Billy Mason’s murder may be tied to rip-off

A drug rip-off with Hells Angels connections may have set in motion a chain of criminal underworld events that ultimately led to the shotgun murder of Billy Mason.

Those links carried on as the accused killer allegedly recruited a hit man to take out the only witness to Billy's death.

In an even voice, Crown attorney Craig Fraser laid out the jarring details of the case against Jeremy Hall on Friday, the opening day of his first-degree murder trial. The eight women and four men of the jury were told for the first time how the Crown's evidence will piece together the final hours of Billy's life, the burning of his corpse and Hall's failed attempt to kill off Jason Lusted because he "had information that could put Hall in jail for a long time."

Sitting behind glass in the prisoner's box, Hall rarely took his eyes off the jury. Dressed in a grey jacket, black collared shirt and blue jeans, he is a beefy man with black rimmed glasses and patchy, dark hair. Tattoos cover his neck.

A dozen of Billy's family members and friends sat tightly together.

On Feb. 24, 2006, William James Mason was "abducted at gunpoint from his apartment in downtown Hamilton by Jeremy Hall and Jason Lusted. Billy was never seen again," the Crown began.

That day Hall, who rented a farm in Alma, near Guelph, and Lusted, who lived near Sarnia, met in Hamilton. They were "business partners of a sort," said Fraser. "Their business was crime."

Together they had stolen cars and committed other thefts.

Hall asked Lusted to go with him "to speak with a guy." They drove Hall's truck to Billy's apartment on Main Street East in Hamilton. A person visiting Billy let them in.

Hall pulled a sawed-off shotgun from under his coat, the Crown said. Lusted hadn't known it was there.

Hall ordered Billy, 27, to come along. In the truck, Hall allegedly asked Billy why he set him up. Billy answered that he hadn't.

On a desolate road in Haldimand County, Hall ordered Billy out of the truck then "shot him once in the torso," according to Fraser. Billy "stumbled off the dirt road into a field where he died."

Lusted panicked. Hall allegedly fired a shot into the air and said to him: "Do you want to be next?"

Hall then pulled out a knife and said he wanted to make sure Billy was dead. Lusted will testify he did not see what happened next.

The men left Billy's body in the field, drove back to Hamilton to pick up Lusted's car. They caravanned to the Niagara region, stopping to fill a jerry can with gas. They parked the truck — stolen weeks earlier — in a farm field and torched it. A passing school bus driver reported the blaze to police.

Lusted got rid of the shotgun by putting it in a car at the East End Auto shop on Barton Street, where Hall knew the owners. Hall retrieved it from there, the Crown said.

On the evening of March 1, Hall and Lusted met in downtown Hamilton, drove to Billy's body, wrapped it in plastic, placed it into the back of another pickup and drove it to Hall's farm. He ordered Lusted to build a bonfire.

"Over the next couple of hours, Billy Mason's body was incinerated," Fraser told the jury. The ashes were placed in animal feed bags.

Over the next few days, Hall called Lusted numerous times. The jury will learn about those phone records, they were told.

In June 2006, Hall told a Hamilton cop in the biker unit that he'd ripped off a drug dealer for cocaine, hash and $ 1,000 cash. Hall said he didn't know until "after the rip" that the dealer was moving drugs for two members of the Hells Angels. Now Hall was worried about his safety and his wife and children.

Hall told the detective his house had been shot at the previous October when he'd been living on Martha Street in Hamilton.

The Crown's theory is Hall thought Billy set him up to rip off drugs tied to the Hells Angels.

"Billy Mason paid with his life for the setup," Fraser told the jury.

It wasn't until 2009 that police talked to Lusted for the first time about Billy's murder. He was reinterviewed in September 2010.

Around the same time, the Crown alleges, Hall hired a man to kill Lusted. The man, armed with a shotgun, hid in the trunk of a car driven by Hall. They went to Lusted's home, he came close to the car, but there were other people around and the hit was aborted.

Soon after, Lusted was charged with being an accessory after the fact to Billy's murder and Hall was arrested for first-degree murder.

Lusted pleaded guilty in December 2010 and was given a sentence of six-and-a-half years, later reduced to four years.

Also Friday, the Crown's first witness was called, a friend of Billy's named Shawna Cowley. She phoned Billy at his apartment around noon on the last day of his life.

"He kind of rushed me off the phone and said he'd call me back," she testified.

She never spoke to him again.

Susan Clairmont's commentary appears regularly in The Spectator. sclairmont@thespec.com

905-526-3539 | @susanclairmont

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