In the years before he was imprisoned for drugs and a murder conspiracy, Montreal Irish mob boss Allan (The Weasel) Ross ordered a pair of gangland slayings he never faced justice for, according to Royal Mounted Canadian Police records: the 1990 Salvatore Luzi homicide and the 1991 murder of Ricky McGurnaghan. The man they called “The Weasel,” for his elusive ways as a criminal, led Canada’s West End Gang in the mid-to-late 1980s and the early 1990s. The 74-year old Ross died of cancer last week in a North Carolina prison hospital. He was convicted out of federal court in Gainesville, Florida for cocaine distribution in May 1992 and sentenced to life behind bars. Shortly thereafter he was found guilty of heading a first-degree homicide conspiracy to kill West End Gang soldier David Singer to cover tracks in a prior mob hit back in 1985. Years later, Ray Desfosses, Ross’ right hand man, would be convicted of paying freelance hit man Gerald Gallant to murder Luzi, McGurnaghan and four others. Prosecutors in Quebec argued that Desfosses was acting on behalf of Ross in taking out the contracts on Luzi and McGurnaghan’s life, but never charged him in the case. Gallant admitted to committing 26 contract murders in his prolific career on the streets working for multiple criminal factions in the Montreal underworld. Ross had been feuding with both Luzi and McGurnhagan in the months before they were slain. Luzi was gunned down on May 28, 1990 after a business partnership with Ross went sour. The pair co-owned a strip club together and Ross suspected Luzi of stealing from him. McGurnaghan, 42, died in a hail of bullets behind the bar at his establishment and headquarters, The Olympic Tavern on March 18, 1991. Spawning from a set of siblings with deep ties to the West End Gang dating back decades, he had gotten into a physical altercation with Ross during the previous holiday season, where he sliced Ross’ check with a broken beer bottle. Two of McGurnaghan’s older brothers had met similar fates. Carl (Porky) McGurnaghan was slain in a September 1968 car bombing. Hughie McGurnaghan was killed in October 1981 finding himself on the losing end of a feud with then-West End Gang boss Frank (Dunny) Ryan over a gambling debt. Ryan was murdered by an underling in 1984 resulting in Ross grabbing the reins of Montreal’s Irish mob. Ross avenged Ryan’s slaying by having the four men involved in the plot executed: three were blown up in a bomb placed in a VCR, one was killed in a drive-by shooting.
