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Lorne Edgar Campbell
Lorne Edgar Campbell (born 2 September 1948) is a Canadian former outlaw biker and gangster. One of the earliest members of the Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club, which he joined in 1965 at the age of 17, Campbell remained a life-long member of the club, staying on until Satan's Choice joined the Hells Angels in 2000. Campbell served as the president of Satan's Choice Oshawa chapter from 1985 to 1997, and of the Hells Angels' Sudbury chapter from 2001 to 2006, amassing a number of convictions.
Campbell is one of the leading figures associated with the highly controversial "Port Hope 8" case, where he testified that he killed William "Heavy" Matiyek on the night of 18 October 1978 in Port Hope, a crime that six other men were convicted of. The conviction of six of the eight accused of Matiyek's murder despite Campbell's testimony on the witness stand that he had killed him was highly controversial in 1979 and remains so. Campbell's role in the Port 8 Hope case and his life in general has been chronicled in a number of books, most notably the bestsellers A Conspiracy of Brothers by Mick Lowe and Unrepentant by Peter Edwards, and more briefly in the 1990 protest song "Justice in Ontario" by Steve Earle.
Campbell was born in Whitby, Ontario, the son of Lorne Campbell Sr. and Eileen Chaten. His family was of Scottish descent on his paternal side and English and German descent on his maternal side. Campbell's father was a World War II veteran, who was frequently in trouble with the military police during his service, being convicted four times of going AWOL as he took to leaving his military base without permission. Lorne Campbell Senior enlisted in the Canadian Army on 11 November 1941 at the age of 19, having married a woman named Rose Prest, also aged 19, just before his enlistment. Campbell Sr. was assigned to the Lorne Scots regiment. While stationed in England, he fathered a daughter by an Englishwoman named Doris in 1944 and promised her that he would marry her after the war ended. Upon his return to Canada, he married Campbell's mother in 1945. Campbell Sr. worked as a house painter and lived a nomadic lifestyle, constantly moving from address to address, so much so that Lorne Jr. has lost track of all the places that he lived while growing up. The Campbell family was poor and very abusive, with Campbell's father beating his children on a regular basis.
Campbell recalled in a 2011 interview: "Every time I turned around, I got hit by my dad. He said, 'When you grow up, you're going to learn to be a fighter'... Everybody loves their father when they are growing up. So did I. I was his only son. He wanted me to grow up being a fighter. His heart was in the right place. I think that I'm a lot like him". Campbell's childhood heroes were John Wayne and Lee Marvin as he liked the taciturn, tough, macho characters played by the two actors. Campbell saw the 1953 film The Wild One in his late teens and while he despised the Johnny Strabler character played by Marlon Brando as a "faggot" and a "sissy", he greatly admired the Chino character played by Marvin. Much of Campbell's ideals of masculinity were based upon the sort of characters played by Wayne and Marvin.
When he was eight years old, his parents divorced, and the young Campbell was for a time assigned to the custody of an uncle who ignored him as much as possible. Campbell's father had continued to write love letters to Doris in England, and finally left his wife for Doris. As a student, Campbell had an 84 average with his grades. As a child, Campbell was angry and violent as he recalled: "I fought everyday at school". At the age of 14, Campbell was classified as "unmanageable" and was sent to a youth camp at Bowmanville and then another in Cobourg as a ward of the Ontario government. At the camps, Campbell was frequently and savagely beaten by the supervisors, leaving him with a lifetime of physical and emotional scars. One of the supervisors would clench his fist and use the rings on his fingers to rip apart Campbell's skin and flesh. After surviving the youth camps, Campbell was returned to his mother's custody in Oshawa. Her apartment was so shabby that Campbell recalled: "I was embarrassed to bring a girl – or anyone else – to our apartment. I would never take anyone there, except close friends".
As a teenager, Campbell became fascinated with the Phantom Riders Motorcycle Club and their president Bernie Guindon, who would always lead his club in riding down the streets of Oshawa in formation every Saturday night. Guindon eventually became a surrogate father for Campbell. In 1965, Guindon merged the Phantom Riders into a new club called Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club. Later in that year, Campbell joined Satan's Choice at the age of 17. Guindon ran what he called his "fight club" in the basement of his house in Oshawa where he and other young men would engage in brawls. Campbell attended a session of Guindon's "fight club", where he won two boxing matches in Guindon's basement, which led Guindon to personally sponsor Campbell into Satan's Choice. Campbell, a martial arts fan, had the phrase "the gentle art of karate" in Japanese characters, together with "Elinor", tattooed on his arms. In 1967, his girlfriend Elinor gave birth to their daughter Janice. Campbell expressed much contempt for the hippies who looked up to outlaw bikers, saying: "They were professing peace and love and everything and I didn't advocate that at all". Campbell had a reputation as one of the more violent members of Satan's Choice in the 1960s as he recalled: "There weren't machine guns or knives back then, but there were pretty serious fights".
