Born in Peterborough into a working class Dutch-Canadian family, van Haarlem joined Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club as a teenager.
[3] On 18 October 1978, Lorne Campbell shot and killed William "Heavy" Matiyek at the Queen's Hotel in Port Hope shortly before 11 pm.
[10] On 23 February 1979 at the preliminary hearing, Ebbs made an alibi defense as he called two witnesses who both stated that van Haarlem was drinking at the King George Hotel in Peterborough on the night of 18 October 1978 and was not in Port Hope as the Crown had claimed.
[15] Van Haarlem insisted that he should not have to do any prison time as he was not at the Queen's Hotel on the night of the murder, leading him to reject the plea bargain.
[17] At the trial, only one of the Crown's witnesses, Helen Ann Mitchell, identified van Haarlem as present at the Queen's Hotel at the time of the Matiyek murder.
[18] She testified that she saw van Haarlem, Gary Comeau, Richard Sauvé, Larry Hurren and David George Hoffman all present at the Queen's Hotel engaged in a discussion just before the murder.
[19] In his defense, van Haarlem took the stand to testify he had been in Port Hope on 17 October 1978 serving as a babysitter for Sauvé and had returned to Peterborough the next day.
[22] In his final submission to the jury, Ebbs noted that numerous witnesses confirmed van Haarlem's alibi while the Crown's only evidence for his guilt was the testimony of Mitchell which was confused on a number of points.
[26] Despite his acquittal, van Haarlem found himself the object of police attention thereafter and his attempts to have the Crown return his property that had been seized were unsuccessful.
[28] Van Haarlem left Satan's Choice and turned his back on his life of crime as he now runs his own welding business in Stony Plain, Alberta.