The Notorious Bacon Brothers

by Jerry Langton

  Her brother, Neal, claimed that Brittney told him she was going on one last run before she committed herself to rehab.

  The man she was going to meet was Joelon “Joey” Verma, an immigrant from Fiji. He did not have a criminal record, but was, as the saying goes, “known to police.” Well known.

  Verma was known to be good friends with Independent Soldier Donnie “Blaze” McWhirter, who had recently been arrested for sexual assault. Later, Verma would admit to being an Independent Soldier himself. Verma's girlfriend at the time was a pharmacy technician, making access to Oxycontin at least feasible.

  Almost two months later, on May 25, 2010, Irving's remains were found not far from where her car was discovered. The RCMP did not release a cause of death, but they did say that the missing person investigation was now a homicide investigation.

  Verma was later arrested and charged with both murder and robbery.

  The details of the allegations against Verma have yet to come out at his trial, but social media have been alive with rumors and accusations. Some believe that Irving was killed because she was a rat whose information led to the beach house grow op being taken down. But that's a very unlikely scenario. If Irving was participating in the grow op, telling the cops would not be the way to pay for her Oxycontin addiction.

  Others maintain that she owed dealers a huge debt and was murdered for it. There is some plausibility to that. Hells Angels and their associates frequently execute recalcitrant debtors, sometimes over relatively minor amounts of cash. Although it's true that dead people can't pay their debts, murders can make an effective deterrent for others. But money didn't seem to be Irving's problem. She revealed little anxiety about her meeting, aside from the fact that she knew Verma was “a bad man,” and did not appear to be having money problems before her disappearance.

  More likely is the theory that she needed her Oxycontin and took the weed and cash she had on hand to pay for it. But Verma, like so many before him, appears to have thought that he could have the weed and cash and keep the Oxycontin. The only thing that stood in his way was an unarmed 125-pound woman.

  If Irving's murder was met with shock, and even outrage, the next major drug-related killing was not. Juel Stanton, a full-patch member of the East Vancouver Hells Angels, had an arrest record dating back to 1988 but first showed up on the radar in October 2001, when it was alleged in court that he, his brother Norman and Damon Bartolomeo robbed a grow op and held its owner, Alexander Goldman, captive, beat him up and stole his 1987 Toyota Camry in front of his friend, Nunzio Mela. Damon Bartolomeo was the older brother of Ryan Bartolomeo, who was one of the Surrey Six victims.

  Although he owned a construction company named Juel Forming, it was well-known within the community that Stanton was a debt collector for the Hells Angels and that he was extremely violent and unpredictable. Port Moody Police Department Inspector Andy Richards, a biker expert, said that he was actually surprised the Hells Angels allowed such a “loose cannon” into their membership. Indeed, it is a rare man whose violent tendencies make the Hells Angels and biker cops think twice.

  Stanton's trial took forever, with bail hearings, appeals and so forth. It was revealed in other trials that the bar at the Hells Angels' East Vancouver clubhouse sported an old pickle jar that was used to collect funds for Stanton's defense.

  He wouldn't get it.

  In a very rare occurrence, Stanton was kicked out of the club in May 2010. For a full-patch to be expelled over behavioral issues, it requires a unanimous vote by every other full-patch member of the chapter. “He was certainly very, very volatile and very high-maintenance from a club perspective,” said Richards. “He drew a lot of unwanted police attention and a lot of unwanted public attention to the Hells Angels.” Vancouver police had previously issued a public warning about Stanton, who liked to flash his Hells Angels tattoos at people he hoped to intimidate, and had reportedly warned the Hells Angels themselves that they would crack down on them if Stanton was not reined in.

  On the morning of August 12, 2010, at 6:15 a.m., Vancouver police received 9-1-1 calls reporting a shooting at 202 West 11th, a luxurious red-brick house just a few blocks away from City Hall. It was owned by Stanton and his wife, Akrivoula. Neighbors recalled the red-and-white Hells Angels flag that used to fly there and the video cameras that watched the property. First responders arrived to find the deceased body of Stanton, filled with bullet holes. He was a few hours away from a court appearance in which he was to have given his side of the grow-op rip story.

