Hells Angels member who organized toy runs for kids also arranged 4 illegal cremations to make bodies disappear: Feds

Merl Heferman sentencing

Merl Hefferman, a Hells Angels Motorcycle Club member seen here promoting the organization’s 2018 toy run in Fresno, California, admitted to organizing the illegal cremation of four murder victims to get rid of their bodies, federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. (KMPH)

A Hells Angels Motorcycle Club member arranged to have four bodies cremated in order for them to disappear, federal prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum filed last week in California.

Merl Hefferman, 54, is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty in December to obstructing justice. He was one of 11 Hells Angels members named in a 2018 superseding indictment alleging racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder.

Prosecutors with the Northern District of California wrote that Hefferman admitted he had murder victim Joel Silva’s body illegally cremated on or about June 16, 2014.

“Hefferman obstructed justice. He also caused immense pain to Silva’s family: they had no body to mourn, no closure, and no certainty about what had happened to Silva until the Group 1 Trial in 2022 — nearly eight years after Silva disappeared,” prosecutors wrote.

Levi Phipps, crematory manager at the Yost & Webb Funeral Home in Fresno, testified at the trial of Hefferman’s co-defendants that before Silva’s murder, Hefferman became “fascinated with the crematory” and asked for the keys to the facility so that he could make “something disappear” someday.

The day after Silva was murdered, Hefferman called Phipps to say he “better be” at the crematory. Later that day, two men, one of whom Phipps identified as Hefferman’s stepson, came to the crematory, threatened him with a gun and loaded Silva’s body into the incinerator, prosecutors wrote.

The next day, Hefferman called Phipps to tell him to keep quiet about the illegal cremation. Cellphone records corroborated Phipps’ story, according to prosecutors.

Phipps testified that three other cremations were carried out in a similar fashion. Several months after Silva’s murder, Hefferman facilitated another cremation, this one later identified as Robbie Huff, a former Hells Angels member who went missing on Feb. 11, 2015. Prosecutors say Huff was involved in Silva’s murder and coverup.

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