DiManno: A rare look at the scene,
Into the woods and through the trees.
Looking for, and finding, more human remains that may be the further disposal handiwork of accused serial killer Bruce McArthur.
But this time — although it’s hardly the most significant aspect of the search at a Leaside ravine — with reporters and TV cameras in tow, at least for five minutes of see-and-tell. Believe me, Toronto cops have never before in memory been so generous with media.
Gripping guide ropes, picking their way down a steep slope, journalists were given an eyeson experience of the front end of a painstaking forensic process, crews digging with handspades and sifting clots of dirt.
Honestly, jaws dropped in newsrooms throughout the city. Predictably, some “expert” commentators clucked about the risk of contaminating a crime scene and how a defence lawyer, at some future date, might make some hay with that.
“I do something nice and I’m getting backlash from the very people I accommodated, from a couple of the (TV) outlets,” sighed Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga, lead investigator into the murders of at least eight men with ties to the Gay Village.
Idsinga, who was just this past Monday named acting head of the whole homicide squad, has been consumed with the serial murders, Project Prism, since last summer and was for a time also deployed to the earlier Project Houston, which shut down after 18 months, in April 2014, because investigators could find no evidence of a crime in the disappearance of what was then three missing gay men.
“I’m a big advocate of you guys and the public knowing what we do,” the 13-year homicide investigator told the Star. “Here’s a very good example. We allowed them into an area that had a view of the process, an area that had already been cleared, (staying) 40 to 50 feet away.”
The previous evening, at least one media outlet had tried sneaking into the bottom of the ravine. (As someone who has breached security on countless occasions in the past, once scaling the walls of the French Foreign Legion base headquarters in Marseilles, I have no problem with intrepid journalism.)
“Rather than fielding a hundred questions about what’s going on in there, come on, I’ll show you,” continued Idsinga. “There were no concerns about contamination. It’s transparency and, I think, an education piece for everybody to see exactly what’s going on down there, right? The process is impressive to watch. These guys are hanging by ropes, digging by hand, filling buckets, passing the buckets down and the buckets are going into sifters. We’re looking for any scrap that they can find. I have no problems making that public at all.”
Of course, Toronto Police Service, and in particular Chief Mark Saunders, have been roasted for insisting, despite gay men who continued to vanish and alarm bells rung by the gay community, that there was no evidence of a serial murderer at work. Indeed, that claim was reiterated last December, by which time police had already obtained a warrant to search McArthur’s apartment and two other addresses.
The blowback, and a desire to quell the negativity, did not influence Idsinga’s decision, he insists.
“Was I told by command to do it? Absolutely not. It was completely my idea. I looked at what was going on, I said this is pretty impressive, the public should see. I’m not trying to counter anything. I’m not trying to hide anything.’’
The ravine drops away into thick bramble and trees — some of which had to be cut down before the excavation could commence — just behind the Mallory Cres. home where McArthur had worked as a landscaper. That property has been searched four times since January and police retrieved the remains of seven men, found buried inside large planters around the house. McArthur has been charged with eight counts of first-degree murder. No remains have yet been identified as belonging to the eighth alleged victim, Majeed Kayhan.
These are the first remains discovered in a separate area, though upwards of 100 other addresses had been investigated and ruled out.
“Part and parcel of going back to all of these other properties once the weather got warmer was going back with the dogs,” Idsinga said. “And instead of just doing the backyard again, let’s go back into the ravine again and look at this compost pile.’’
That was a few weeks ago. The cadaver dogs got several hits.
There are “multiple” areas in that section of the ravine where the dogs indicated human remains might be buried. The excavation is starting in the central section and will move further east in coming weeks.
“Until we identify the remains that we’ve located, we don’t know if they’re part of the remains that were found in the planters,” Idsinga explained. “Did McArthur (allegedly) move remains into the ravine? Did he (allegedly) specifically bury remains in the ravine? Those are all questions hopefully we’ll be able to answer.”
The best scenario would be if these new-found remains can be connected to Kayhan, meaning there are probably no other unknown and undiscovered victims out there.
But Idsinga wouldn’t be shocked if that weren’t the case, and connected to McArthur.
“I don’t think we’d have too much of a problem tying it to the accused. Geographically, it’s pretty good evidence if we do identify a ninth victim. Obviously the state of the remains and timing will become factors in linking that victim, if we do identify them, to the profile that we’re dealing with. If we do identify a ninth set, it’s not going to be too much of a leap to link it to McArthur.”
Idsinga has never confirmed media reports that investigators found photographs of the victims in McArthur’s apartment or on his computer. Nor has he ever denied it. “I’ve never commented on it.”
While Idsinga has continued investigating other homicide cases — the team he leads gets every sixth murder committed in Toronto and it’s been a highcount casualty list in 2018 — he’s been living and breathing these serial murders for a long time. He, too, wonders where or when it will end.
“You know, I wasn’t overly surprised at finding these (new) remains at Mallory. But in some ways I was. I find myself thinking, hoping, they’re part of the eight victims we already have. We haven’t located a ninth victim but who knows where the investigation will lead.”
Police have made progress delving anew into some 20 cold cases, with no link to McArthur found.
“I’d love to bring the investigation to a close. But we have to make sure we cross everything off that needs to be crossed off. It’s way too important to wish for it to end before it can end. Is it ever going to end? I’m sure it will. But nothing will surprise me.” MEA CULPA & APOLOGY — In a column last week about the new trial ordered for alleged serial rapist Raymond Laurence Burke, I inadvertently transposed arguments filed by the Crown with the decision rendered by the Ontario Court of Appeal. While the Appeal judges did reverse the decision by Justice Julie Thorburn to stay the charges, quotations attributed to the judgment were in fact contained in the Crown’s factum. It was therefore incorrect for me to describe the ruling as having found “a plethora of errors in law” in the original decision by the trial judge to stay the charges. The Appeal Court identified one error in law in its 16-paragraph reasons for decision and noted it was unnecessary to consider other possible grounds for appeal.
I sincerely apologize to Justice Thorburn and to the Ontario Court of Appeal for my mistakes.