Chad Wilson, a former Hells Angel in San Diego, then Haney,
joined the clubs’s newest chapter when it formed last year.
Hardside chapter of the Hells Angels, From left, Chad Wilson
(formerly of the Haney chapter); Suminder Grewal (formerly of the Haney
chapter); and Jamie Yochlowitz (formerly of the Vancouver chapter)
Firefighters were first called to the scene about 11:30 a.m.
Sunday. They immediately called in the Mounties when they found Wilson’s body.
Friends of Wilson’s, wearing their death head patched Hells
Angels vests, soon showed up at the scene.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team is working with
Ridge Meadows RCMP on the case.
Wilson’s name had not yet been released by police, but
fellow bikers and family were already paying tribute to the dead 43-year-old on
Sunday night. Wilson was a high-profile and popular member of the Hells
Angels and his murder is expected to increase the volatility in the Lower
Mainland motorcycle club landscape.
In fact, he was known to police in several parts of the
world.
In 2013, Wilson was charged in Spain with B.C. Hells Angel
Jason Arkinstall and two associates after police there seized half a tonne of
cocaine from a sailboat that had arrived from Colombia.
The Spanish government said one of the B.C. bikers was on
the vessel, while the others were waiting in Spain. They were arrested in a
restaurant in Pontevedra, a port in the northwest of Spain.
Officials said the drug conspiracy was linked to a member of
the San Diego chapter of the Hells Angels – the same chapter that Wilson had
joined as a prospect on Jan. 28, 2005. Wilson became a full-patch Hells Angel a year later on Jan.
28, 2006.
Within a few months he was sitting in a jail cell in South Dakota, charged along with fellow HA member John Midmore, with attempted murder for an Aug. 8, 2006 gunfight with members of the rival Outlaws biker club.
Within a few months he was sitting in a jail cell in South Dakota, charged along with fellow HA member John Midmore, with attempted murder for an Aug. 8, 2006 gunfight with members of the rival Outlaws biker club.
Several bikers and passersby were struck. One Outlaw was
paralyzed by Wilson.
But both he and Midmore claimed self-defence and were later
acquitted.
Video on the Hells Angels put out by the Vancouver Sun
Wilson, however, pleaded guilty in April 2009 of being an alien in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to four years in jail.
In his letter to the judge, Wilson claimed that he would
have been killed if he had not shot at the Outlaws when he did.
“To have to go through this nightmare I have been through
for the past 983 days…to have people people think I am somehow at fault for the
extreme injuries that not just Mr. Neale, but others suffered as well –
psychological and physical – that is just outright wrong to do to me,” Wilson
complained. “Don’t think for one second that I don’t live with the nightmare in
my head.”
He said he had replayed the events that led to the shootout
“over and over again in my head.”
“I come up with the same answer every time. If I did not
have a gun that day – Auig. 8, 2006 – and I did not shoot back, I would be
DEAD!!” he said. “This situation was 100% out of my control. I have the right
to defend myself. I want to go home. I have everything great waiting for me, my
drilling job, my kids, my wife and my dog and the number one thing, my LIFE!!”
He said being in jail is “true hell that I’ve been through.”
SOURCE: Vancouver Sun