Montreal's McDonald's murders

Kirk Murray in 1993

   The double murder at the McDonald's in 2010 - elements of which are finally almost done wending their way through courts - demonstrates how the impulse to get high can still fuel violence and betrayal of operatic proportions.
   The affair, which began over minor conflicts of some petty dope dealing, grew until three were shot dead and the mastermind hanged himself in prison.
   The hit men, a pair of brothers, are in prison for life. Another associate is on his way for a 13-year-bid.
   All because some people were ready to pay to get high on crystal meth.
   The violence climaxed in the parking lot of the McDonald's in NDG on January 24, 2010.
   Drug dealer Kirk Murray, 47, and his driver Antonio Onesi, 51, were there to conduct drug business with Robert Simpson and Timothy Simpson, who instead shot them dead.
   The Simpsons chose the spot because they noticed that no cameras from the fast-food joint were pointing to that part of the parking lot.
   Kirk Murray was a convicted murderer working as a drug dealer under Jeffrey Lynds, a Nova Scotia Hells Angel forced to work in Ontario after the Maritimes chapter shut down.
   According to court testimony, Murray wanted to kill Brian Kato McGuire and asked permission of Lynds to do so.
   Murray was reportedly irked that McGuire didn't want to commit rip-offs with him.

   But Lynds liked McGuire, so he instead furtively organized to have Murray killed.
   Meanwhile Lyndrs persuaded Murray to try to kill a guy in a drug burn, an effort which failed after the shooting victim survived.
   Murray had a nasty background. He served a murder sentence after shooting two men dead at the Verdun marina in a stupid drunken dispute over a dog when he was 20.
   Murray's earlier crime has nothing to do with him getting killed later but shows what he was capable of.

   On the night of  May 25, 1983. Butch, as Murray was known, was walking his collie.
   Doug Brecknell, 21, had a German Shepherd and a third man Denis Cormier, 18, had a doberman. Murray and Brecknell quarreled.  Murray went back home to 6th Ave and returned with a shotgun.
   Murray forced Brecknell to beg for his life, according to witness Rodd Brosser, and shot him anyway. Cormier who was not at the initial dispute, dived into the water to avoid the shooting spree but was shot and killed.
   Victim Doug Brecknell had been known as a bully in the area. He had a rough childhood as his father Doug Senior was found murdered and floating in the river when he was a little boy in the 1970s.
   Murray was sentenced to 15 years in prison (with a few days outside due to a temporary escape) and continued in crime upon his official release.
   As for Murray's driver Onesi, he was a father from Chateauguay with lots of kids.
    Robert and Tim Simpson later confessed to pumping Murray full of bullets and firing a fatal round into Onesi's head at the fast-food parking lot.  
    After the shooting Onesi's car rolled down the snowy hill that lies past the edge of the parking lot.
    When the Simpsons completed the deed they texted Lynds with a happy-face emoticon.
   Then they tried to collect their $20,000 payment but Lynds balked and instead concocted a plot to kill another dealer named Mark Stewart, 41, who the Simpsons killed 12 days later.
   On Feb 23, 2011 the Simpsons were sentenced to life for killing Murray and Onesi.

   Lynds was stripped of his Hells Angels membership because the Hells didn't appreciate his unapproved killing spree. He turned informant and then killed himself in prison in the RdP detention centre in Jan 2012. Many investigations were closed when Lynds died, as he was a key witness in several possible prosecutions.

Coincidence: early article on Murray sits adjacent to a
story about a murder at a McDonald's

   Brian "Kato" McGuire, 50, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit homicide and will be sentenced to 13 years on Friday the 13th. Some consider the sentence harsh because he was not seen as being instrumental in the violence.
   McGuire's brother Donald McGuire, 61, has been in prison for a 33 years after being convicted of extortion in affair involving the detainment of a bank manager. He was sentenced to more years behind bars after killing another inmate once inside.
  The Simpson brothers are not related to Jack Arthur Simpson  charged in the killing of Mafioso Salvatore Montagna on Nov. 24, 2011.