Sometimes just driving in the wrong vehicle is enough to earn the ire of a notorious
motorcycle gang. From hiding bodies in concrete to killing entire families,
these are the worst crimes ever committed by the Hells Angels.
It took more than a decade for Hells Angel Thomas Nesbitt to be brought to
justice in Nebraska for the 1975 murder of 19-year-old Mary Kay Harmer. Harmer
was a former high school friend of Kathleen Ray, who lived with Nesbitt. On November 30,
Ray invited Harmer and her roommate Gayla Jorgensen to what she described
as a housewarming party. Nesbitt was waiting at the house, and after the women arrived,
it wasn't long before Ray and Jorgensen left, leaving Harmer alone with the biker.
Details are sketchy, but it was outlined in court documents that Nesbitt later admitted
to Ray and his next-door neighbor Wayne Bieber that he may have sexually assaulted
Harmer. Nesbitt decided to kill her rather than risk the chance of her going to the
authorities. Bieber later testified that he burned Harmer's clothes, and the trio
wrapped her body in carpet before dumping it in a manhole in an unfinished housing development.
When Harmer's skeletal remains were found nine years later, forensic investigators were able to
determine that Nesbitt had unsuccessfully attempted to dissolve her body with lye
before disposing of it. Nesbitt was convicted of murder in 1986 and sentenced to life in prison.
In 1971, a group of Hells Angels descended into New York City for the funeral of Jeffrey Coffey,
one of their own who had been killed in Ohio a week earlier. While in town,
several of the men decided to order some new leather from Eugene Pritzert, who owned
a leather goods store in the East Village. When they returned to pick up their order,
they were told that it wasn't quite ready yet. And that's when all hell broke loose.
The gang of eight men began beating up Pritzert. And then a new target happened upon the scene:
a 17-year old female friend of the proprietor who was in town visiting him from California,
and who had been napping in a back room. For six hours,
the men guarded Pritzert while beating and sexually assaulting the girl,
until Pritzert finally managed to escape and alert the police. All eight men fled the scene,
though they were later identified in a lineup by their young victim. They were slapped with a
series of charges that included sexual assault, criminal trespass, and unlawful imprisonment.
In October 2001, members of the Mesa, Arizona chapter of the Hells Angels took part in a crime
for the pettiest of reasons. 45-year-old Cynthia Garcia had been brought back to
the clubhouse to party by a biker under consideration for membership in the club.
According to the book Angels of Death: Inside the Bikers' Global Crime Empire,
Hells Angels Kevin Augustiniak and Paul Eischeid became violent with Garcia when
she refused to participate in a sexual act. She was then thrown to the floor and attacked until
she lost consciousness. Augustiniak and Eischeid then threw Garcia in the trunk of a car and drove
her out to the desert, where they stabbed her to death and partially decapitated her.
Augustiniak would be convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 23 years in prison,
while Eischeid received a 19-year sentence on the same charge.
"This guy will hopefully, will never get out
of jail, or at least for a long time, for what he did."
The 1977 quadruple murder that took place in the rural town of Gaston, Oregon might never have
been solved if not for its sheer brutality. Young children were killed in cold blood,
an act savage enough to make Hells Angels break their own code of conduct and become informants.
In August of that year, 24-year-old Margo Compton was killed for the transgression
of testifying in a pimping trial against Hells Angel Odis Garrett,
for whom she had served as a sex worker. Compton wasn't simply killed, though. Instead,
her killer, Angel affiliate Robert McClure, first forced her to watch
as he coldly executed her 19-year-old friend Gary Seslar and her 6-year-old twin daughters.
McClure and Garrett weren't convicted of the murders until 1994 and 1995,
respectively. Their convictions happened thanks to the cooperation of inmates who
had heard McClure's boasts about the crime while he was imprisoned for other offenses.
The two men received identical sentences of four consecutive life terms in prison.
In 1984, a member of the Hells Angels' Nomads chapter named David Richards was
sent to prison for life after he brutally killed a 16-year-old boy named Michael
Groves in England. He stabbed him over 50 times and wrote "Hells Angels" on the wall
in his blood. Richards was sentenced to life in prison for the crime. But
in 2005, he managed to escape, and he remained hidden for nearly a decade.
Living under an assumed identity, Richards claimed disability benefits,
went on vacations, and basically lived a normal life. When he was finally recaptured in 2014,
Groves' family made it clear that they were incensed at the perceived lack of
effort on the part of authorities to snare Richards. In response,
Derbyshire Assistant Chief Constable Karl Smethem explained that since Richards was from London,
they assumed that he'd be hiding out there, which turned out not to be the case.
In the summer of 2020, the Jake's Roadhouse bar in Arvada, Colorado became the site of a furious
gun battle between members of the Hells Angels and rival biker gang the Mongols. The dispute
began in the parking lot and quickly spilled out into surrounding blocks. By the end of it,
43-year-old Hells Angel William Henderson was dead of a gunshot wound,
while two of his friends were hospitalized with multiple gunshots. Additionally,
two uninvolved individuals were injured after being run off the road by fleeing bikers,
and another was clinging to life after attempting to break up a fight.
That man was Ryan McPherson, the lead singer of the rock band Nightwolf, who had just finished
up their first set when all hell broke loose. McPherson's bandmate Jay Halpern told CBS News
that his buddy stepped in when he saw a man being beaten with a motorcycle helmet. That weapon was
then turned on him, and he suffered a traumatic brain injury. Seven months after the incident,
ten individuals had been arrested, and McPherson was still on the road to recovery.
