Curtis Lynds pleads guilty in Hells Angels murders 14 years ago

A Colchester County man has pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in connection with a biker gang war that rocked Nova Scotia more than a decade ago.

Curtis Blair Lynds, 38, was supposed to go on trial in Kentville on Monday. Instead, he appeared in a Halifax courtroom on Thursday and pleaded guilty to his involvement in the execution-style killings ​of Barry Kirk Mersereau, 48, and his wife Nancy Christensen, 47.

They were found dead in their home in Centre Burlington in September 2000. They'd been shot.

Mersereau was a drug dealer with connections to the Hells Angels. At the time, police believed Mersereau put a bounty out on any full-patched member of the Hells Angels because he believed the club had his brother killed.

Randy Mersereau, a former Hells Angel, disappeared during a biker gang war in 1999. His remains were found during a police search of a property in Truro in December 2010.

Crown Prosecutor Peter Craig said Lynds didn't actually shoot the married couple, but he was still a central part of the killings.

"There were two individuals that actually killed Mr. Mersereau and Ms. Christensen. Mr. Lynds, to think of it very simply, he was the middle man that arranged the people that did the murder on behalf of another individual," he said.

Gang war was a cold case

Lynds is the third man to be convicted in the couple's deaths.

Michael Lawrence pleaded guilty in January 2012 to first-degree murder in the deaths of Mersereau and Christensen. Later that same year, Leslie Douglas Greenwood was also found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.

Greenwood is appealing his convictions.

According to an agreed statement of facts, Lawrence owed Lynds $28,600. After a botched robbery in 2000, Lynds was angry.

At around the same time, Jeffrey Lynds — the uncle of Curtis Blair Lynds ​— said he wanted Mersereau dead. 

On Sept. 9, Curtis Lynds picked Lawrence up and told him he had another job for him instead of a robbery. He told Lawrence killing Mersereau would cover his debt.

Court documents say Lawrence and Greenwood drove to Mersereau and Christensen's isolated home in a stolen pickup truck. Greenwood went into the house and shot the couple.

Lawrence then went into the house to make sure they were dead by shooting them both at close range in the head. He returned to Lynds's home and was assured his debt was retired.

Jeffrey Lynds​ — once the highest-ranking Hells Angels member in Nova Scotia — died in prison in January 2012 while waiting to be tried on first-degree murder charges.

Curtis Lynds must serve 20 years in prison before he's eligible to apply for parole. He is already serving time in federal prison on drug trafficking charges.