  It's unlikely that Stanton's murder will ever be solved. Many think it was house-cleaning by the Hells Angels, who did not want Stanton to either talk or get in their way. “If it was an in-house thing with the club, it is done, it is over,” said Richards. “I don't think anybody is going to retaliate against the club. I don't see much coming from this.”

  He was right, there wasn't a gang war on anymore. Although both the UN and Red Scorpions continued to exist and do business, they no longer had the manpower, leadership or will to fight it out on the streets. Instead, the Hells Angels and their allies were hard-pressed to keep up with demand. After all the arrests, the manpower needs weighed on the various subgroups like the Independent Soldiers, the Renegades, the King Pin Crew and the Game Tight Soldiers. A lower quality of functionary was recruited, and one of the results was more violence.

  For years by this point, Vancouver had been haunted by the missing women of the Downtown Eastside. Over the years, at least 60 women—mostly aboriginal, drug-addicted and involved in the sex trade—had gone missing. The investigation moved at a snail's pace, and what appeared to be police indifference and incompetence enraged many in the area.

  Finally, the evidence pointed to something many in the community already knew. The women were dead. And they were killed by Robert “Willie” Pickton. Lucky enough to have inherited a large pig farm in the booming Lower Mainland town of Port Coquitlam, Pickton became a multimillionaire by selling off lots of his farm to residential and commercial developers.

  He celebrated his wealth by throwing massive parties on his farm, which now featured a nightclub called Piggy's Palace. The parties, which had as many as 1,700 guests at a time, often featured local political, media and sports personalities and, always, Hells Angels and their buddies.

  For entertainment, Pickton would drive around the Downtown Eastside, asking any likely-looking woman if she wanted to go to a party. Dozens, if not hundreds, did. Many did not make it back.

  Pickton had been on police radar, mainly for violating fire codes and for not filing the appropriate paperwork for Piggy's Palace. In March 1997, he was arrested for the attempted murder of a guest at one of his parties. She claimed he handcuffed her and stabbed her several times before she managed to disarm him, stab him with his own knife and flee. She did indeed have several stab wounds and, on the night in question, Pickton was treated for a single stab wound, as well. For reasons unknown, police dropped the investigation.

  A friend and employee of Pickton's put two and two together after finding purses and other belongings of some of the missing women. He went to the police, but after three searches of the property with no results, they again stopped investigating. And, despite a 1999 tip that Pickton had a freezer full of human flesh on his property, they did not investigate.

  In February 2002, police investigating an illegal firearms report on Pickton's property unearthed a prescription inhaler owned by one of the missing women. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder later that month.

  His jury trial, which began in 2006, was shrouded in secrecy because of publication bans. Without any real evidence released to the public, rumors and half-truths were everywhere. Some claimed he had killed hundreds of women; many believed he ground their flesh and sold it as sausage meat in the area.

  So when he was found guilty of just six counts of second-degree murder in December 2007, people were mystified. More than that, they were outraged.

  Both si
des appealed, but the decision was upheld by the Supreme Court on July 30, 2010. The publication ban was lifted a week later. The now-public details of the investigation and trial appalled many. The unwillingness the police showed to pursue Pickton, despite overwhelming evidence, smacked hard of racism, sexism and bias against drug addicts and sex workers. Many felt that police treated crimes against aboriginals, drug addicts, sex workers and, in particular, women as less important than they should have. The police forces of the Vancouver region, already fighting bad reputations decades in the making, looked cold and indifferent to the suffering of the victims because of their own biases. At a time when they were needed most, they came off as unwilling to help.

  And it was in that tumultuous, almost paranoid period that disaster struck a young woman named Ashley Machiskinic. On September 15, 2010, her body was found in an alley behind the Downtown Eastside's notorious Regent Hotel. Answering a 9-1-1 call about a woman falling from the hotel's fifth floor, paramedics found Machiskinic's body at 5:27 p.m. and declared her dead at the scene.

