Michael James Sandham (born 1970), better known as "Little Beaker", is a Canadian outlaw biker, criminal and convicted murderer currently serving a life sentence for his role in the Shedden massacre of 2006.
[2] Furthermore, Sandham maintained that he fought in the Bosnian War during his time in the Army, performing top secret missions he could not talk about, and to have served as a bodyguard to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and to the royal family, neither claim which is supported by his service records.
[4] After leaving the Army in June 1994, Sandham went to work as a vacuum cleaning salesman in Winnipeg while claiming to be a spy with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
[5] He was so unsuccessful as a salesman that he depended upon the local food bank for his meals as he could not afford to buy groceries and had to ask his wife's grandmother to help pay his rent.
[7] When he joined the Sainte-Anne-des-Chénes police force, Sandham listed his "technical skills" as "martial arts (sixth-dan black belt), demolitions/explosives, riot control, internal security/antiterrorism and parachute training".
[2] To support himself, Sandham worked as a trainer for a security company, once showing how to fight a bear while loading a shotgun at the same time, leading one who attended his seminar to say: "It was certainly more than we expected.
[16] Sandham applied to work for Prairie Bylaw Enforcement and in his resume "made several claims that either dubious or completely untrue" such having been both a commando and a paratrooper with the Canadian Army; to have won 12 martial arts "full contact fights" without a single loss; and to have won numerous black belts in HwaRang Kempo, taekwondo (which he spelled as "taekwon do"), Wing Chun Kung Fu and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
[39] At a meeting between Sandham and Raposo at the house of an outlaw biker named Russell "Ripper" Fullager on 9 September 2005, the Winnipeg Bandido turned police informer known only as M.H.
[41] Despite his own rules about respecting the chain of command, Sandham started to write emails to the Bandidos' "mother chapter" in Houston denouncing Muscedere's leadership and accusing Raposo of embezzlement.
[45] Pike was greatly displeased by the refusal of the "no surrender crew" to return their patches, together with Muscedere's call for a vote to allow the Toronto chapter to stay, bluntly announcing the "Bandido Nation" was not a democracy.
[31] On 7 March 2006, Sandham, Kellestine and "Concrete Dave" Weiche travelled to British Columbia to visit the Peace Arch Park on the American-Canadian border.
[36] The fact that Price had flown from Houston to meet Kellestine and Sandham in the Peace Arch Park suggested he had something especially important to say, that he could not say on the phone or write in an email.
[13] At his trial in 2009, Sandham testified that Price who was representing Pike had told him that Muscedere and the rest of the "no surrender crew" were to be killed with Kellestine to become the new leader of the Canadian Bandidos as the reward.
[55] In his emails to his enemy Raposo after the meeting in the Peace Arch Park, Sandham adopted a mocking, condescending tone of superiority, as he was secure in the knowledge that Houston was on his side.
[62] While stopping in Dryden in northern Ontario, Sandham received a phone call from his common-law wife Kathleen saying that the Bandido Pierre "Carlitto" Aragon had arrived in Winnipeg and was looking for him.
[77] The balance of power within the Winnipeg Bandido chapter had shifted from Sandham, whose tough guy act had been exposed as mere braggadocio, to Mushey, who remained calm and collected, saying he had often done this sort of thing before.
[79] Upon returning to Winnipeg, Sandham, who was as ambitious as ever, started sending emails to Houston denigrating Kellestine as a loose cannon, and demanded he be made Bandido national president instead.
[104] In response, Aragon in an email to Houston first revealed to the American Bandido leaders that Sandham had once been a policeman in Winnipeg (outlaw bikers did not accept current or former policemen into their ranks).
[69] In an email sent to all Bandidos chapters across the world, Pike wrote: "As it turns out, Taz is or was a police officer in Winnipeg when asked about it, he said everybody in Toronto knew about it and didn't have a problem with it.
[117] Sandham stated that at the Peace Arch Park meeting in March 2006 that he had received orders from Price who was speaking on behalf of the American leaders to kill Giovanni Muscedere and Luis Raposo, but that he had refused, saying he was utterly against murder.
[97] On 5 April 2007, Justice Ross Webster concluded the preliminary hearing by ruling the Crown had presented evidence to support the charges of first-degree murder against Sandham plus the other accused, and that the case should go to trial.
[128] The murder trial for Aravena, Gardiner, Kellestine, Mather, Mushey and Sandham commenced on 31 March 2009 in London, Ontario with all six of the accused entering pleas of not guilty.
Sandham, who liked to present himself as a tough guy when he was an outlaw biker, spent most of his time on the stand crying out his eyes, whining that it was "unfair" that he should be charged with first-degree murder for his part in the massacre.
[135] Sandham stated that he had always been a hero, and testified that he had served in the Canadian Airborne Regiment and fought in the Bosnian war, performing classified missions that he could not talk about.
Sandham did testify that he had supposedly ensured that the vehicles carrying the corpses away did not have enough gas, forcing their abandonment near Shedden as a clever ploy to reveal Kellestine was the killer.
[137] Sandham stated that "pulling the patches" on outlaw bikers was a peaceful progress and no violence was planned; which led the Crown attorney Gowdey to ask him if that was the case, why did he wear a bullet-proof vest and have a rifle with him on the night of 7 April?
[140] As Sandham continued to cry his eyes, saying it was only concern for his family that had allegedly prevented him from stopping the massacre, the father of the murder victim George Kriarakis shouted out to him from the gallery: "You didn't think about mine!
[142] At the same time, Sandham complained amidst his tears that it was "unfair" that he should be charged with first degree murder, saying he was the heroic "infiltrator" who had gone undercover to stop the Bandidos, but he was unable to name a single police officer he been in contact with.
Baker wrote that Sandham is a "pathological liar", a deeply dishonest and cowardly man who routinely told the most absurd lies in a vain bid to avoid going to prison for the rest of his life, and nothing he said on the stand can be believed.
[148] Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent for the Toronto Star described Sandham variously as a "habitual liar" and "the George Costanza of the outlaw biker world".