"We couldn't believe what was going on."
Hells Angels member Robert Garceau and his girlfriend Maureen Bautista were involved in
the manufacture of methamphetamine, and their relationship was a volatile one.
In the summer of 1984, Garceau became suspicious that Bautista was thinking
of revealing his location to Eddie Nash, a drug dealer to whom Garceau was indebted.
Then in September of that year, Garceau's suspicions apparently overtook him, and he
stabbed Bautista to death at her apartment in front of her 14-year-old son Telesforo,
before turning the knife on the boy as well. He and several accomplices
then smuggled the bodies out in a dresser and concealed them under freshly-poured concrete.
While no physical evidence linked Garceau to the crime, he reportedly blabbed about
it to anyone who would listen. He was eventually convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced
to death. He died of cancer while on death row in 2004 at the age of 58.
David Glasser spent his last few years in mortal fear of Adam Lee Hall,
Sergeant at Arms of the Berkshire, Massachusetts chapter of the Hells Angels. A potential witness
in an assault case that had been brought against Hall, Glasser had been threatened, intimidated,
and beaten up by the Hells Angel. The campaign of harassment ended when Hall and his friends
Caius Veiovis, and David Chalue abducted and killed Glasser and two others in August 2011.
Glasser, his roommate Edward Frampton, and his friend Robert Chadwell were
snatched from Frampton's home and taken to an undisclosed location,
before they were shot dead and dismembered with a circular saw. Hall, Veiovis, and Chalue were all
found guilty of the murders in 2014, with Hall sentenced to three consecutive life sentences.
"The healing process can begin."
One of the most heinous crimes in the history of the Hells Angels was carried
out by Gerald Lester and Charles Diaz of the Vallejo, California chapter. In 1986,
William Grondalski was expelled from that chapter for reasons that remain murky. Authorities later
determined that he may have kept contact open with Terry Dalton, a disgraced former member,
and may also have been selling drugs on the side in his club's territory. Whatever the reason,
in October 1986, Lester and Diaz paid a visit to his house that Grondalski shared
with his wife Patty, his 17-year-old stepson Jeremy, and his five-year-old daughter Dallas.
An argument ensued, and Lester shot Grondalski in the face with a 9-millimeter pistol. Not
wanting to leave any witnesses, he then shot Patty and Jeremy as well. Diaz then attacked
the young girl with a knife. Lester complained that it was taking too long to finish her off,
so he fatally shot her. The two then set the house on fire to attempt to cover up their crimes,
but they left behind enough evidence to point investigators in their direction,
and both were eventually sentenced to life in prison.
In February 1988, Sandusky, Ohio music store manager David Hartlaub was found shot
to death beside his van. He had arrived at a bank to make his nightly deposit,
and at first it appeared like a robbery gone wrong. But then police discovered
that the deposit bag containing about $4,000 in cash hadn't been touched.
The trio of men responsible were affiliated with the local Hells Angels chapter,
but their targeting of Hartlaub was a tragic case of mistaken identity. The men were attempting to
eliminate a member of the rival Outlaw gang as payback for the shooting of one of their own a
year earlier. That man coincidentally happened to drive a van that was identical to Hartlaub's.
This misidentification led to the Hells Angels shooting Hartlaub with a 9-millimeter pistol
inside his van. One of the perpetrators suffered a ricochet wound in the process,
causing him to leave blood stains that served as evidence. Steven Wayne Yee, Mark Verdi, and
John Ray Bonds were all convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and federal firearm offenses.
"There's really very little that a defense attorney can
say when faced with a case like that."
Kevin Thorpe and Laura Craig were a young couple who in 1981 made the fatal mistake
of stopping for some gas at a convenience store. That was where Hells Angel Benjamin
"Psycho" Silva and two friends, Joseph Shelton and Norman Thomas, happened to be hanging out.
The trio had their eyes on Craig, and when the couple departed, they followed. They
used a dashboard light to trick Thorpe into pulling over. Silva and Thomas then forced
their way into the vehicle, and they drove the couple to a remote cabin owned by Shelton with
Shelton following in his car. They tied Thorpe to a tree, leaving him outside in the blistering cold
overnight while they repeatedly sexually assaulted Craig. Finally, Silva and Shelton untied Thorpe,
only to lead him to a hilltop where they took turns shooting him with an assault rifle. Then
they drove Craig a short distance up the road, made her get out of the car, and shot her dead.
Silva and Shelton were eventually sentenced to life in prison,
while Thomas received an 11-year sentence after providing evidence against his accomplices.
In February 1972, Alameda, California longshoreman Bradley Parkhurst and his
friend Clyde Burk went to the home of Connie Perry, who happened to be
the girlfriend of a man who was close with two Hells Angels, Russell Beyea and Marvin Gilbert.
Perry brought the visiting pair down to the basement, where Gilbert was working on a
motorcycle frame. Gilbert commented negatively on the way Parkhurst shook hands by using a racial
slur. When Parkhurst took offense, a fight broke out between the two of them. Perry
ran to get Beyea, who quickly descended the stairs and pushed Burk up against the wall.
Gilbert then proceeded to beat Parkhurst until he was near death and begging for him to stop.
Gilbert and Beyea eventually did relent — they left, leaving the others to tend to
Parkhurst. It was twice attempted to revive him by injecting him with methamphetamines,
which prompted him to go into convulsions. After three and a half hours, Parkhurst died,
and the condition of his body left little doubt as to what had happened. Gilbert
and Beyea were ultimately found guilty of second-degree murder.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault,
help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network
website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).