Bloody Justice

The Truth Behind the Bandidos Massacre at Shedden

(Nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best True Crime Novel)

On the night of April 7, 2006, eight members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang were killed, execution style, and their bodies left in abandoned vehicles in a farmer’s field near London, Ontario.

First reported as the work of a rival club and later portrayed as an internal cleansing, the Shedden Massacre and subsequent trial made international headlines, and led to the conviction of six men on murder and manslaughter charges. The reality of what seemed to many in the public to be an open-and-shut case of bad men doing bad things is much more complex.

Bizarre personalities, competing interests and personal grudges all play their parts, but so do ambition, pride and greed. In Bloody Justice, readers are taken through the friendships, rivalries and events that led up to the slayings, a painstaking recreation of the night itself, and inside the sensational trial that followed.

Anita Arvast, through her research, attendance at the trials, and jailhouse interviews with one of the convicted, details a fascinating case of justice gone awry: at least one man who appears to have been wrongfully convicted, a case by the Crown built around an unreliable witness, and the unsettling revelation that a likely killer has walked free—and been paid for his assistance.

Bloody Justice is a remarkable examination of a shocking crime, and challenges our notions of justice, retribution, and fairness—both in the legal system and the criminal underworld—and shows us that the truth behind these crimes is nothing less than tragedy.

Wiley and Sons. April 2012.

Bloody Justice was acquired from Wiley and Sons by Harper Collins in April 2013. It was also shortlisted for “best Canadian non-fiction crime book” in April 2013 by the Canadian True Crime Writers. In 2019, the rights were returned to the author for further publishing options.