly higher rate of illegitimate births and drug use than English Canada. As part of the same backlash against the "suffocating" conformism of the Grande Noirceur, outlaw motorcycle clubs became very popular in Quebec in the 1960s with many French-Canadian young men seeing the outlaw biker culture as a symbol of freedom, rebellion and machismo, and by 1968 la belle province had 350 outlaw biker clubs. One result of Quebec having so many outlaw motorcycle clubs was a degree of violence and viciousness between the different biker groups that had no parallel in the rest of Canada as there were too many clubs seeking their share of the organized crime rackets, giving Quebec the reputation as the "Red Zone" in the outlaw biker world. Crime journalist James Dubro stated about the distinctive outlaw biker sub-culture of Quebec: "There's always has been more violence in Quebec. In the biker world it's known as the Red Zone. I remember an Outlaws hit man telling me he was scared going to Montreal." In 1975, the Ontario-based Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club began an alliance with the American Outlaws Motorcycle Club, allowing the Outlaws to gain a way to challenge the supremacy of the Hells Angels in Quebec through access to the Montreal chapter of Satan's Choice. This led the Hells Angels-backed Popeyes into open conflict with the Satan's Choice Montreal chapter and their Outlaw allies, resulting in a number of casualties on both sides. The Popeyes had targeted the Devil's Disciples biker gang, who were allies of Satan's Choice. The Devils' Disciples and the Montreal chapter of Satan's Choice were engaged in the manufacturing and smuggling of chemical drugs, a market that the Popeyes decided to violently enter in 1974, leading to the biker war. Trudeau first rose to prominence as the Popeyes' ace assassin during this struggle. By January 1976, the Devil's Disciples gang had voted to disband themselves after 15 of their members had been murdered since 1974, thereby giving the Popeye Club control of the area around St. Henri Square.

Dubro said in an interview: "He had this fascination early in life with bikers and military things and weapons and bombs." When Trudeau tried to collect the rest of the $200,000 after killing April and Lelièvre, Ross told him he should go collect the money from the Halifax and Sorel chapters of the Hells Angels who owned the West End Gang drug debts, saying he would forgive those debts if those chapters paid the money to Trudeau instead.

Release from prison

Trudeau was granted parole in 1994 and given a new identity. He lived under the name Denis Côté, resettled in the Valleyfield area, lived with a woman who did not know his past, and worked as an orderly in a nursing home and a bus driver for the handicapped. However, after being laid off in 2000, he slid back into cocaine addiction and sexually assaulted a 13-year-old boy after plying him with wine and beer, for which he pleaded guilty in 2004. He was sentenced to a four-year prison term. Quebec Court Judge Michel Duceppe noted "In your lifetime, you have killed more people than the Canadian military did in the Gulf War." Trudeau returned to prison under the double stigma of being both an informant and a child molester, meaning that he had to be kept in isolation 23 hours a day for his own protection. As part of his release, Trudeau was not allowed to contact minors or the victims of his crimes. Name Date Notes Jean-Marie Viel 1970 Trudeau's first known victim, Viel was shot to death in Trois-Rivières after he stole a motorcycle from the Popeyes. Robert Côté 17 February 1978 Trudeau shot down Côté with a machine-gun as the latter stood outside of the Brasserie Joey, loudly cursing and swearing at the Hells Angels inside of the Brasserie Joey. Gilles Cadorette 21 March 1978 Trudeau assassinated Cadorette, the president of the Montreal chapter of the Outlaws, with a bomb he planted in his car. Brian Powers 10 November 1978 Trudeau assassinated 34-year-old Powers, an Outlaw leader, by knocking on the door of his Sainte-Geneviève home and shooting him in the head nine times when he answered. William Weichold 8 December 1978 On the evening of 8 December 1978, Trudeau saw a man walking down a street in Montreal who resembled an Outlaw leader, Roland "Roxy" Dutemple. Trudeau walked up to him, asked "Êtes-vous Roxy?" ("Are you Roxy?") and when the man did not answer, pulled out his handgun and shot him in the head. On the next day Trudeau learned from reading the newspapers that the man he killed was Weichold, who just happened to look like Dutemple and did not answer his question because he spoke no French. Weichold had no involvement with organized crime. Trudeau later remembered laughing hysterically when he learned from reading Le Devoir that the man he killed was Weichold, not Dutemple. Trudeau's only disappointment with killing Weichold was that the Angels chose not to pay him for that killing as he requested, as he argued that people who looked like Dutemple should be killed in case they were him. Roland "Roxy" Dutemple 29 March 1979 Trudeau finally assassinated Dutemple with a car bomb. Robert Labelle 3 April 1979 Trudeau assassinated Labelle, the leader of a gang in Laval called the Huns, who, rumor had it, was planning to have his gang "patch over" to join the Outlaws. Trudeau knocked on his door, and when Labelle opened it, shot him in the head. Donald McLean and Cameran Piche 9 May 1979 McLean was a member of the rival Outlaws gang and Piche was his girlfriend. Trudeau blew them both up when a bomb attached to McLean's Harley-Davidson motorcycle exploded. Jeanne Desjardins, André Desjardins, and Berthe Desjardins February 1980 A grandmother, killed for trying to help her son, ex-Hells Angel André Desjardins. Trudeau beat her to death and then killed her son and his girlfriend. The bodies of the latter two were dumped in the St. Lawrence River. Robert Morin 14 March 1981 Trudeau killed Morin with a bomb planted under his car. Donat Lemieux and Lucie Vallières 9 May 1981 Trudeau killed Donat Lemieux and his girlfriend, Lucie Vallières, on their porch in Rosemont. Patrick "Hughie" McGurnaghan 27 October 1981 A reputed West End Gang member who was blown up in Westmount when a bomb planted in his Mercedes-Benz detonated, killing him and seriously injuring a male passenger. Trudeau later said Frank "Dunie" Ryan had hired him to commit the murder. Charlie Hachez January 1982 Even fellow Hells Angels were not safe: Trudeau killed Hachez, a member of the North Chapter, because he had a heavy drug problem, had conspired to kidnap Frank Ryan's children and owed Ryan $150,000 in drug money. When Ryan learned about the kidnapping plot, he informed the Hells Angels that they either liquidate those involved or be cut off from the cocaine that he sold them. Raymond Filion 10 October 1983 Trudeau shot Filion outside his sister's house in Laval. Phillipe Galipeau and Rachelle Francoeur 1984 Paul April hired Trudeau to kill drug dealer Galipeau. He shot both Galipeau and his girlfriend Rachelle Francoeur in their rue Cartier house. Paul April, Robert Lelievre, Louis-Charles Paquette, and Gilles Paquette 25 November 1984 When Frank Ryan was murdered, Trudeau was hired by the new leader of the West End Gang, Allan "the Weasel" Ross, to exact revenge. Trudeau's friend Michel Blass delivered a television stuffed with explosives, along with a VCR and VHS titled "Hells Angels Forever", to the Montreal apartment where April and other associates believed tied to Ryan's murder were hiding. Jean-Marc "La Grande Maw" Deniger 1 May 1985 A drug dealer who was an associate of the Hells Angels North Chapter. Trudeau strangled Deniger. He stuffed his body in the trunk of his car and abandoned it on a city street.