PHOENIX (AZFamily) — One of the seven suspects accused of beating a Queen Creek teen to death in an ambush outside a Halloween house party 2 years ago is expected to learn his fate Friday.
William Owen Hines is the first defendant to strike a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to manslaughter. He is now looking at 10.5 to 21 years behind bars.
Despite the East Valley’s reputation now of being among the safest places in the country, it’s not the first time Gilbert’s been plagued by teen violence.
More than 20 years before the “Gilbert Goons,” another gang known as the “Devil Dogs” terrorized the same community. They were known for recording videos of their underground fight club-style brawls in drained pools.
Matt Browning, a former Mesa detective, reviewed both cases with Arizona’s Family and shared what he believes we can expect as the ‘Gilbert Goons’ face their own day in court. For years, Browning worked for the Mesa Police Department and assisted Gilbert Police whenever it needed help with intel or surveillance.
Arguably, one of his bigger cases was the Devil Dogs, a group that never killed anyone but came very close to it by beating someone to the point of getting a traumatic brain injury.
In 1999, on Memorial Day weekend, 18-year-old Jordan Jarvis was attacked by members of the Devil Dogs. During a court hearing, Jarvis told a judge he was beaten so severely he needed multiple reconstructive surgeries. “It was hard to be jumped by an entire gang,” Jarvis told a judge. “They didn’t even give me a chance to say anything or even stand up.”
Kevin Papa, the man deemed responsible, was sentenced to 2.5 years. That case, however, unveiled a much larger and darker problem. “At one time, they were running dope and selling dope and and everything else,” Browning shared.
A ring run by “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, the mafia hit man turned informant who moved to the Valley as part of the witness-protection program. In that case, all six men pleaded guilty. Five of them received sentences of six months in prison, and one was sentenced to two years.
- Arizona’s Family reporter Alexis Dominguez: What do you see when you look at the devil dogs and compare them to the Gilbert Goons? Do you see similarities? Do you see differences?
- Matt Browning: You just have a bunch of crazy kids running amok. That’s a similarity you have, and I think, quite honestly, I think that’s the only similarity. The Gilbert Goons, you have community support for the victims. You have community support for shutting them down. You had a lot of support for making the arrests. With the Devil Dogs, I don’t think you had any of that. The Devil Dogs, if you wanted to fight one-on-one, they would fight you one-on-one. The Gilbert Goons would never do that. There’s a pack mentality.
The Devil Dogs’ fights were filmed on videotape rather than smartphones for the fights involving the Goons. But there were bigger differences as well. The members were white supremacists who, according to Browning, targeted certain people because of race or sexual orientation.
The Gilbert Goons attacks were random, and no one was safe. “I’m not taking away from the Gilbert Goons because they’re 100% a gang, 100% violent. But the violence that the Goons inflicted compared to the violence that the Devil Dogs could have inflicted if they weren’t shut down, I think it’s totally different,” Browning explained.
Hines is the first suspect in the Preston Lord case to plead guilty. He will be sentenced Friday, while the remaining six suspects: Talan Renner, Treston Billey, Jake Meisner, Talyn Vigil and Taylor Sherman, are all expected to go to trial.
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