  Several eyewitnesses were interviewed. Some of them said it looked like she fell, others that she had been pushed. Many reported that she had hit her head on overhead electrical wires on her way down. One witness claimed to have seen her shoes thrown down after her.

  Video from cameras in the hotel lobby indicated nothing out of the ordinary. There were no signs of struggle, no indications of weapons and no suicide note. The window in question was quite large and low to the floor. Investigators decided that it would be possible to fall out of it “if sitting or kneeling” in front of it. A chair was found in front of the window, with its back to the outside.

  Machiskinic was exactly the kind of person activists believed police considered second-class citizens. She was of aboriginal descent and she had problems not just with alcohol, but also with cocaine, methamphetamine, morphine and heroin. Diagnosed in 2004 with chronic schizophrenia, she had been hospitalized many times, including one 10-month stint, for mental-health issues.

  The investigators asked the witnesses if anyone might want to harm Machiskinic. There was no shortage of suggestions. All of the people named were interviewed by police, and all denied involvement with her death. All were also able to provide alibis for the time of her death.

  According to the coroner's report, her body revealed severely traumatic injuries to her “anterior surface”—which disagreed with many activists' claims that she landed on her back, which they said was evidence that she was pushed rather than fell—and head injuries consistent with hitting the overhead wires. But there were no injuries that indicated a struggle or altercation.

  The autopsy also revealed that Machiskinic's body contained a “potentially lethal” amount of cocaine and an “elevated” level of alcohol.

  The coroner did not rule out murder, suicide or misfortune.

  Unsatisfied with the investigation and sure the police were not taking the matter seriously, activists—organized and experienced after the Pickton investigation and trial—declared her death a murder. A vigil was held in hopes of drawing attention to Machiskinic's fate on October 4, 2010. Police arrested three of the participants for trespassing.

  At a “town hall” meeting on October 6, 2010, Vancouver police chief Jim Chu faced a series of often shouted criticisms of his officers' unwillingness to help the women of the Downtown Eastside. All Chu could do was to repeat that police could only help victims if witnesses come forward. “The Vancouver Police Department has a commitment to provide safety for all,” he said. “The police department is greatly enhanced if you help us.”

  One woman, who said she lived in the nearby Europe Hotel, responded by saying that she had seen a woman abducted by a man and reported it to police, but they refused to take her seriously even though she had a license plate number for the vehicle.

  One of the most well-known activists, Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women's Support Services, said she knew what was going on: Machiskinic was murdered over a drug debt. “The rapes and the beatings are standard [punishment]. What is a little bit unusual are women's heads being shaved ... and women coming out of windows,” she said. “I know of about six in the last two years. They're not deaths all the time, but to injury or deaththey are thrown out of windows. We know this is a way that drug dealers deal with debts.”

  And she was hardly alone in that opinion. “There's been a few women lately thrown out of windows, at the Balmoral, the Regent,” said Gladys Radek, organizer of Walk 4 Justice, an organization in support of missing and murdered women. “Women missing fingers, wearing wigs because their heads have been shaved ... ”

  Sadly, history backs up their opinion. Hells Angels associates all over B.C. had used violence and even murder to punish debtors. Fingers, even hands, had been severed over relatively small debts. While many make the point that the life of an addict like Ashley Machiskinic may not have been of utmost importance to police, it would certainly mean nothing to a dealer unable to get any more money from her.

  Whether Machiskinic was murdered or not will never be conclusively determined unless someone, perhaps the perpetrator, comes forward. But what's important to remember is that murders and torture over drug debts were happening and are happening. It's a dispiritingly familiar manifestation of the old cliché about drug addiction and supply. People, often in sad circumstances, turn to stimulant or opiate drugs, which are highly addictive. In order to support their habit, they give everything they have or can get their hands on. When they run out of anything of value, they fall into debt with their dealer, leaving them at the dealer's mercy. The drug dealers in British Columbia are not merciful people.

