Two of Dillon Brown’s friends wanted nothing to do with his lawsuit involving the Hells Angels and the Devil’s Army Motorcycle Club, a B.C. Supreme Court jury has heard.
Brown, a 30-year-old mixed martial arts fighter, was shot and killed on March 11, 2016 at the Devil’s Army Clubhouse in Campbell River.
His body was found the next day in the trunk of his car, abandoned near the Cable Bridge in Sayward, 75 kilometres north of Campbell River.
Richard Ernest Alexander, the former president of the Devil’s Army, is on trial for the first-degree murder of Brown. He has pleaded not guilty to the crime.
On Thursday, Brown’s friend Christina Knott, a licensed practical nurse who also studied law, testified she had known Brown since 2008. Knott said she started helping Brown in his civil claim against the Voodoo Lounge nightclub in Campbell River in January of 2016.
Brown told her he had been in a fight with some guys and wanted to go after damages from the bar owner, Michael Behm.
“He told me he was jumped and it was over a girl who happened to have dated one of the guys who jumped him,” Knott testified. “Then he told me it was with Hells Angels. … I told him I wanted nothing to do with it after that.”
Prosecutor Lorne Phipps asked Knott what she had observed when she was working at The Quinny bar in Campbell River in 2015-2016.
Members of the Devil’s Army usually came into the bar as a group, she replied.
“They were just known. It’s a small town — everybody knew everybody,” she said.
The bar did not have a no-patch policy and allowed bikers to wear their leather vests, said Knott.
Alexander went to The Quinny, usually with a group of people, some wearing leather vests. A Hells Angels member called “Gino” came to the club with Alexander and other members of the Devil’s Army, she recalled.
Phipps asked Knott if she had seen any “hierarchy” among them.
“I’ve seen Rick buying him drinks. I don’t know if that’s hierarchy,” Knott replied. “Usually, girls were buying [Alexander] drinks.”
Crown prosecutor Kimberly Henders Miller read admissions from Crown witness Dustie Woods into the court record Friday. The admissions said Woods and Brown had known each other their entire lives. She was aware that he trained in mixed martial arts.
According to the admissions, Woods was also aware of a rumour that Brown had been involved in a serious incident at the Voodoo Lounge before November 2015.
Woods was at the nightclub when a fight broke out in the early hours of Nov. 22, 2015. She estimated there were close to 300 people in the lounge that night.
Woods was standing four to five feet away from Brown when the fight began in front of the bar.
“Woods observed the fight involved bikers wearing vests including numbers of the Hells Angels,” the admissions said.
She left the lounge while the fight continued.
In early February 2016, Brown went to Woods’ house and showed her surveillance video of the fight on his laptop. He told her he was going to sue the owner of the Voodoo Lounge and he wanted her to be a witness. She told Brown that she did not want to be involved in the lawsuit.
Woods also knew Alexander personally. In 2015 and 2016, she attended the Devil’s Army clubhouse for social events.
At the beginning of the trial, the jury received a copy of admissions of fact signed by the Crown and by the accused.
The admissions reveal that Alexander deleted all text messages between himself and Brown from his phone.
They also reveal that a surveillance camera in Campbell River captured images of Alexander driving Brown’s Honda at 2:12 p.m. on March 11, 2016.
“Brown’s body was in the trunk,” the admissions said.
At 3:11 p.m. on March 11, Alexander abandoned Brown’s Honda near the Cable Bridge in Sayward, the admissions said.
At 3:16 p.m. that day, surveillance cameras at the Sayward Valley resort captured images of Alexander walking away from the Cable Bridge toward the Sayward Junction.
Images of Alexander were also captured by North Island Safety Traffic police dashboard cameras patrolling the area on March 11. At 3:15 p.m. Alexander is walking towards the Sayward Junction. At 3:24 p.m., he is walking southbound on the Island Highway. At 4:03 p.m., he is in the passenger seat of a Jeep at the Sayward Junction Gas Station.
According to the admissions, Brown’s car keys were found in the Sayward River. Brown’s DNA was found in seven locations in the Devil’s Army Clubhouse.
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