Gary Comeau

Gary Joseph Comeau (born 6 January 1952) is a Canadian outlaw biker and one of the Port Hope 8 whose conviction for first degree murder in 1979 is widely considered a miscarriage of justice.

Comeau was born in Scarborough (modern Toronto) into a working class Roman Catholic family who was raised by his mother Betty King and his stepfather Eugene King in a house on Hexham Avenue.

He was educated at the Precious Blood Catholic school where he was a poor student who was often in trouble with the nuns who served as his teachers.

A typical report by one of his nun-teachers, Sister Bertha, stated "Gary has a tendency to bully the other children".

When he was 12, he broke into the Precious Blood school at night and set fire to a wrestling mat, resulting in his expulsion and transfer to the Holy Annunciation school.

In 1967, he dropped out of Porter Collegiate in grade 9 as he had no interest in learning.

In 1968, he started to work as a nut-mixer at the Poppycock candy factory, which led to his nickname of "Nutty".

He was fired for throwing nuts at a female co-worker.

In 1968, he attended a party hosted by the Satan's Choice at the Blue Bird Inn in Richmond Hill, which he described as a scene out of "Sodom and Gomorrah" which his Catholic education had not prepared him for.

Alcohol and marijuana were provided in generous quantities while hundreds of young people were dancing to rock music with most of the young women dancing topless which fascinated Comeau endlessly.

A product of sexually repressive Catholic upbringing, he found scene of uninhibited sexuality with hundreds of young women dancing topless to be the complete anthesis of anything he been brought up to believe, which he found liberating.

Comeau decided he wanted to join Satan's Choice that night as he decided that the life of an outlaw biker was much better than his existence as a high school drop-out working menial jobs.

The police raided the party and Comeau was arrested for marijuana possession, which allowed him to get know several Satan's Choice bikers who were also arrested in the police paddy wagon.

Comeau was initially blocked from joining Satan's Choice as the club rules required that an applicant be sponsored by a current member who had known him for at least five years.

In March 1970, Comeau joined Satan's Choice at the age of 18 after finally finding a sponsor and he became a "full patch" member in May 1970.

Comeau was described as a hyperactive, talkative man bubbling over with energy who was forever scheming and in trouble.

He was first convicted of hashish possession, followed by convictions for drunk driving and "acknowledging bail" as he signed out of the police station after his arrest for impaired driving under a false name.

His most serious conviction yet was for indecent assault for the rape of an young woman at the Toronto clubhouse where his lawyer worked out a plea bargain under which he pledged guilty to indecent assault and served six months in prison.

Comeau insists that he was innocent and claims that the woman had fabricated the claim of rape after someone had stolen her money at a party.

Comeau insists that he did not touch the woman in question, but did not stop the other bikers with having sex with her.

Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of the Toronto Star wrote: "The Crown said the bikers could plead guilty to indecent assault or all be tried for rape. Pleading guilty seemed like the prudent thing to do, but it meant he was still classified as a sex offender".

In 1978, he supported himself via welfare fraud and as a pimp.

Many other Satan's Choice bikers such as Lorne Campbell considered Comeau to be excessively "loud" and overtly fond of crude jokes.

On the evening 18 October 1978, Comeau was drinking and watching a hockey game at the Toronto clubhouse.

At about 9:15 pm, he took a phone call from Richard Sauvé of the Peterborough chapter to say that he wanted some other bikers to be with him as he just been invited to a meeting with William "Heavy" Matieyk of the rival Golden Hawk Riders at the Queen's Hotel in Port Hope.

When Sauvé called again at 9:30 to say that he could not contact any members of the Peterborough chapter, Comeau decided to drive out to Port Hope to assist Sauvé.

Going with Comeau were his best friend Jeff McLeod along with Lorne Campbell, Larry Hurren and Armand Sanguigni.

When Comeau arrived at the Queen's Hotel shortly before 11 pm, there was an atmosphere of fear and tension in the bar-room as everyone expected some sort of confrontation.

Comeau ordered a drink and sat down with a woman drinking at the bar where he introduced himself as a member of Satan's Choice.

Sauvé sat down at the same table with Matiyek and was joined by Comeau.

Both bikers discovered much to their discomfort that Matiyek had a gun and was talking about shooting them.

Lorne Edgar Campbell came to their aid and shot Matiyek, firing three shots, one of which struck Comeau in the arm.

Bleeding, Comeau fled from the Queen's Hotel with a bullet struck in his arm in the same car as Sauvé and Merv Blaker.

They drove first to Toronto, and then to Kitchener to see David Hoffman, the treasurer of the Kitchener chapter whom it was believed would be able to extract the bullet.

The wound was treated in Hoffman's kitchen, and he assure them that he had a friend in Windsor who would be able to remove the bullet.

The man in Windsor turned out to be a crank whose attempts at extracting the bullet only caused Comeau more pain.

Instead, Comeau was smuggled over the border to Detroit to be treated by a doctor as gunshot wounds were common in Detroit.

The wound was treated by an American doctor who told Comeau that there was no bullet in his arm.

Comeau returned to Canada.

During the investigation of Matiyek's murder, the Ontario Provincial Police constable Donald Denis showed witnesses to the murder photographs of Satan's Choice bikers in attempt to identify the killer.