New look at police probe of missing men
Documents shed light on early investigation into alleged McArthur victims
A key observation in the Bruce McArthur investigation appears in court documents submitted by police in January 2013 — five years before the alleged serial killer’s arrest.
Toronto police had been investigating the disappearance of Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, who had gone missing from the city’s Gay Village in September 2010.
After few leads and no new evidence, an examination of other disappearances made police pick up on a pattern.
“During an investigation into other outstanding missing persons in the gay community, this occurrence as well as two other missing males of similar ethnic background have come to light,” a Toronto police detective wrote.
“This is a serious concern for the Toronto Police Service and further investigation is required to rule out or confirm criminal activity.”
Court documents unsealed by an Ontario judge Friday provide a limited glimpse into the police task force known as Project Houston.
This ultimately unsuccessful probe examined the disappearances of three men now believed to be among alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur’s eight victims.
They also show that years before McArthur became a murder suspect, police were homing in on areas McArthur was known to frequent — including Silver Daddies, a gay dating app used by McArthur, and bars within the Gay Village.
However, there is no mention of McArthur as a suspect in the newly released documents.
Following an application by the Toronto Star and other media, Justice Cathy Mocha on Friday approved the partial release of “information to obtain” (ITO) documents.
These are affidavits filed when police are asking for the court’s permission for certain investigative actions, such as obtaining search warrants, seeking access to bank records and more.
The documents typically contain fresh details about an investigation, including summaries of evidence.
The vast majority of the information in the ITOs released Friday has been redacted by the court.
But the documents do provide a peek inside the initial probe into the disappearances of Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, and Majeed Kayhan, 58.
The three men, who disappeared from the vicinity of the Gay Village between 2010 and 2012, became the subjects of Project Houston, which launched in November 2012.
At one point, in September 2013, the documents state police believed Navaratnam and Faizi were “murdered.”
The ITO documents provide a partial view of the wide net investigators cast in their efforts to determine who the men communicated with — and what they did — in the days and weeks before their disappearances.
Among the companies police targeted for clues: Yahoo!, Telus Communications, Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, Scotiabank, CIBC and Cogeco Cable Canada LP.
They also sought search warrants for addresses and tracking warrants for vehicles.
Project Houston ended after 18 months, when police could find “no evidence to suggest criminal activity.”
The early investigation into the men’s disappearances — and the decision to end Project Houston — has been the subject of heated criticism after the arrest of McArthur, the 66-yearold landscaper accused of eight counts of first-degree murder — including all three Project Houston men.
After the project ended in April 2014, it is alleged that McArthur went on to kill five more men — Andrew Kinsman, 49, Selim Esen, 44, Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, 37, Dean Lisowick, 47, and Soroush Mahmudi, 50.
Police sources have previously told the Star that McArthur was questioned around the time of Project Houston.
But McArthur did not become a murder suspect until November 2017 — in the death of Kinsman.
As previously reported by the Star and other media, Project Houston homed in for months on the wrong suspect — Peterborough man James Alex Brunton.
Police had received a tip that potentially linked him to Navaratnam.
And for a period between late 2012 and June 2013, the project became a homicide probe, pursuing evidence that he’d become the victim of a cannibalism ring.
Documents unsealed by the courts in June showed investigators obtained warrants to search Brunton’s Peterborough home, track a vehicle registered to his address and intercept communications within the home,.
The documents also showed a confidential informant and an undercover officer were involved in the investigation.
When that evidence was discounted — Brunton was later cleared as a murder suspect, but arrested on child-porn charges — the case was no longer a homicide investigation.
Questions and criticisms over the force’s handling of its investigation into the disappearances of Navaratnam, Kayhan and Faizi — as well as those of five other men, most with ties to the Gay Village and of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent — prompted the Toronto Police Services Board to commission an independent review of how missing persons cases are investigated.
The high-profile review, presided over by former Ontario Superior Court Justice Gloria Epstein, is looking at the policies and practices employed during missing persons investigations and whether discrimination or bias may have had an effect.
That review is in addition to another internal review police are conducting into how they conduct missing persons investigations. The ITO documents show Toronto police made inquiries concerning three accounts on SilverDaddies.com sometime around January 2013.
The website is a “meeting place for mature men and other men ... who are interested in keeping their daddy happy and/ or sexually satisfied,” according to the documents.
What, if anything, investigators gleaned from this is blacked-out in the documents.
McArthur had a SilverDaddies.com account, and as previously reported by the Star, he used it to connect with at least one man — a closeted, Middle Eastern man living in Toronto, who anonymously spoke to the Star.
He said the men had sex in a bathhouse, but the relationship didn’t progress due to McArthur’s allegedly rough sexual preferences.
The documents also provide a snapshot of the turmoil faced by the missing men’s families and friends as they grew more worried.
One October 2010 request for a production order for Telus Communications contains a summary of investigative work done by police looking into Navaratnam’s disappearance. The summary shows that on Sept. 26, 2010 — 10 days after Navaratnam was reported missing by a friend — a police sergeant, accompanied by 16 of Navaratnam’s friends and concerned community members, did a walk-through of trails adjacent to both the east and west side of Riverdale Park and checked a densely wooded area south of Bloor St. E.
“This area is apparently used as a meeting/pickup place by members of the gay community. Nothing of any evidentiary value located; no further information obtained,” reads the document, which stresses the exercise was a “walk-through” and “not a search.”
Five days later, on Oct. 1, 2010, police conducted a cadaver search of the area with a dog but found nothing.
At one point, a toothbrush and a disposable razor, believed to belong to Navaratnam, were submitted to the Centre of Forensic Sciences.
It’s not clear what occurred next, as the following paragraphs are redacted.
In an ITO seeking a production order for a Burlington credit bureau in January 2013, police detail how a cousin of Faizi reported the man missing to Peel Regional Police on Dec. 30, 2010.
On Jan. 2, 2011, Faizi’s niece reported to police that the family had accessed the man’s email account. “Family members are extremely concerned for Faizi’s wellbeing, as he spends most of his time working or with family,” the ITO reads.
In one application in Feb. 2013, police were seeking a production order for a Yahoo! email account that investigators had identified as being used by “the individual last known to have contact via the internet with Faizi before his disappearance.”
At that time, Faizi’s disappearance was being treated as suspicious — he had not been heard from in two years.
“It is my belief that Faizi has ultimately become the victim of wrongdoing,” writes the officer signing the warrant.
The application was granted, but it’s not clear what happened next.