Montrealer Ron "Big Ronnie" McKinnon, (aka Ronnie Owchar, he chose to use his mother's maiden name) has succumbed to cancer at the age of 60 after a lifetime as a bit player in West End Gang drama.
Big Ronnie grew up close friends with the ambitious John McLean, who rose fast in the ranks of the West End Gang after being mentored by Jackie Matticks, the most prominent of a large family of persistent criminals.
Big Ronnie watched his pal McLean rise to become a key player in the Matticks family which controlled drugs coming into Montreal's port.
McLean would haul Ronnie along as he went on various tasks for the Matticks brothers. Big Ronnie and McLean even ventured to Kuujjuaq together one year to work at a bar where patrons were limited to two beers. The two sold some marijuana, cutting in the local RCMP agents to turn a blind eye.
Like all large-sized guys in the West End Gang circles, Big Ronnie was expected to be a ruthless warrior but instead proved more inclined to be a gentle partner to his longtime wife Helen Poole and his stepdaughter.
On one occasion Big Ronnie provided emotional support for his wife after she witnessed a man kill a woman in front of her while the couple was drinking in a room upstairs from the old Palomino Bar on Wellington.
On one occasion Big Ronnie was summoned to venge an attack on his nephew who had been assaulted and robbed of a bicycle. Ronnie was expected to rough the culprit up but instead just let him go with relatively little harm.
Ronnie was not a big devotee of fitness and was known to taxi two blocks rather than walk to such places as his job tending bar at the old Moose Tavern on Knox in Point St. Charles.
On one occasion Big Ronnie was out drinking with McLean when another friend objected to Ronnie taking some rough horseplay too far. The pal hauled back with a stiff right, knocking three of Big Ronnie's teeth through his lower lip. Ronnie, McLean and the other friend continued drinking at Diana Bar unabated in spite of the bloody incident.
Ronnie found himself in a difficult position after the Matticks clan deemed McLean their enemy. The Matticks family was was irritated that McLean had testified against them, leading to Gerry's incarceration in 2001.
McLean left town under witness protection but returned secretly to visit an ailing family member.
The Matticks family was not happy when they learned that Big Ronnie had spent time with McLean upon his brief covert visit.
One day about a decade ago, a pair of masked men approached Ronnie as he was picking his granddaugther up from her school bus on Charlevoix Street.
One of the two assailants shot Big Ronnie in the leg. The attackers were never identified but were thought to be Cody and Jamie Larammee, foot soldiers for Gerry and Richie Matticks.
Big Ronnie later pointed out that at least one of his attackers seemed halfhearted in participating in the ambush.
Doctors opted not to remove the bullet from Big Ronnie's leg, as it was lodged in a precarious spot. The bullet proved problematic for Big Ronnie.
Doctors later declined to offer Big Ronnie a possibly-useful cancer scan, fearing that the procedure would heat the bullet and cause it to displace inside his leg.
Big Ronnie lost considerable weight when hit with heart disease and cancer and succumbed to his illness a few weeks back. He left two sisters and a brother.
McLean remains alive living at an undisclosed location in Western Canada. The Larammee brothers were shot dead in a LaSalle bar in 2013. The double murder was never solved. Several local street thugs found a spot on their skins for tattoos in the brothers' honour. Gerry Matticks remains the only one of his crime clan still alive but the family's influence over the port has largely diminished.