TRURO - "Healthy skepticism" is being raised over the reported suicide of Hells Angel Jeff Lynds in a Quebec jail cell, a defence lawyer says.
"I think there's a healthy skepticism whether or not he's really dead, seeing as how we've had the cancer rumours in the past, which turned out to be false," Truro lawyer Al Bégin said on Monday, regarding the reported death last Friday of Lynds, 42, of North River.
"I don't know what they would or wouldn't do," he said, regarding whether officials would deliberately mislead the public about Lynds's death. "I don't know what steps they would go to protect somebody who obviously has upset a lot of people. You know, a lot of people who would not be happy with what Mr. Lynds allegedly has said," Begin said.
"I don't know what they would or wouldn't do ... we all know it's happened in the past," he said, regarding people who have been placed in witness protection programs. "But who knows what they would or wouldn't do. He's involved, or allegedly involved, in a lot of missing people."
The Montreal Gazette reported on the weekend that a police source with the Sûreté du Québec had informed them that Jeff Lynds, 42, of North River had killed himself in his Montreal-area jail cell on Friday afternoon.
Lynds, a member of the Hells Angels Nomads chapter in Ontario, had been facing two counts of first-degree murder in the death of a hit man and a bystander outside a McDonald's restaurant in Montreal in January 2009. He was taken by police to Quebec to answer to the charges after being arrested in Truro in May 2010.
Lynds was also connected to several murder cases in Nova Scotia, including that of Hells Angel Randy Mersereau.
Mersereau had been missing for 10 years when his body was discovered in December 2010 following an intense search in a heavily wooded area near lands owned by members of his family.
His nephew Curtis Lynds is facing charges relating to helping dispose of Mersereau's body and also that of Mersereau's brother Barry Kirk Mersereau and that man's common-law wife Nancy Christensen.
Bégin's client, Les Greenwood, is also facing charges related to the deaths of Kirk Mersereau and Christensen.
According to media reports attributed to Quebec police, an autopsy on Lynds was scheduled to be conducted Monday.
Chris Hansen, of the Nova Scotia public prosecution service, said she could not go into detail about the issue because of the ongoing nature of the file, other than to say officials do not think Lynds's death will affect the outcome.
"We are very limited obviously in what we can say but I can tell you that at the moment the prosecutors who are responsible for that case are assessing the development, but they don't expect it to impact on the viability of the prosecution," Hansen said. "So they must be confident."
Bégin said Lynds's death would also not likely have any impact on his client's case. But given the overall circumstances, authorities will have a tough time convincing the general public that Lynds has committed suicide without providing clear-cut evidence.
"If he's dead there's certainly going to be a lot of reassessing by both crown and defense on several matters, not necessarily mine, but I would think a lot of the other cases that are out there, depending on how much Mr. Lynds did or did not have to say on them," Bégin said, adding the only way he would be convinced of the death is if the information came through confirmation from family members who actually get to view Lynds's body.
"You know, if we hear he's cremated then I think there'll be conspiracy theorists going on forever," Begin said.
"By all accounts, Jeff Lynds is not the type of person who would kill himself.
"But certainly there is a healthy dose of skepticism, same as we've had in the past, looking into false allegations of Jeff dying of cancer," he said of past rumours that were subsequently discounted by Lynds's family.