  One of the Hells Angels–affiliated gangs that sold drugs in the Downtown Eastside was the Game Tight Soldiers, who had originated in the neighborhood and were not known as being very merciful. But business had been good, and the gang had expanded to drug-hungry Prince George. A few days after Machiskinic's death, one of the Game Tight Soldiers' founding members, Eric Fiske, and an unnamed female associate went into the woods to retrieve a bag left there for them by another associate. But they did not know that the associate who left the bag there was working with the RCMP.

  When Fiske threw the bag into the back of his pickup, the officers pounced. He was charged with possession of two loaded handguns, a MAC-10 submachine gun with ammunition and 228 grams of cocaine. A subsequent search of his home turned up 56 more grams of cocaine, 159 doses of heroin, 1.5 kilograms of marijuana and other related drug-trafficking paraphernalia.

  Although Prince George is a 10-hour drive from the Downtown Eastside, Fiske's arrest was a stark reminder of the drugs and violence that linked him, the Game Tight Soldiers, the Hells Angels and the entire trafficking world with victims like Machiskinic and Irving.

  In truth, though, victims like Machiskinic and Irving are a lot rarer than dead bodies of the gang members themselves. Fighting for territory with rivals, holding out or not paying on time (even if your stash had been stolen or your grow op robbed) were often punishable by death. Everyone wanted their piece of the pie, and nobody liked to share.

  As glamorous and attractive as the gang lifestyle appeared to be, there was also the grim reality that members—from the high-flying, Maserati-driving overlords to the lowest street-corner crack merchants—woke up every day knowing that they faced death. One mistake, one accident, and their next trip could be to the morgue.

  One of those gang members was Gurmit Singh Dhak, one of the founders of the increasingly powerful Dhak Gang and the man who'd been in injured in the 2007 Quattro shooting. With the vast reduction in size and scope of both the UN and the Red Scorpions/Bacon Brothers, gangs like the Dhaks were gaining business as drug-hungry users looked for suppliers and quality product.

  But Gurmit, who had been shot in a crowded restaurant years before, knew that the gang life was not a good life, despite its obvious rewards. In an effort to dissuade at-risk youth from following the same path he
did, Gurmit agreed to speak with the Odd Squad, a group of police who make presentations to the region's youth to inform them about the dangers of the gangster lifestyle in hopes of de-romanticizing it.

  In a video of the interview, Gurmit, wearing a Raiders cap, answers their questions politely, calmly and knowledgeably. When asked what he thought his future was, Gurmit replied:

  Oh, I'll either probably wind up dead, or ... my future in gangs is ... if I could turn back time, I would never do it again. Every day I've got to look over my shoulder; I've got to worry about my family, I've got to worry about, like, if I jump out of my car, am I going to get shot? Or, you know, I could be walking in the mall, and walking out and getting shot. I don't know.

  When asked if he wanted to get out of gangs, he told them: “Oh, I want to get out. But it's too late now to get out. I have too many enemies.”

  He then said he'd “do anything” to keep his own kids out of gangs, that “deep down” all gangsters were scared and that schools should do more to inform kids exactly how dangerous being in a gang is.

  That tape was made in June 2010. At 5:50 p.m. on October 16, 2010, Burnaby police responded to 9-1-1 calls about shots fired at the Metrotown Mall. When they arrived, they found the bullet-riddled body of Gurmit Singh Dhak slumped over the wheel of his black BMW SUV. Police referred to it as a targeted hit and pointed out that although the mall was open, there were very few people near the site of the shooting and that nobody else was hurt.

  With so much of British Columbia's gang population behind bars or scared to act, more and more veteran gang members were forced to do work they would ordinarily slough off to others. A perfect example of this is what happened to Joseph Bruce Skreptak.

  A full-patch member of the Hells Angels East End chapter, Skreptak was one of the founding members of the Kelowna, or K-Town, chapter. In 2005, police busted a huge grow op in a house he owned, but he managed to get off scot-free because he testified that the marijuana in question belonged to his tenants and that he had no knowledge of their activities. His truck was even parked outside the house when the raid went down.