By David Amoruso for Gangsters Inc.
The difference between a rowdy biker and an outlaw biker is simple. When the beer bottle is empty and the party at its end, the rowdy biker goes home. The outlaw biker doesn’t. He goes to war. Being an outlaw biker is about protecting your club and making sure it is the biggest and strongest club in the city, country or world. That means blood. Lots of it.
Back in the 1990s, the Hells Angels were looking to plant their flag in Illinois. A local motorcycle club by the name Hell’s Henchmen welcomed them to the area with open arms. Members of the two clubs partied together and were eager to join forces.
This did not sit well with the Outlaws motorcycle club. Founded in McCook, Illinois, the Hells Angels were encroaching on their territory. That in itself was enough of an insult to be sufficient cause for violence. But the Outlaws didn’t need any. They had been at war with the Hells Angels since the 1970s.
The Hells Angels cozying up to the Hell’s Henchmen was just the latest chapter in a longstanding war.
The Wolf of the Outlaws
David Wolf was ready and willing to fight in it. As a member of the Outlaws’ Midwest chapter he was eager even. “I put that patch on and I just became somewhat of a monster,” Wolf told the producers of History’s Secrets of the Hells Angels. “Violence can be addicting. Just like sex or gambling or drugs.”
Wolf: “I had told our chapter president I was gung ho. Whatever you need. I’ll put the work in.”
Work presented itself fast. He heard about a guy trying to patch over to the Hells Angels. Outlaws boss Kevin “Spike” O’Neill told him something needed to be done about this guy. “I said so you want him out right?” Wolf remembers. “And he said ‘yeah. Fucking take him out. And if his old lady is there kill her too. Cause if you begin killing these guys old ladies they quit wanting to be Hells Angels.’”
So, in the summer of 1994, Wolf went hunting.
His target was Lamonte “Monte” Mathias, the president of Rockford’s Hell’s Henchmen and owner of M.C. Fabrication, a motorcycle repair shop. A drag racer and biker buff, he could be found at his work from nine to five every day.
Wolf: “I went down there. I partied the night before. Did coke all night. Drank all night. Went there half high half hung over. I grabbed my pistol and went in. It’s not like TV. Just shoot someone once and they go. He got shot a bunch of times didn’t go down.”
“I heard him begging for his life. And I don’t know why that pissed me off but I beat him, broke the butt of the gun. Cause I was out of bullets and then I stabbed him with the screwdriver.”
Wolf walked out of there covered in blood.
That night, the phone rang at the Hells Angels clubhouse in Minneapolis. Charter president Pat Matter picked up the phone. “At the other end of the line a guy said: ‘How many members does it take to have a charter?’” Matter remembers. “I said six.”
The guy on the other end said: “Well you’re one short in Rockford.”
Then he hung up.
Matter: “I don’t know who it was but it was definitely one of the Outlaws.”
Soaked in blood
“We were stoked,” Wolf remembers of that night. “We got in the car blood soaked. High fiving. Yeah! He’s gone! It’s sickening… it’s disgusting, I’m repulsed by the person I was, that I was so excited about violently killing someone.”
Wolf did it all for the club. To protect its turf. No Hells Angels in Illinois. The Outlaws escalated the violence to new heights. In November of 1994, they even bombed the Chicago clubhouse of the Hell’s Henchmen.
Hell’s Henchmen were put through the wringer. Bombs exploded all over the place where Henchmen lived or partied. But in the end the violence only helped the Hells Angels. They saw they could depend on the Henchmen. Members of the Henchmen also knew they were in it for the long haul. Not for the drinks or the parties, they were there for war. Going through it at that very moment.
On December, 5, 1994, the Hell’s Henchmen were voted in to become full patch Hells Angels.
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