 |
 Ontario police display vests worn by the Bandidos at a news conference in 2006. (CP FILE) |
They were sons, fathers, uncles and brothers.
Their families loved and miss them.
They were bikers -- proud members of the Bandidos brotherhood, murdered on Wayne Kellestine's Southwestern Ontario farm during in an internal club power struggle three years ago.
Yesterday, a day after 44 first-degree murder and four manslaughter convictions came down, the killers were sentenced in court in London to mandatory life terms in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
But first, the court heard six of 24 victim impact statements from the grieving families.
As they listened, two of the killers, Brett Gardiner and Dwight Mushey, stared at the floor.
|
Wayne Kellestine -- "a thug of the first order," as one bereaved mother said, and on whose farm the massacre took place -- listened intently.
Frank Mather stared straight ahead.
Marcelo Aravena leaned back and looked at the ceiling.
Michael Sandham wiped away tears.
The families sobbed.
----
John Muscedere was the rock in his family's life.
He loved "to sing Italian music, train young kids to box," said his daughter Tereasa Muscedere, 24.
"He loved God, he raised all of us to love and respect."
He was a caring son to his parents. And a loving father to his kids.
Tereasa told the court it was like a black cloud descended over the family after her father, the Bandidos Canada president, was murdered.
Muscedere's father died a year after he did, a day after he visited his son's grave. Her grandmother had already cried "365 days straight."
Then Tereasa's young daughter was badly hurt in a car crash that left her with a catastrophic brain injury. Tereasa described how difficult it was to face her daughter's long recovery without her father's love.
"My daughter will never remember the tickle of my father's moustache or the way she loved to jump on the front of his Harley and pretend it was hers," she said. "She will always remember his picture, but never his touch."
She said she faces a lifetime of suffering. "I believe it is their time to suffer," she said about her father's killers.
Outside court, Tereasa said she has some satisfaction now at the close of the case.
"I feel that today justice was served in the courtroom and now I'll pray to God for vengeance and, in the same breath, ask him for forgiveness."
---
"The day of my greatest joy," said Vickie Kriarakis, was 31 years ago when her son George was born.
"I saw the world in his eyes and I knew his future was limitless. Her "special gift" was taken away April 8, 2006.
He was, she said, "the son that any mother would want to have." His "outer and inner beauty were stolen by these men here who all played a pivotal role in my son's death and who had no respect for human life and freedom."
Kriarakis said she and her family didn't know about her son's Bandido affiliation until after his death. She said he was recruited by men "who preached loyalty, respect, honour and brotherhood and who, instead, practised betrayal, disrespect, indignity and hatred."
No mother should live as she does, she said. Often, she wakes up in the middle of the night "and I see the terror in his eyes."
She still expects to hear her son's voice on the phone, or sees him to walk through the door, smiling and laughing. Within a year, Kriarakis's family saw him married, then buried. "I am begging for these men, my son's killers, to be held accountable for their crimes and for justice to be served for the murder of my son," she said.
-----
George Jessome's brother, Kevin Jessome, came all the way from Prince Edward Island to give a tribute to his brother -- a man who loved to play the guitar and bingo and make people laugh.
The tribute came with a poem directed at the murderers, telling them the Jessome family's loss is great.
"Came the day in his life when he met you all.
I believe he called you all brothers, I recall.
I wonder what's the true meaning of a brother as I write.
To me a brother will protect your for life."
Assistant Crown attorney Brian White read comments from Robert Jesso, another brother, who wrote their mother "sees her dead son every night in her nightmares and for her firstborn son every day. It would be fitting for his killers to see the same in their dreams when they get to their new homes," he wrote.
-----
Marilyn DiFlorio, mother of Frank Salerno wanted "to let the world know that Frank had a family that loved him and loves him still."
"Your Honour, I know when this tragedy occurred, many ignorant individuals expressed the opinion that the world was a better place with eight less bikers. This deeply saddened me, because Frank was my son."
He was, she said, "an intelligent, compassionate and sensitive human being," loyal to his friends and loving to his wife and baby son who was only eight weeks old when his father died. "That is all he ever wanted in this life, to have a family of his own to raise and be proud of," she said.
Salerno was "overcoming his struggles" and she was "proud of him for that."
She received the news of his violent death as she stepped off a plane in Switzerland to start a vacation with her daughter.
"We will never understand the brutality that happened. Frank and his friends who died with him were so undeserving of this wicked act."
She said Kellestine is "morally craven, maliciously egotistic" and "a thug of the first order."
Michael Sandham and Dwight Mushey also fall within this category," she said.
"None of these killers should ever be released into society again," she said.
Michael Trotta's sister, her full name not released, said her brother was "denied the right to life."
He was "a free spirit," funny, compassionate and outgoing, she said.
On the night before his death, he and his fiance took photos of him with his son on new furniture they'd bought for their house. They used the pictures to help police identify him through the clothing he wore.
The grief, the fear, the constant media frenzy, took a toll on their family. Trotta's father died within a year of his son.
The family is haunted by how Trotta died. "We can only imagine what he was thinking," his sister said, "What he was feeling as he was forcibly confined by men armed with weapons on a remote farm within a fenced yard, in a cold barn, surrounded by others who were wounded and dying, knowing that his own death was imminent."
Trotta's sister asked for justice for her murdered brother and for her shattered family.
-----
Each murderer was asked if they had anything to say before sentencing.
Aravena, who called the jury "goofs" after he was convicted, tearfully apologized to the families.
"I truly am sorry for what you are going through," he said. "I'll tell you I didn't know this was going to happen, I'll promise you that."
Gardiner also wanted to speak. "I apologize to the families," he said.
All six were dealt concurrent life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years. Aravena and Mather also were sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter, to be served concurrently. Gardiner received two, 10-year manslaughter sentences on top of his life term.
Sandham, Mather, Mushey and Kellestine declined to say anything.
Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney said he wouldn't comment on "the horrific acts of violence" that brought them all to court. The "eloquent outpouring of grief" sufficed.
Along with weapons and DNA orders, Heeney said he would recommend Sandham, Gardiner, Aravena and Mushey -- the Winnipeg chapter of the Bandidos -- be transferred to a prison in Manitoba.
Mather would be sent to New Brunswick.
All six men left the courthouse for the last time, to begin new lives behind prison walls.
Click here for full Bandidos coverage
jane.sims@sunmedia.ca