In 1972, Campbell completed a drafting course at Durham College and started a mechanical technician's course, which he never completed. Shortly afterwards, Campbell was appointed the sergeant-at-arms of Satan's Choice Oshawa chapter in charge of enforcing discipline. In 1974, he broke up with Elinor and lost custody of his daughter Janice. Campbell stated: "I wasn't cruel to my daughter, but I was abusive to her mom. I was too nuts, too radical. She was just a beautiful mother and everything. I was too wild to settle down. I was abusive to her mentally and physically. It's not an excuse, but it's a learned behavior from seeing how my dad treated my mother". In 1974, he began to work as an ironworker.
Campbell, together with fellow Satan's Choice member, John Foote, began to work as debt collectors for the Mafia, beating up people behind in their debts to loansharks and drug dealers in exchange for being allowed to keep 50% of the debts when the debtors paid up. Campbell stated of his work: "I collected money for people. I just look at it like they were playing a game. They're not innocent people. They were aware of the consequences. I was totally without remorse. They chose to be in this world". Campbell and Foote usually started with breaking the fingers of their victims as an initiative to pay up. In 1975, Campbell was living at the Oshawa chapter's clubhouse-whose landlord was Bill Stack-with his girlfriend, and he recalled: "We used to screw under the willow tree". The president of the Oshawa chapter, Peter "Rabbit" Pillman, announced at a chapter meeting: "Somebody's fornicating on the front lawn and Bill doesn't want that". Pillman's speech caused much laughter and one member told him: "You know, Peter doesn't what 'fornicating' means. It's too big of a word. Peter, do you know what 'fornicating' means?" Pillman replied: "No, I don't, but I want it stopped!" Campbell was finally forced to explain the meaning of fornication to Pillman and promised no more sex in public least the landlord evict them from their clubhouse.
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Lorne Edgar Campbell
Lorne Edgar Campbell (born 2 September 1948) is a Canadian former outlaw biker and gangster. One of the earliest members of the Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club, which he joined in 1965 at the age of 17, Campbell remained a life-long member of the club, staying on until Satan's Choice joined the Hells Angels in 2000. Campbell served as the president of Satan's Choice Oshawa chapter from 1985 to 1997, and of the Hells Angels' Sudbury chapter from 2001 to 2006, amassing a number of convictions.
Campbell is one of the leading figures associated with the highly controversial "Port Hope 8" case, where he testified that he killed William "Heavy" Matiyek on the night of 18 October 1978 in Port Hope, a crime that six other men were convicted of. The conviction of six of the eight accused of Matiyek's murder despite Campbell's testimony on the witness stand that he had killed him was highly controversial in 1979 and remains so. Campbell's role in the Port 8 Hope case and his life in general has been chronicled in a number of books, most notably the bestsellers A Conspiracy of Brothers by Mick Lowe and Unrepentant by Peter Edwards, and more briefly in the 1990 protest song "Justice in Ontario" by Steve Earle.
Campbell was born in Whitby, Ontario, the son of Lorne Campbell Sr. and Eileen Chaten. His family was of Scottish descent on his paternal side and English and German descent on his maternal side. Campbell's father was a World War II veteran, who was frequently in trouble with the military police during his service, being convicted four times of going AWOL as he took to leaving his military base without permission. Lorne Campbell Senior enlisted in the Canadian Army on 11 November 1941 at the age of 19, having married a woman named Rose Prest, also aged 19, just before his enlistment. Campbell Sr. was assigned to the Lorne Scots regiment. While stationed in England, he fathered a daughter by an Englishwoman named Doris in 1944 and promised her that he would marry her after the war ended. Upon his return to Canada, he married Campbell's mother in 1945. Campbell Sr. worked as a house painter and lived a nomadic lifestyle, constantly moving from address to address, so much so that Lorne Jr. has lost track of all the places that he lived while growing up. The Campbell family was poor and very abusive, with Campbell's father beating his children on a regular basis.
