Terry the Tramp

AS THE RECENTLY FORMED VAGO outlaw organization rolled toward the center of the decade, other motorcycle clubs were heading down a profoundly immoral, harmful, and destructive path. It was all about how evil and how tough a charter could be. Brothers were challenged to commit more malevolent acts to prove themselves. Mindless acts of violence were presented as the standard of behavior, as if there was no recourse. Terry witnessed this growing level of wickedness, rising inexorably like the mercury in a thermometer tossed on a bonfire. He considered leaving the club, but then on one hot summer day his Vago fate was sealed.

Mindless acts of violence were presented as the standard of behavior, as if there was no recourse.

It was a time of the most deadly drug to fuel the outlaw spirit: reds. The chemical secobarbital sodium, originally developed by Eli Lilly and Company and marketed under the brand name Seconal, was a barbiturate derivative drug first synthesized in 1928. It was sold as a sedative and became a very popular one at that. Seobarbital sodium was found in the lifeless bodies of Judy Garland, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Epstein, Tennessee Williams, and Alan Wilson (singer for the band Canned Heat). It is a primary ingredient in the drug Somulose, which is used to euthanize horses and cattle. In other words, it’s some powerful shit.

Popular among celebrity drug addicts for decades, Seconal began to be widely misused by the general public in the 1960s and 1970s, although it became less common with the advent of benzodiazepines. Seconal acquired many nicknames, the most common being “reds,” “red devils,” or “red dillies” (it was originally packaged in red capsules). Other nicknames included “seccies” and “red hearts.” A less common handle was “dolls,” and this bit of slang provided the title for Jacqueline Susann’s novel, Valley of the Dolls, in which the main characters use secobarbital and similar drugs.

Seconal proved popular among motorcycle club members, though some clubs banned its use because it made night riders impervious to fear, turning them into overzealous, indestructible fighters, at least in their own minds. It was notorious for causing fights and enabling brothers to ride like possessed madmen. It also fueled a trick bag that altered Terry’s viewpoint about club life.

The term “trick bag” refers to a situation in which a club member is edging another member, or a prospect, into acting out of character or worse, like a woman enticing a man to be unfaithful just because she can. In the mid-1970s, at a party behind a small home in the San Gabriel Valley, a young member, Silver, was thrust into a deadly trap. Two older members, mature men who should have been brotherly leaders, slipped Silver into a trick bag.”

Gregory “Silver” White was just a young kid, standing all of five-feet six-inches tall, having the time of his life. In the Vagos he found a brotherhood and a family that liked to ride and party as much as he did. When older brothers offered him a drink, drugs, or a girl, he didn’t hesitate. They were his brothers, his extended family, or so he thought. He prospected for the Vagos for a year, never working, just selling reds and acid and being there for his brothers.

Run to see Silver in 1977 at the Tracy Prison in California. Silver wasn’t released until 2010. Vago members helped organize and promote a prison bike show.

“I was a Vago 24/7,” Silver said. He had been a member for four months and was still riding and playing hard when two Vago prospects from Pomona ran into members of the Warlords MC at an Ontario party. Both prospects were stabbed and shot, then sent unceremoniously down the road. That set off the president of the Pomona chapter, Pomona Don, a.k.a. Donny Kelso.

Silver had been partying all weekend and was still loaded on reds, so he was utterly convinced he could do anything.

In this case, the two brothers enticed their young and inexperienced brother Silver into a murder scheme. Silver had been partying all weekend and was still loaded on reds, so he was utterly convinced he could do anything.

“He didn’t even know where he was,” Terry said. “On reds it was all fun and wild pranks.”

Pomona Don devised a scheme to get revenge on the Warlords. They discovered their target inside an industrial park fabrication shop, Custom Design and Fabrication, in the City of Industry. It was 4:30 in the afternoon when David Dupras, nineteen, of Torrance, Charles Evans, thirty-four, of Lawndale, Donald “Donny” Kelso, twenty-five, of Ontario, and Gregory “Silver” White, twenty, of Rowland Heights, invaded the industrial park unit. One of the four fired a single shot into the back of the head of Adlebert Milo Hempy, twenty-six, of Ontario.

