George Wethern

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George Wethern (* 1939 in Oakland ) is a former American Hells Angel . Since testifying against his former brothers in 1972, he has lived with his wife Helen in a witness protection program .

Life

Wethern grew up in Oakland as the son of a bartender and operator . He dropped out of school at the age of 16 after his girlfriend at the time became pregnant. Under pressure from his mother, he abandoned his girlfriend, who put the child up for adoption, and enlisted in the United States Air Force , where he received a series of disciplinary sentences until he was dishonorably discharged in 1958.

Back in Oakland, he joined the local charter of the Hells Angels , whose president was Sonny Barger . Due to Barger's influence, this charter is considered the "Mother Chapter" (not, as is often wrongly claimed, the "founding charter") of the Hells Angels and in the 1960s and 1970s as the most notorious motorcycle club in the world. After he left the club briefly in 1960, he remained a member of the club from 1960 to 1970. During this time he was Vice President and earned his living mainly as a drug courier. In particular, angel dust and LSD was mainly due to the hippies sold in California. Wethern worked with Owsley Stanley until his arrest in 1967.

After Wethern shot his friend Zorro in 1970 during a psychotic attack due to longstanding drug abuse, he left the Hells Angels, but remained loosely associated with the club. From 1969 to 1972 a total of three bodies were disposed of on his ranch outside of Oakland. The first was that of a young woman who allegedly committed suicide at a Hells Angels party. The other two dead were prospects of the Hells Angels who were killed as a result of a failed prank. However, Wethern had nothing to do with either case.

After a member of the Hells Angels testified, Wethern and his wife Helen were arrested. In prison, Wethern switched sides and testified against his former friends. These statements also incriminated Barger, who was acquitted of the murder charge. Subsequently, Wethern was transferred to a witness protection program with his wife and two children and now lives under a false identity.

Wethern wrote a book with Vincent Colnett about his life up to the witness protection program. His experiences first appeared in the United States in 1978 under the title A Wayward Angel and was reissued in 2004 as A Wayward Angel: The Full-Story of the Hell's Angels by the Former Vice-President of the Oakland Chapter . In 2012, Böser Engel - The true story of the Hells Angels, a German translation was published by Riva-Verlag. He is the first former Hells Angel to testify against the club as a key witness and also the first Hells Angel to publish his experiences as an autobiography .

Works

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ George Wethern: Evil Angel. The real story of the Hells Angel . Riva Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-86883-207-5 , pp. 21st f .
  2. ↑ a b c Thomas Barker: Biker Gangs and Organized Crime . Elsevier, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59345-406-7 , pp. 97 ff .
personal data
SURNAME Wethern, George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Hells Angel
DATE OF BIRTH 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Oakland