The Ordeal Of Matthew Starkweather

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Matt Starkweather’s 50-month-long ordeal by prosecution continues to mock the ever more vague concept of “justice.”

Starkweather, 36, is a member of the Battle Creek, Michigan chapter of the Iron Coffins Motorcycle Club. In the wee small hours of New Year’s Day 2012 he fell into an argument, during a party at the clubhouse, with former chapter president Lee J. “Leeroy” Taylor – allegedly over $2,500 that Taylor owed Starkweather. The men came to blows twice.. The first time Starkweather prevailed. The second time, Taylor emerged from a bathroom with a baton and a knife. He knocked Starkweather down and stabbed him in the neck. Two other chapter members, John Lindahl III and Mario “Paco” Barroso beat Taylor with the butt of a shotgun until he rolled off Starkweather.

Taylor soon died. Starkweather called the police and was arrested for murder. In the coming weeks Lindahl and Barroso were also arrested. The case was both maudlin and banal but it was a motorcycle club case and motorcycle club cases glow. Homicide is homicide as iron is iron but motorcycle club cases glow as hot iron glows. Biker homicides and hot metal are both special cases and that seems to explain the continuing legal crusade against Starkweather.

Barroso agreed to testify against both Starkweather and Lindahl in return for leniency but his testimony was disappointing and the charges against all three men were dismissed.

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Four months later a new prosecutor named David Gilbert was elected. He craved the heat in the case and in December 2014 he reopened it. He charged Barroso in March 2015 and charged him with murder. Even a blind man could see that Barroso was really being punished for failing to testify cogently enough to convict Starkweather and Lindahl. Gilbert’s argument was that Barroso was a murderer because he handed Lindahl the shotgun Lindahl used to beat Taylor off Starkweather as Taylor was stabbing Starkweather in the neck. Apparently the 67-year-old Barroso had a lawyer but he still agreed to plead no contest to a charge of manslaughter and last year he was sentenced to serve between 71 and 180 months in prison.

Starkweather was charged with murder again in October 2015. He had already spent more than six months in jail after he was charged the first time. He knew in advance that he would be charged again and did not try to flee. But he was still sent back to jail when he was rearrested, labeled a “flight risk” and denied bail again.

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