Things didn’t go as planned. For starters, their first victim wasn’t a member of the Warlocks. Hempy didn’t belong to any club; he was a loner employee, just doing his job. The attack started out badly and went south from there. Pantaleon Sanchez, twenty-nine, the shop owner and president of the Warlords chapter—their intended target—arrived at the shop after running errands and interrupted the melee. Another carload of Vagos arrived and one of the members shot Sanchez once in the leg through the door of his pickup, but Sanchez was able to speed away and alert the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

Silver astride Parts’s chopper in 1977, at the rare Tracy Prison bike show. During this era, prisoners were able to don their patches and once more be a part of the Vago brotherhood for an afternoon. Photo copyright © 2011 Silver

“Everything went to hell once we were inside the shop,” Silver said. “The intention wasn’t to kill anyone until we stepped into the interior and one member decided he was going to show them how tough Vagos could be.”

The Vagos faced certain doom. The car full of members sped away, but two workers were still sequestered in the shop with the angry, drugged, gun-wielding members. They attempted to force both employees into their 1967 Impala, but one broke free and escaped—another potential witness on the loose. They succeeded in forcing young Michael O’Hara, twenty-six, of Pomona, who was a mechanic in the shop and a Warlords member, at gunpoint into the two-door vehicle with the four Vagos. They drove him thirteen miles to a rural area between Chino and Ontario.

Calls to local law enforcement describing the Impala had already been made by the time the four Vagos drove off the Pomona Freeway at the Long View exit. They skidded under the freeway and around a dusty corner. O’Hara was forced to lie down in the dirt at the side of the road, where Donny shot him three times in the head.

Loaded on reds, they had the fire-breathing balls to drive back toward the City of Industry. They spun around, drove under the freeway toward the on-ramp and got as far as the Pomona Freeway ramp when two undercover sheriff’s deputies recognized their vehicle. The plainclothes sedan rolled off the freeway as they sped up the on-ramp. The officers spun around and gave chase. The cops pulled them over and arrested the four suspects handily. Still stoned out of their minds, they offered no resistance and were booked on suspicion of murder and kidnapping. All the guns were discovered in the car, according to San Bernardino County authorities.

This heinous incident took less than one hour on a sunny Southern California day, yet it haunted families, whole clubs, and individuals for a lifetime. One of the instigators was Charles Evans, who went by the nickname Mute Tommy. He turned on the others and received only three and a half years in jail. He had long, stringy, red hair and a curly red beard, and the rat was grubby to the bone, but he was the first to see through the effects of the reds. Given the devastating position in which he found himself immersed, he began to talk, using sign language.

“He was a deaf mute,” Silver said. “They brought in an interpreter. Tommy spilled his guts, even though he had stayed in the car and didn’t come in the shop.”

After they were arrested they were transported directly to the City of Industry Sheriff’s station and jailed separately. Silver was immediately arraigned on two counts of first-degree murder, charged with being the gunman at two shootings and denied bail due to special circumstances. The others were afforded $100,000 bail, but none could raise the funds to be released. Silver immediately asked to make a phone call and lawyered up. That was enough to stop any interrogation, but because he had no money, he was supplied with a public defender.

A group shot taken at the prison bike show in 1977. When this photo was taken in 1977, prisons had yet to be switched to punishment yards. Many programs like the bike show were denied in future years. Photo copyright © 2011 Silver

The PD separated his trial from the others and moved it from Pomona to downtown Los Angeles. They asked for a judge-only trial, with a black judge who openly fought the death sentence. Within two weeks Silver was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, kidnapping, assault to commit murder, and four gun allegations.