Campbell recalled in a 2011 interview: "Every time I turned around, I got hit by my dad. He said, 'When you grow up, you're going to learn to be a fighter'... Everybody loves their father when they are growing up. So did I. I was his only son. He wanted me to grow up being a fighter. His heart was in the right place. I think that I'm a lot like him". Campbell's childhood heroes were John Wayne and Lee Marvin as he liked the taciturn, tough, macho characters played by the two actors. Campbell saw the 1953 film The Wild One in his late teens and while he despised the Johnny Strabler character played by Marlon Brando as a "faggot" and a "sissy", he greatly admired the Chino character played by Marvin. Much of Campbell's ideals of masculinity were based upon the sort of characters played by Wayne and Marvin.
When he was eight years old, his parents divorced, and the young Campbell was for a time assigned to the custody of an uncle who ignored him as much as possible. Campbell's father had continued to write love letters to Doris in England, and finally left his wife for Doris. As a student, Campbell had an 84 average with his grades. As a child, Campbell was angry and violent as he recalled: "I fought everyday at school". At the age of 14, Campbell was classified as "unmanageable" and was sent to a youth camp at Bowmanville and then another in Cobourg as a ward of the Ontario government. At the camps, Campbell was frequently and savagely beaten by the supervisors, leaving him with a lifetime of physical and emotional scars. One of the supervisors would clench his fist and use the rings on his fingers to rip apart Campbell's skin and flesh. After surviving the youth camps, Campbell was returned to his mother's custody in Oshawa. Her apartment was so shabby that Campbell recalled: "I was embarrassed to bring a girl – or anyone else – to our apartment. I would never take anyone there, except close friends".
As a teenager, Campbell became fascinated with the Phantom Riders Motorcycle Club and their president Bernie Guindon, who would always lead his club in riding down the streets of Oshawa in formation every Saturday night. Guindon eventually became a surrogate father for Campbell. In 1965, Guindon merged the Phantom Riders into a new club called Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club. Later in that year, Campbell joined Satan's Choice at the age of 17. Guindon ran what he called his "fight club" in the basement of his house in Oshawa where he and other young men would engage in brawls. Campbell attended a session of Guindon's "fight club", where he won two boxing matches in Guindon's basement, which led Guindon to personally sponsor Campbell into Satan's Choice. Campbell, a martial arts fan, had the phrase "the gentle art of karate" in Japanese characters, together with "Elinor", tattooed on his arms. In 1967, his girlfriend Elinor gave birth to their daughter Janice. Campbell expressed much contempt for the hippies who looked up to outlaw bikers, saying: "They were professing peace and love and everything and I didn't advocate that at all". Campbell had a reputation as one of the more violent members of Satan's Choice in the 1960s as he recalled: "There weren't machine guns or knives back then, but there were pretty serious fights".
In 1972, Campbell completed a drafting course at Durham College and started a mechanical technician's course, which he never completed. Shortly afterwards, Campbell was appointed the sergeant-at-arms of Satan's Choice Oshawa chapter in charge of enforcing discipline. In 1974, he broke up with Elinor and lost custody of his daughter Janice. Campbell stated: "I wasn't cruel to my daughter, but I was abusive to her mom. I was too nuts, too radical. She was just a beautiful mother and everything. I was too wild to settle down. I was abusive to her mentally and physically. It's not an excuse, but it's a learned behavior from seeing how my dad treated my mother". In 1974, he began to work as an ironworker.
Campbell, together with fellow Satan's Choice member, John Foote, began to work as debt collectors for the Mafia, beating up people behind in their debts to loansharks and drug dealers in exchange for being allowed to keep 50% of the debts when the debtors paid up. Campbell stated of his work: "I collected money for people. I just look at it like they were playing a game. They're not innocent people. They were aware of the consequences. I was totally without remorse. They chose to be in this world". Campbell and Foote usually started with breaking the fingers of their victims as an initiative to pay up. In 1975, Campbell was living at the Oshawa chapter's clubhouse-whose landlord was Bill Stack-with his girlfriend, and he recalled: "We used to screw under the willow tree". The president of the Oshawa chapter, Peter "Rabbit" Pillman, announced at a chapter meeting: "Somebody's fornicating on the front lawn and Bill doesn't want that". Pillman's speech caused much laughter and one member told him: "You know, Peter doesn't what 'fornicating' means. It's too big of a word. Peter, do you know what 'fornicating' means?" Pillman replied: "No, I don't, but I want it stopped!" Campbell was finally forced to explain the meaning of fornication to Pillman and promised no more sex in public least the landlord evict them from their clubhouse.