Alleged serial killer McArthur was seen as ‘minimal’ violence risk
TORONTO • In their reports on Bruce McArthur in 2003, a psychologist and a parole officer gave an innocuous, almost pitiful, portrait of the man who would become the alleged serial killer in Toronto’s Gay Village: He was middle-aged and unemployed, averse to conflict and violence and yearning to be happy after he came out as gay, left his wife and moved away from his kids.
The two reports, presented as exhibits in court after McArthur pleaded guilty to beating a man with a metal pipe, were enough to spare him a prison sentence, since a judge was satisfied he was unlikely to reoffend.
On Wednesday, with McArthur now accused of killing eight men, a judge ordered the public release of the two reports to media.
Though both reports filed in 2003 were largely optimistic about McArthur’s situation at the time, there are hints of a deeper dysfunction.
Psychologist Marie-France Dionne found McArthur was intensely focused on what others thought about him, eager to come off as modest and co-operative. But, Dionne wrote, he could be hiding “strong rebellious feelings that may occasionally break through his front of propriety and restraint.
“He seems to dread making public mistakes or taking risks lest these provoke humiliation and disapproval from authorities,” Dionne wrote in the psychological assessment.
But the psychologist found no signs of major mental illness, no features of personality disorder and “absolutely no signs of psychopathy.”
McArthur himself couldn’t remember the actual 2003 pipe attack, only blacking out and waking up to the victim bloodied on the floor. Since McArthur was epileptic, he thought a seizure might have been behind the blackout and attack, according to the report.
“We are confident to conclude,” Dionne wrote, “that the risk of violence is very minimal.”
Both reports reveal more about McArthur’s childhood and the life he led before joining Toronto’s gay community in the late 1990s. Raised on a farm in rural Ontario, there were often faith-based arguments in the house between his Scottish Presbyterian father, Irish Catholic mother and their family members.
He had a sister, and his mother raised foster children, though McArthur felt his father was “tough on him and made him work harder than the others,” according to a pre-sentence report by probation and parole officer Julia Palladino. He knew he was “different from the other boys and was attracted to the same sex, however he chose to ignore these thoughts and feelings,” the report reads.
“He felt he could never please his father,” Palladino wrote. “Looking back, the subject questions whether this was due to his father sensing his homosexuality or lack of masculinity.”
He didn’t come out as gay until later in life. Through his 20s and 30s, he lived with his wife and two kids, working in men’s clothing sales and singing in his church choir.
When he was 40, Palladino wrote, McArthur started to explore sexual relationships with men. He stopped having sex with his wife for fear of “passing along a sexually transmitted disease.”
When he told his wife he was gay, she initially believed it to be a phase, though they eventually separated in the late 1990s after 25 years of marriage.
In 2003, McArthur reported having a loving relationship with his kids and wife, all of whom supported him despite the separation.
He lived with a roommate in Toronto, who gave him money as he struggled to find work, unwilling to seek a job as a full-time landscaper until the assault case against him was concluded.
McArthur was embarrassed about the case and would only confide in his roommate about it, according to the report.
“The subject hopes to find romance and eventually settle down,” Palladino wrote. “He hopes to be happy with himself and his life decisions.”
SUBJECT HOPES TO FIND ROMANCE AND EVENTUALLY SETTLE DOWN.