The trials for the other three took place between his conviction and sentencing. Donny Kelso, at five feet, six inches, with scraggly brown hair and full beard—the shortest, most senior member—was the mastermind behind the act of revenge. In a matter of hours the Pomona Chapter member’s act of overt toughness had blown up in his face. He came down from his chest-pounding high and realized he was behind bars, and would be for years to come.

Thief, or David Dupras, was another young Los Angeles member. He had no concept of his drug-induced actions. He was just a nineteen-year-old kid who thought he was stepping up with his brothers to “take care of business.” He had no notion of the gravity of the situation until the drugs and whiskey wore off. Tall, at over six feet, with long, dark black hair, Thief was under the age required to be approved as a full member of the Vagos. The limit was twenty-one.

“He had to have a connection to slip in under the age limit,” Silver said, “So did I. I was one month from turning twenty-one when this went down.”

Within two weeks he was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, kidnapping, assault to commit murder, and four gun allegations.

“I’ll stay in this club until we can get Silver out,” Terry said. With that, Terry sealed his fate as a Vago and kept his promise, but the mindless violence that had landed his brothers in prison made a permanent impression on the man. He remained tough and vigilant, but did everything in his power to keep brothers away from stupid, life-devastating decisions.

“Terry and his brother Parts took me under their wing,” Silver said.

After the second-degree conviction of Donny and Thief and the manslaughter conviction of Mute Tommy, Silver’s convictions were altered to one first-degree murder and one second-degree murder in addition to the other convictions of kidnapping, assault, and gun charges. He was given life plus five with a minimum of seven years.

Terry the Tramp visiting Silver in the Oregon State Penitentiary where Silver served the last fourteen years of his sentence. California has an interstate compact and can transfer prisoners anywhere in the country for various reasons. It took Silver three years to be approved for transfer to a facility closer to his parent’s home. Photo copyright © 2011 Silver

It wasn’t until his eleventh year that he was finally allowed a parole hearing, but he was denied parole under Governor Pete Wilson.

“I should have been paroled in June of 1995,” Silver said, “but legal perceptions were changing.”

He was turned down because the board didn’t feel the judgment properly reflected the severity of the crime. “Parole is not supposed to be based on the severity of the crime,” Silver said. “That never changes, but if the prisoner no longer poses a threat, or has been properly rehabilitated, he should be considered. Terry and the club hooked me up with an attorney and we fought the finding until 2009.”

Because of changing laws Donny and Thief fell into a lucky break and were released in 1982 after just six and one-half years. During his stay in Folsom, Donny lucked into meeting Debbie, a young California girl who started corresponding with prisoners. He married her in 1977. In 1986 he was once again incarcerated after being convicted of home invasion and robbery. While Donny was back in Folsom, Debbie returned to visit often. Donny died in Folsom prison of hepatitis after his liver shut down in 1988, but Debbie continued to visit Silver at the facility and in 1989 the young Vago married the strawberry blonde, who had two sons by Donny. She stuck by him and was at his side when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger afforded Silver a parole date in 2009 after 35 years. The governor changed the prison system’s title from the Department of Corrections to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“There weren’t many rehab programs for high-security level prisoners,” Silver said. “In fact at some facilities the only program available was a drug and alcohol NA meeting. When I asked for more they told me to go to the library and write book reports.”

When Silver was granted a paroled transfer from Sacramento to Arizona, his Sacramento brothers gave him Bugsy, a pug. “I missed dogs and motorcycles while I was in prison,” Silver said. Photo copyright © 2011 Silver

“I always stood by the code that the individual’s actions reflect on the whole,” Silver said. “All you have in prison is your word.”

During the time he spent in prison, he remained an active Vago. “I always stood by the code that the individual’s actions reflect on the whole,” Silver said. “All you have in prison is your word.”

During his incarceration he spent time in a number of California correctional facilities, including Chino, Tracy, Vacaville, Folsom, and San Quentin, and he also did time in the Oregon State Prison. Silver was finally released on parole on January 26, 2010. “I’m on a no-contact-with-the-club parole stipulation,” Silver said, “but as soon as I’m cut loose I will be an active Vago again.”