Outlaw biker who killed 8 Bandidos members in Ontario dies in prison

An outlaw biker serving a life sentence after being convicted of murder in a 2006 motorcycle gang massacre in southern Ontario has died in custody.

Marcelo Aravena died of apparent natural causes at the age of 50 on Sunday, according to a statement from Correctional Service Canada. Aravena was an inmate at Bath Institution’s Regional Treatment Centre.

CSC said it would review the circumstances of Aravena’s death and that the coroner would be notified as required by policy.

Aravena was a mixed martial arts fighter who lived in Winnipeg before he was recruited into the Bandidos, a Texas-based bike gang with chapters in the Manitoba capital and in Toronto.

He was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of manslaughter as part of the April 2006 slayings that took place at purported mastermind Wayne Kellestine’s barn. The bikers’ bodies were found stuffed into cars and abandoned at a rural property near London, Ont.

During the trial more than a decade ago, the Crown argued the murders were the result of rising tensions between the men who were killed and the probationary Bandidos chapter in Winnipeg.

Kellestine, a member of the Toronto chapter and responsible for internal discipline, began to distance himself from the group and aligned with the Winnipeg group.

Court heard Kellestine had received orders from the U.S. headquarters to strip the Toronto chapter of its gang affiliation, effectively making himself the new national leader. The Winnipeg chapter, including Aravena, was to help carry out the so-called “patch pulling.”

The court also heard that the plan changed to mass murder sometime in the hours before the killing.

Aravena was one of six men tried and convicted of the executions.

In 2009, Aravena appealed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. He and four of the five other men were unsuccessful.

Another appeal was made by Aravena, this time to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2015, but that was dismissed.

A year later, in 2016, Aravena’s third attempt at an appeal, this time to the Supreme Court of Canada, was unsuccessful. The court determined it would not hear the case.

—with files from The Canadian Press