[2] Unlike most other West End Gang members who grew up in poverty, Ross was born into a well off family in the middle class district of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in Montreal.
[5] Initially only a lowly thief and a truck hijacker, Ross started to rise to prominence in 1976 when Ryan put him in charge of the West End Gang's drug operations.
[6] The journalist Dan Burke, who knew Ross as a teenager in the 1970s, recalled that he and his associates liked to play pool at Smitty's Bar, saying it was "like a scene out of Goodfellas.
Another connection Ross forged was with Sidney "Sid" Leithman, a high-profile lawyer who was the preferred defense counsel for gangsters in Montreal.
[5] His first action as leader was to hire the hitman Yves "Apache" Trudeau of the Hells Angels' Laval chapter to hunt down and kill those responsible for the murder of Ryan.
[2] At Ryan's funeral at St. Augustine of Canterbury Catholic Church, the police observed Ross talking to three Hells Angels, namely Laurent "L'anglais" Viau, Michel Blass and Yves Trudeau.
On 19 November 1984, Trudeau visited April's apartment to pay his respects to the self-proclaimed roi de Montréal on behalf of the Hells Angels.
[11] On 25 November 1984, Trudeau and Blass dropped off a TV, a VCR and a video tape to the apartment where Ryan's killers, Paul April and Robert Lelièvre, were hiding.
[2] Also in apartment 917 that day were Gilles Paquette, a petty criminal, and Louis Charles, a professional bank robber who had met April while they were in Saint-Vincent-de-Paul penitentiary.
[2] The third man involved in the plot to kill Ryan, Eddie Philips, was murdered in March 1985 by a West End Gang member David Singer.
[15] On 25 March 1985, Philips was invited to drink with Billy McAllister of the West End Gang at the Victoria Station bar on rue de Jean Talon in Mount Royal.
[2] In May 1985, during a visit to Fort Lauderdale, Ross requested that Quitoni work with Alain Strong, a West End Gang member.
[18] On 28 August 1985, Trudeau, who had turned Crown's evidence after the Lenoxville massacre, testified that it was Ross who had hired him to kill April and Lelièvre in November 1984.
[6] Ryan had often paid the rent of West End Gang members facing eviction, a practice that Ross discontinued.
[2] Forming a partnership with a U.S.-based cell of the Cali Cartel,[21] Ross took charge of a drug smuggling network running from Florida to Quebec.
[25] According to prosecutors, Ross was behind two contract killings carried out by the hitman Gérald Gallant under order from West End Gang lieutenant Raymond Desfossés.
[26] On 18 March 1991, Gallant murdered West End Gang associate Richard "Ricky" McGurnaghan at the Olympic Tavern in Pointe-Saint-Charles.
[27] While Ross ultimately escaped prosecution for the murders of Luzi and McGurnaghan, Gallant and Desfossés pleaded guilty to their roles in the killings in 2009 and 2014, respectively.
[31] An American court guard who heard the exchange reported it to the judge who summoned the detective to chambers to discuss what sounded like an offer of a bribe.
[31] The detective had to explain that the remark was instead a threat as Ross was referring to the assassination of April in 1984 who had been killed by a bomb planted in his new TV which he had received alongside a free VCR.
[31] On 15 May 1992, a jury in Gainesville found Ross guilty of charges of conspiracy to traffic in a least 10,000 kilograms of cocaine plus more than 300 tons of marijuana from 1975 to 1989.
[2] In a letter, Ross stated he had not been able to work within the prison for the last twelve years because of his poor health, while his wife and mother were paying the fine.