Michel Dubé

Dubé was born in and grew up in Sudbury, a mining city in northern Ontario, and became the president of the Sudbury chapter of the Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club. According to his associate, Todd Petahtegoose, Dubé murdered a 13-year old boy in 1986, which he was able to pass off as a suicide.[1]

Dubé was the prime suspect in the murder of Claude Briere, a locally prominent drug dealer who had been his friend since childhood. [1] Briere disappeared in September 1988.[1] Dubé was assisted in killing Briere by Alexander Sretenovic, aka Alex Atso, a "hang-around" with the Satan's Choice Sudbury chapter.[1] Briere's decomposing corpse was discovered in a forest outside of Whitefish on 17 October 1988.[1] The cause of death was by a firearm.[1]

Len Isnor of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)'s Anti-Biker Unit called Dubé the most dangerous outlaw biker in Ontario.[2] Isnor recalled that a biker with a "crazed look" in his eyes that reminded many of Charles Manson once told him that he was terrified of Dubé, who was considered to be an unpredictable and dangerous psychopath.[2] According to those who knew him, Dubé's fondest wish was to attach a powerful bomb to a loaded fuel tanker and to drive it in a suicide attack into a police station in order to kill himself and as many policemen as possible.[3] Dubé's brother, Richard, stated: "He couldn’t turn it around. Prison life was too hard for him. I think there is psychosis produced in those places. When he came out, he was scary. I was even scared of him".[4] The psychiatrist Anthony McFarthing who examined Dubé classified him as a psychopath.[4]

In August 1996, Sretenovic boasted to Petahtegoose that he helped Dubé kill Briere in 1988.[1] Petahtegoose later testified that Sretenovic had told him: "You know about Claude Briere, eh? I was involved in that. I helped Dube kill him"..[1] Petahtegoose testified that he went to Dubé and told him: “I said, ‘Listen, Atso [Sretenovic] is telling me all this shit about Claude, that you and him killed him and dumped him in the woods... I don’t want to know this shit. You better straighten him out because he’s spilling his guts. He’s all coked up... and he’s bragging about it to everyone who will listen."[1]

Sretenovic was last seen alive on the night of 14 August 1996.[1] His skeleton was discovered in a forest outside of Sudbury in May 2019.[1] Accordingly to Petahtegoose, Dubé told him that he killed Sretenovic and helped him dispose of the corpse, which was dumped in one of the vast forests that cover northern Ontario.[1]

Dubé was especially close to the professional wrestler Ion Croitoru, the president of Satan's Choice Hamilton chapter.[5] Both Dúbe and Croitoru purchased the cocaine for their chapters from Richard Vallée of the Hells Angels' Quebec Nomad chapter based in Montreal.[5]

In October 1996, Petahtegoose was arrested after a car chase outside of Espanola.[1] Petahtegoose was charged with dangerous driving and the possession of an illegal weapon, stolen property and narcotics.[1] Petahtegoose turned Crown's evidence out of the belief that Dubé was planning to kill him.[1] In 2002, Petahtegoose told the journalist Aaron Sands of The Ottawa Citize that: "The reason I came forward is because I know he wasn’t going to stop killing people. I wasn’t involved in any of Dube’s crimes. He was out of control and anybody who came into contact with him was in danger of being seriously hurt or killed. I was told by a cop he was a suspect in eight murders".[1]

In late 1996, Croitoru was visiting Sudbury to see Dubé. In the parking lot of the Solid Gold strip club, Croitoru was astonished to see the members of the Sudbury chapter take off their jackets with their patches and place them inside of the trunks of their cars. When he inquired as to why, he was informed that the Solid Gold had a policy of refusing admittance to those wearing gang colors.[6] Croitoru roared at the top of his voice "We wear our colors wherever the fuck we want!", which inspired Dubé to shout "fuck yeah!" in agreement.[6] The assembled Satan's Choice bikers then walked up to the entrance of the Solid Gold wearing jackets with their Satan's Choice patches, where the bouncers promptly refused them all admittance.[6] Infuriated, the bikers continued to try to force their way into the Solid Gold, and the police were called.[6]

Seeking revenge, Croitoru had a member of the Hamilton chapter, Jure "Jerry" Juretta, build a bomb.[7] Juretta was a former soldier in the Canadian Army and was an expert with explosives.[7] Croitoru and Juretta then drove to Sudbury to hand over the bomb to Dubé.[7] The bomb was handed over by Croitoru and Juretta to Dubé and vice-president Brian Davies of the Sudbury chapter at a Tim Horton's where Highway 69 and Notre Dame Avenue intersected in the Lockerby district of South Sudbury.[3]

However, Dubé decided to blow up the Sudbury police station instead. The bomb was planted by Neil Passenen, a friend of Dubé's.[3] The bombing occurred at 2 am just after a Christmas party on 15 December 1996, and only one police dispatcher was wounded by the blast.[8] In December 1997, Dúbe was arrested for the bombing.[9] In July 1998, Petahtegoose testified at a preliminary inquiry (the Canadian equivalent of an American grand jury) that Dubé had murdered Briere and Sretenovic, leading to Dubé being indicted on two counts of first-degree murder.[10]

Facing charges related to the bombing plus two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Sretenovic and Briere, Dubé hanged himself in the Sudbury jail on 22 September 1998.[11] In his suicide note, Dubé wrote: "Waiting around and not being able to take more jail time has (driven) me to this. Take another look at your so-called, reliable witnesses. Fabricated lies. Justice in Ontario".[4]