On April 3, 1979, a violent act shattered the quiet of a residential street in Fabreville, a district of Laval, Quebec. That day, Robert Labelle, a male clothing importer and alleged drug dealer, was killed at his home. His death was not a random act of violence but a calculated execution carried out by one of Canada's most prolific and feared contract killers, a man who would later admit to this murder among dozens of others.
Robert Labelle was known in the criminal underworld as the
leader of a motorcycle gang called the Huns. His killing occurred during a period of intense and bloody conflict between rival biker gangs in Quebec. According to the man who killed him, rumors were circulating that Labelle was planning to have his gang "patch over," or switch allegiance, to the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. The Outlaws were the primary rivals of the Hells Angels, and such a move would have been seen as a direct challenge. The assassin, a key Hells Angels enforcer, was dispatched to eliminate the threat. He went to Labelle's home, knocked on the door, and when Labelle answered, he was shot in the head.
For six years, the murder of Robert Labelle remained officially unsolved, one of many violent deaths that plagued the province during the brutal biker wars of the 1970s and 1980s. The truth finally came to light in 1985 when the killer, fearing for his own life, made a deal with the authorities. The man responsible was Yves "Apache" Trudeau, the Hells Angels' top assassin. Known also as "The Mad Bomber," Trudeau was a founding member of the Hells Angels in Canada and the first to earn the "Filthy Few" patch, reportedly given to members who have killed for the club.
Trudeau's path to becoming an informant began after the Lennoxville Massacre in March 1985, an internal Hells Angels purge where five members of his own Laval "North" chapter were murdered by fellow gang members. Trudeau was supposed to be at the meeting but had checked himself into a detox center for a cocaine addiction, a decision that saved his life. Realizing he was also marked for death and that a $50,000 contract had been placed on his head, Trudeau turned himself over to the police and began to talk.
He confessed to participating in 43 killings between September 1973 and July 1985, providing police with details that closed dozens of cold cases, including the murder of Robert Labelle. Trudeau’s methods were varied and brutal; his victims died from shootings, bombings, beatings, and strangulation. In exchange for his extensive testimony against the Hells Angels and other criminal organizations, which implicated numerous individuals and helped solve scores of murders, Trudeau struck a controversial deal. He pleaded guilty to 43 counts of manslaughter and received a sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after just seven years.
The lenient sentence caused public outrage. Trudeau was granted parole in 1994 and given a new identity. However, his freedom was short-lived. In March 2004, he was arrested for the sexual assault of a young boy. He pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including sexual exploitation and sexual interference, and was sentenced to an additional four years in prison. During this sentencing, the judge remarked, "In your lifetime, you have killed more people than the Canadian military did in the Gulf War."
Yves Trudeau was diagnosed with bone-marrow cancer while incarcerated and was granted parole in July 2008 to be transferred to a medical facility. He died of his illness that same month, closing the final chapter on a life defined by extraordinary violence. The case of Robert Labelle is officially solved, his death a single, stark entry in the long ledger of a killer whose bloody work shaped the history of organized crime in Canada.
