Yves Trudeau was a member of the Hells Angels in Montreal who admitted taking part in 43 killings between 1970 and 1985, some for the club and some on contract for other groups. In 1985, with his own club turned against him, he became a police informant and the first of his rank to testify against his former associates. He pleaded guilty to 43 counts of manslaughter, not murder. The agreement reduced the time he would serve to roughly seven years, and he was freed in 1994 into a witness protection program. He was convicted again in 2004 of offenses involving a boy under 14. He was released on parole in July 2008 and died that year at the age of 62.
Trudeau joined the Popeyes, a motorcycle club in the east end of Montreal, in 1968, when he was 22. The Popeyes became the first Hells Angels chapter in Canada in December 1977, when the club was absorbed into the Hells Angels in Quebec. By that time Trudeau had already killed four people. His fifth killing came within weeks of the patch-over.
Trudeau later admitted involvement in 43 killings between 1970 and 1985. Estimates of his total are higher.
The deaths attributed to him include those of several people in February 1980, among them a woman and a married couple, and of Hughie McGurnaghan in Westmount on October 27, 1981. The McGurnaghan killing was a contract for a figure in the west-end Montreal underworld.
On November 25, 1984, four men died in Montreal: Paul April, Robert Lelièvre and two others. Trudeau carried out that killing on a contract for the same west-end circle.
On March 24, 1985, five members of the Laval chapter of the Hells Angels were killed at a meeting in Lennoxville, a district of Sherbrooke, in a dispute between the club's two Quebec chapters. Trudeau had been among those the club meant to remove, but he was not at the meeting. He had no part in those five killings. Within weeks he carried out one further killing on the club's behalf, and he was then expelled from the club.
In April 1985 Trudeau was arrested on an unrelated charge and sentenced to a year. While serving it he agreed to testify against the men he had worked with, in exchange for better conditions and a reduced sentence. His first public testimony came at a coroner's inquest in August 1985. His evidence contributed to the conviction of other members of the club, although he was a poor Crown witness at the later trials.
In place of the murder charges he could have faced, Trudeau pleaded guilty to 43 counts of manslaughter. The sentence was life, with eligibility for parole after about seven years under the terms of his informant contract. He served seven or eight years and was released in 1994 into a witness protection program.
Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu later called the arrangement an abuse of the system.
In March 2004, at 57, Trudeau was arrested again and appeared in court at Saint-Jérôme, Quebec. He faced ten charges involving a minor. His bail hearing was put over to April 29 because he had not yet retained a lawyer. In April 2004 he pleaded guilty to six counts involving a boy under 14, and on July 14, 2004 he was sentenced to four years. He completed a program for offenders in 2006.
In July 2008 Trudeau, then 62, was gravely ill. On July 15, 2008 the National Parole Board released him, finding that he was a low risk to reoffend. His conditions barred contact with minors and with the families of his victims. He died later in 2008.
The Hells Angels came to Quebec in December 1977 when they took in the Popeyes. The killings at Lennoxville in March 1985 were later cited by Salvatore Cazzetta as the reason he found affiliation with the Angels unforgivable, and he went on to form the rival Rock Machine. The conflict between the two groups became the Quebec biker war, which ran from 1994 to 2002 and began nearly a decade after Trudeau turned informant.
The total of his killings is not settled. He admitted involvement in 43 and pleaded guilty to 43 counts of manslaughter; he was not tried for murder in any of them, and no court has made findings on any higher figure.
1968: joins the Popeyes in Montreal at 22.
December 1977: the Popeyes become a Hells Angels chapter.
1970 to 1985: the killings he later admitted to.
October 27, 1981: Hughie McGurnaghan killed in Westmount.
November 25, 1984: four men killed in Montreal.
March 24, 1985: five Laval chapter members killed at Lennoxville.
April 1985: arrested on an unrelated charge; sentenced to a year.
August 1985: first testimony at a coroner's inquest.
1980s: pleads guilty to 43 counts of manslaughter; life, with parole eligibility after about seven years.
1994: released into witness protection.
March 16, 2004: arrested; April 2004: pleads guilty to six counts; July 14, 2004: sentenced to four years.
July 15, 2008: released on parole.
2008: dies at 62.