George Neill, considered one of the key figures in the West End Gang of Montreal has died in Vancouver at the age of 78.
Neill moved to Calgary in the late 1980s and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1991 and then moved to Vancouver.
He was raised in Point St. Charles in a family of five kids and went on to become a large scale importer of contraband leisure products.
Neill was initially brought into the Matticks gang as a young man but later switched over to the Dunie Ryan faction that spent their days at the bar at the Belvedere Hotel, across from what is now The Super C grocery store on Saint James Street W.
Neill was said to be present at Nittolo's on November 14, 1984 when Dunie Ryan was killed by Paul April and others.
I have many, many stories about Neill in the book I have 80% written on the subject of the West End Gang of Montreal, many of them quite outrageous.
He was the divorced father of three.