Alleged serial killer faces new charge
Seventh count laid as remains found in planter
• Toronto police charging alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur with a seventh count of first-degree murder on Wednesday and said the investigation is focusing on 15 cold cases that date back more than four decades.
At a press conference Wednesday, Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga revealed that the dismembered remains of Abdulbasir Faizi were found buried in garden planters belonging to McArthur, who worked as a landscaper.
Faizi, 42, went missing on Dec. 29, 2010, after telling his wife that he was going out with co-workers. Faizi was actually leading a double life, frequenting Toronto’s gay village, and was last seen at a bathhouse in the neighbourhood. His wife thought he abandoned the family and ran away with a man he’d met in the village, according to court documents.
McArthur, 66, now faces charges for the murders of Faizi, Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Soroush Mahmudi, Dean Lisowick, Majeed Kayhan and Skanda Navaratnam.
Idsinga originally said that seven sets of human remains had been recovered from an east-end Toronto home belonging to two clients who allowed McArthur to store his landscaping equipment on their property. The remains of Faizi, Lisowick and Esen were all identified from planters found on the property, Idsinga said, leaving Kayhan as the only alleged victim that has not been linked to them. At least one set of remains hasn’t been identified.
As the work with the planters nears completion, the investigation is set to expand as police struggle to determine just how long the list of victims may grow.
“I have no idea (how many victims there are),” Idsinga said. “I’ve said that from Day 1. I don’t want to hazard putting a number on it. We may discover cases from the ‘70s, we may discover that 2010 was the first murder. We just don’t know yet.”
After spending months poring through cold cases, police have identified 15 homicides that occurred between 1975 and 1997 that could be linked to McArthur. The majority of the victims in these cases are gay men, Idsinga said.
During part of that time McArthur worked as a salesman for Eaton’s, in the mid1970s. There is no evidence, Idsinga said, that can directly link McArthur to any of these cases.
Police suspect there is an eighth victim but have not been able to identify him yet. Last month, police released a photo of the unidentified man taken in the morgue and received more than 500 tips. That number has now been whittled down to 22 potential matches.
Police are planning to undertake a mass sweep of 75 properties where McArthur worked as a landscaper in search of more human remains. The number of properties grew to 75 from 30 after police received a wealth of tips — some of them coming from people who didn’t own the specified properties. There are also some public properties on the list, Idsinga said.
In the winter, police searched an initial group of 30 properties with dogs trained to detect the scent of human remains. Despite confiscating about 15 planters from multiple properties, only those taken from the home where McArthur stored his equipment contained remains.
Meanwhile, forensic teams have been working on McArthur’s apartment for three months. Teams are performing an “inch-by-inch” analysis of “floors, ceilings, walls, furniture, inside furniture and dresser drawers.”
“We’ve quite frankly never seen anything like it,” Idsinga said.
McArthur appeared in court through a video link Wednesday to hear that he had been charged with Faizi’s murder.
Faizi, an immigrant from Afghanistan, worked as a factory worker in Mississauga, Ont. According to police, a record of his debit card transactions showed that his last purchase was made on Dec. 29 at Hero Certified Burgers, less than 100 metres from the Steamworks Bathhouse, where he was last seen.
Two weeks after Faizi went missing, police found his 2002 Nissan abandoned near St. Clair Avenue and Mount Pleasant Road. Steps away from the intersection is David Balfour Park, where gay men have historically sought out dates. A short 13-minute car ride away is McArthur’s apartment building.
Faizi’s disappearance, along with those of Navaratnam’s and Kayhan’s, was investigated in 2012. Police interviewed McArthur as a witness to Navaratnam’s disappearance as part of the investigation. According to court documents that Faizi’s wife filed when she was seeking a divorce, years after her husband’s disappearance, investigators believed he “did not want to be found.”