More charges laid in decade-old homicides

Police have laid three first-degree murder charges against a Windsor, N.S., man in a series of RCMP cold cases.

Michael Lawrence, 36, is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Charlie Maddison, Kirk Mersereau and Mersereau's wife Nancy Christensen.

Maddison, 55, disappeared while driving from his home in Portapique, N.S., to a medical appointment in Halifax.

Maddison's body has never been found.

Police believe he gave a ride to the man who murdered him, who then took his truck and drove it to a home in Centre Burlington where he murdered two other people.

Maddison's 88-year-old mother Etta said she is relieved someone will finally have to stand before a judge and face charges in her son's death.

She told CBC News her greatest wish is that her son's body will be brought home.

Maddison left his home on the morning of Sept. 8, 2000. His truck was found burned in a clearing in East Hants two days later. It was the truck that first led police to believe he may have picked up a hitchhiker that day.

Investigators linked the vehicle to a double murder. Mersereau and Christensen were shot to death inside their home on the same weekend that Maddison vanished.

This summer, Hells Angel Jeff Lynds pointed police to a suspect. He told them a man named Michael Lawrence killed Maddison for his truck and then drove to the home of Mersereau to carry out a Hells Angels-ordered hit. Lynds said Mersereau and his wife were murdered and then Lawrence took Maddison's truck to the clearing and set it on fire.

Others charged

Two other men have been charged in the deaths of Christensen and Mersereau.

Curtis Blair Lynds, 34, of North River, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of the couple. He is also accused of being an accessory after the fact in the death of Mersereau's brother Randy.

Randy Mersereau's remains were located during a police search of a property on Hiram Lynds Road in Truro Dec. 5.

The former Hells Angel disappeared 11 years ago during a biker gang war. He was the target of a failed bombing at his car dealership in Bible Hill, and had not been seen since Oct. 31, 1999.

Lynds has been remanded into custody and will appear in Truro provincial court Jan. 12.

Les Greenwood, 41, was arrested at a home in Bramber, Hants County, and charged last week with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Christensen and Kirk Mersereau.

Greenwood was also charged with accessory after the fact in the death of Randy Mersereau. He's due in court Jan. 11.

On Dec. 1, Gerald Leslie MacCabe, 43, of Salmon River in Colchester County was charged with being an accessory after the fact in Randy Mersereau's death.

Dean David Whynott, 44, was arrested at his home in Truro Heights Monday.

Whynott is also charged with accessory after the fact in the death of Randy Mersereau.

Documents filed at provincial court in Truro state police think Jeffrey Albert Lynds killed Randy Mersereau, but he has not been charged in relation to the death.

Jeffrey Albert Lynds was arrested in Truro in May and flown to Montreal to face two charges of first-degree murder in another case. He is charged with killing a hit man and a bystander outside a McDonald's restaurant in Montreal in January.

Lynds has pleaded not guilty to both charges. He will be back in a Montreal courtroom on Jan. 11. He is due back in court in Truro Feb. 3 to face a weapons charge.