Six members of a Clarksville motorcycle gang have been convicted in federal court in connection with racketeering and the 2017 murder of a man on Cemetery Street in Trenton.
After a three-and-a-half-month trial, the jury convicted James Wesley Frazier, 34, Aelix Santiago, 34, Michael Forrester, 34, Jamie Hern, 43, William Boylston, 32, and Jason Meyerholz, 48, all of Clarksville, Tennessee, for charges including racketeering conspiracy. Also convicted was Derek Leighton Stanley, 48, of Owensboro, Kentucky, for engaging in a drug trafficking conspiracy.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, the Clarksville Mongols were a violent motorcycle gang operating in and around the City of Clarksville. The Clarksville Mongols were a self-described “outlaw” motorcycle club with ties to Mongols chapters nationwide and internationally.
Some of the defendents were responsible for the murders of Stephanie Bradley in Bumpus Mills and Stephen Cole in Trenton.
The TBI says that in November 2017, Cole was kidnapped, brutally beaten, and murdered by the Clarksville Mongols. Cole, who had been a member of the Clarksville Mongols, was believed to have stolen motorcycles belonging to defendant, and fellow gang member, William Boylston.
Boylston felt disrespected by Cole and was concerned about maintaining his standing and reputation among the Clarksville Mongols. Cole was kidnapped from a house in Clarksville, and transported by defendants Boylston and Meyerholz to a shed on Cemetery Street in Trenton, Kentucky, where they interrogated, tortured, and beat him for hours, and then murdered Cole by driving a 10-inch tent stake through his head.
A news release says the defendants also conducted a home invasion in Hopkinsville on July 4, 2015, and pistol whipped the resident and stole his belongings while holding the victim at knifepoint.
Meyerholz and Boylston were convicted for the murder of Cole and Frazier for the murder of Bradley. They face a mandatory life sentence in federal prison, where there is no parole, and the remaining defendants face up to life in prison.