Yves Trudeau (biker)

The years 1936 to 1960 is a period of history known to Québécois as the Grande Noirceur ("Great Darkness") when Quebec was mostly ruled by the ultra-conservative Catholic Union Nationale party.

Yves Trudeau (4 February 1946 – July 2008), also known as "Apache" and "The Mad Bomber", was a Canadian outlaw biker, gangster and contract killer.

A former member of the Hells Angels North chapter in Laval, Quebec, Trudeau was the club's leading assassin and a major participant in multiple biker conflicts throughout Canadian history, including the Popeyes–Devils Disciples War, the Satan's Choice–Popeyes War and the First Biker War.

Frustrated by cocaine addiction and his suspicion that his fellow gang members wanted him dead, he became a Crown witness after the Lennoxville massacre.

Starting with the 1960 provincial election, which saw the Union Nationale defeated by the Quebec Liberals, Quebec society experienced sweeping changes known as the Quiet Revolution that saw Quebec go in the space of a decade from being one of the most conservative societies in North America to being one of the most liberal.

As part of the reaction against the "medieval" Catholic social mores of the Grande Noirceur, the Québécois embraced a culture of hedonism in the 1960s with Quebec having for example a significantly higher rate of illegitimate births and drug use than English Canada.

As part of the same backlash against the "suffocating" conformism of the Grande Noirceur, outlaw motorcycle clubs became very popular in Quebec in the 1960s with many French-Canadian young men seeing the outlaw biker culture as a symbol of freedom, rebellion and machismo, and by 1968 la belle province had 350 outlaw biker clubs.

One result of Quebec having so many outlaw motorcycle clubs was a degree of violence and viciousness between the different biker groups that had no parallel in the rest of Canada as there were too many clubs seeking their share of the organized crime rackets, giving Quebec the reputation as the "Red Zone" in the outlaw biker world.

The crime journalist James Dubro stated about the distinctive outlaw biker sub-culture of Quebec: "There's always has been more violence in Quebec. In the biker world it's known as the Red Zone. I remember an Outlaws hit man telling me he was scared going to Montreal."

The Popeye Moto Club, led by Yves Buteau, were the Quebec club that would eventually become Canada's first Hells Angels chapter.

They were considered to be the most violent outlaw biker club in Quebec, and were infamous for engaging in gratuitous and sadistic violence that attracted the attention of the Hells Angels.

The Popeyes were often employed by the Montreal Mafia to perform murders for them.

Trudeau joined the Popeye Moto Club in 1968.

In exchange, he received a lenient sentence – life in prison but eligible for parole after seven years – for the killing of 43 people from September 1973 to July 1985.

The Devils' Disciples and the Montreal chapter of Satan's Choice were engaged in the manufacturing and smuggling of chemical drugs, a market that the Popeyes decided to violently enter in 1974, leading to the biker war.

Trudeau first rose to prominence as the Popeyes' ace assassin during this struggle.

In 1975, the Ontario-based Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club began an alliance with the American Outlaws Motorcycle Club, allowing the Outlaws to gain a way to challenge the supremacy of the Hells Angels in Quebec through access to the Montreal chapter of Satan's Choice.

This led the Hells Angels-backed Popeyes into open conflict with the Satan's Choice Montreal chapter and their Outlaw allies, resulting in a number of casualties on both sides.

The Popeyes had targeted the Devil's Disciples biker gang, who were allies of Satan's Choice.

By January 1976, the Devil's Disciples gang had voted to disband themselves after 15 of their members had been murdered since 1974, thereby giving the Popeye Club control of the area around St. Henri Square.

Dubro said in an interview: "He had this fascination early in life with bikers and military things and weapons and bombs."

Trudeau took a job with an explosives factory to learn how to handle explosives and would become an expert at building bombs.

Pierre de Champlain, a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer who wrote the book Histoire du crime organisé à Montréal, stated in an interview: "He was very professional, very meticulous, and that's why they used his services."

Trudeau scalped one of his victims, which earned him The Moniker "Apache".

On 5 December 1977, Trudeau would be a founding member of the Hells Angels in Quebec in 1977 after the Popeyes patched over.

The North chapter were mostly former Popeyes, and still retained Popeye attitudes, in marked contrast to the Montreal South chapter headed by Lessard, which consisted of men who joined the Angels after 1977 and were more disciplined.

On the night of 17 February 1978, an incident occurred at a bar popular with the Hells Angels, the Brasserie Joey, when two Outlaws chose to drink until they were ejected by the Angels.

When the two Outlaws stood outside cursing the Angels, a green car came down the street out of the snowfall, and briefly stopped while the driver opened fire.

Trudeau was the driver and shooter who killed Côté and wounded the other.

In September 1979, the Hells Angels national president Yves "Le Boss" Buteau broke up the Hells Angels Montreal chapter into a North chapter based in Laval led by Laurent "L'Anglais" Viau and a South chapter based in Sorel-Tracy led bv Réjean "Zig Zig" Lessard.

The reason for the breaking up the chapter into two was that the Montreal chapter had too many members and their clubhouse was becoming too crowded.

Trudeau was assigned to the North chapter.

The North chapter would become known for its violent and reckless behavior and excessive drug use.

After Buteau was assassinated by the Outlaws on 8 September 1983, the rules governing drug use were widely ignored by Viau.

The new Hells Angels national president, Michel "Sky" Langlois, was largely focused on expanding the Hells Angels into the other provinces.

The incident sparked a biker war between the Hells Angels and the Outlaws that was to last until 1984.

Trudeau was granted parole in 1994, and given the new identity of Denis Côté.

He was arrested in March 2004 for sexually assaulting a young boy and received four more years' imprisonment.

In 2007, Trudeau learned he had cancer and was transferred from Archambault penitentiary to a medical centre, where he died in 2008.

He was one of Canada's most notorious and prolific serial killers.