Sisters of presumed victim: ‘We wanted for him to be found alive’
Murder charges in case of missing men a shock but also a relief, they say
TORONTO — The sisters of a man presumed to have been killed after vanishing from Toronto’s gay village said they searched for him for months, only to have their last hope snatched away this week when police charged a man with his murder.
Patricia Kinsman and Karen Coles told a news conference Friday that news of Bruce McArthur’s arrest came as a shock, but also brought respite from the worry and despair that had plagued them since their brother, Andrew Kinsman, went missing last June.
“It’s not what we wanted, we wanted for him to be found alive,” Coles said. “But at least now we know, instead of spending every day thinking, wondering, worrying: ‘Is he injured? Is he hurt? Someone’s hurting him.’ ”
Patricia Kinsman said she and Coles were like second mothers to their brother and looked for him for six months, aided by his friends, co-workers and even strangers.
Both sisters said they had never heard of the man accused of killing their brother and Selim Esen, who also disappeared from the gay village last year.
McArthur, a 66-year-old Toronto man, was arrested and charged with firstdegree murder in the case on Thursday and made a brief appearance in court Friday. He was returned to custody until Feb. 14.
The bodies of Esen and Kinsman have not been found, but police are combing through five properties — four in Toronto, one in Madoc, Ont. — connected to McArthur, a self-employed landscaper.
Police have said they believe McArthur is responsible for the deaths of other men, though they did not say who or what led them to that conclusion. They said new evidence surfaced this week that gave them a “definitive link,” but did not elaborate.
McArthur had sexual relationships with Kinsman and Esen, and all three were on dating apps, police said
Many in Toronto’s LGBTQ community will need time to process and grieve, said Greg Downer, a friend of Kinsman and the founder of a Facebook group called “TO Missing Rainbow Community Members.”
Others who live in, work in or frequent the gay village expressed relief that an arrest had been made, but said they’re angry police didn’t heed their concerns over a possible serial killer earlier.
Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders has defended the force’s handling of the case, saying officers had been working with the evidence they had at the time.
Alphonso King and his husband, John Allan, who knew Kinsman and were among those who packed a downtown Toronto courtroom for McArthur’s brief Friday appearance, said there was hope for closure now that an arrest had been made in the case.
But the pair also said they felt police had put lives at risk by ignoring the community’s concerns over the disappearances for so long.
“The community tried to tell them: ‘We think it’s a serial killer, we think that the cases are related, we think that there’s a possibility that it was all tied to one of the [dating] apps or something like that, that there has to be a link,’ and they assured us that there wasn’t,” King said.
“They completely dismissed that notion. They guaranteed us the cases weren’t related.”