OFF THE WIRE
VANCOUVER — When Looreley Antell learned of the slaying of long-time Hells Angel Juel Stanton Thursday, it brought back terrible memories of the bloody execution of her own son 13 years ago.
Antell is still waiting for justice for son Ernie Ozolins, who left the Hells Angels just months before he and girlfriend Lisa Michelle Chamberlain were shot to death on June 2, 1997 in West Vancouver.
The Metro Vancouver senior is frustrated no one has ever been charged.
"I haven't had peace since the day he was murdered," she said Friday.
"It is all the same gang who does all these murders and they get away with it."
Stanton, 41, was kicked out of the East End Chapter of the Hells Angels just three months before he was gunned down outside his Vancouver home. Ozolins, also 41 when he died, had voluntarily resigned from the Haney Chapter he once headed.
They are among seven B.C. men linked to the biker gang that have been slain or disappeared over the last 17 years. No charges have been laid in any of the cases.
Police and a biker expert say homicides involving the Hells Angels or any organized crime group are particularly tough to solve.
"Any sort of organized crime homicide is inherently difficult to investigate for a variety of reasons," Cpl. Dale Carr, of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, said Friday.
The first obstacle is the reluctance of witnesses to cooperate with police, he said.
And then there is the level of sophistication in some targeted hits, meaning little evidence is left behind.
Sgt. Shinder Kirk, of the Gang Task Force, said he couldn't comment specifically on the Stanton murder, which is being handled by the Vancouver Police.
But he agreed with Carr that "any homicide involving organized crime is extremely difficult to investigate and rarely is there a resolution given the fact that very few witnesses that have intimimate knowledge of what occurred or what was planned come forward."
Even more onerous for police are the disappearances.
"Often times that happens within criminal organizations where a person just disappears," Carr said. "We have to prove they are not just away some place after making a decision to change their lives."
Several prominent Hells Angels have vanished and are presumed dead.
Founding Vancouver Chapter Angel Cedric Baxter Smith went missing from Langley in May 2008.
Carr said his file remains with the Langley RCMP, meaning it has not yet been classified as a murder.
Ozolins' long-time friend and Haney Angel Rick (Blackie) Burgess vanished on Jan. 7, 2002. He was declared legally dead in 2004, but his disappearance has never been solved, nor his body located.
Nanaimo chapter president Michael (Zeke) Mickle disappeared on April 30, 1993. He reportedly owed his fellow Hells Angels a large amount of money related to a cocaine shipment that went awry. The case also remains open.
Some of those murdered were linked to the Angels, but not members.
William (Billy) Moore, president of HA puppet club Renegades, was found shot to death in his car outside his Prince George house in March 2005. The house had been torched.
Prince George RCMP media liaison Gary Godwin said Friday the file remains open and active, though no suspects have been publicly identified.
Both Moore and Cedric Smith had unwittingly worked with a police agent in a drug trafficking scheme that led to convictions against several bikers.
Another unsolved murder of a Hells Angel associate is the October 5, 2000 shooting in Burnaby of Manuel (Manny) Valenti in Burnaby. He was in a car with his wife and toddler when he was sprayed with gunfire.
Julian Sher, co-author of two books on the Hells Angels, said "the culture of silence in the biker world" makes these cases nearly impossible to solve.
"The Hells Angels and other bikers do a great job of covering their tracks," he said.
If murders are inside jobs, no one talks. If it is someone targeting the HA, nobody talks, he said.
"Their attitude is we'll take care of it ourselves."
Antell thinks police could do a lot more in her son's case.
"I am disappointed in the police," she said. "Why haven't they solved Ernie's murder?"
kbolan@vancouversun.com
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