Canada prosecutor: Serial killer staged photos of victims
TORONTO (AP) — Serial killer Bruce McArthur staged photos of some of his victims after they died, posing at least two corpses with cigars in their mouths, a prosecutor said Monday as the sentencing hearing began for the former gardener who preyed on men from Toronto’s Gay Village district.
Prosecutor Michael Cantlon didn’t display the images found on McArthur’s electronic devices during the session, but said they included after-death photos of six of the eight victims.
“Victims were posed naked, with cigars in their mouth, shaved, and/or made to wear a fur coat and hat,” Cantlon said.
He also said police found a bound and naked man when they raided McArthur’s home and arrested him Jan. 18, 2018. He said police moved in when they realized McArthur had someone over. The man, who survived, was identified only as “John.”
Investigators found McArthur had a USB drive that contained a directory with nine subfolders — eight for the men he killed and the ninth for the Middle Eastern man found at the time of McArthur’s arrest, Cantlon said.
McArthur pleaded guilty on Jan. 29 to eight counts of first-degree murder. He sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered men he met in Toronto’s Gay Village district over seven years. He faces a potential sentence of life in prison with no chance for parole for 25 years or more. The judge said he expects to hand down a sentence this week.
Police narrowed a list of suspects in the case after seeing surveillance video of the last victim, Andrew Kinsman, enter a red Dodge Caravan in 2017. They later linked that vehicle to McArthur and found Kinsman’s blood and semen in it.
Photos in McArthur’s devices showed he had known Kinsman for years. Investigators found Kinsman’s calendar with an entry titled “Bruce’” dated June 26, 2017 — the day he disappeared.
Cantlon has said the cases ranging from 2010 to 2017 involved sexual assault or forcible confinement and said the bodies were hidden and dismembered. Several of the victims were strangled.
McArthur, now 67, moved to the Toronto area around 2000 and previously lived in a suburb where he was married, raised two children and worked as a traveling salesman of underwear and socks.