McArthur case documents unsealed
Provide glimpse into serial murder probe
In the months before his January arrest, Toronto police tailed alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur as he travelled to landscaping gigs, Tim Hortons and fastfood restaurants, tracked his vehicles through the GTA, and covertly entered his Thorncliffe Park apartment to search his room and access his computer and digital files, newly released court documents show.
Unsealed by an Ontario judge Wednesday, the heavily redacted documents provide a partial look at Toronto police’s investigative efforts as they put together the pieces of a sprawling probe — one that would culminate with McArthur charged in the deaths of eight men who disappeared from Toronto’s Gay Village.
The new information pertains to Project Prism, the six-month police task force probing the 2017 disappearances of Kinsmen, 49, and Selim Esen, 44. The released documents are affidavits sworn by police to obtain the court’s authorization to search a home, track an individual, and more, and were unsealed after an application by the Star and other media.
After years of concern within the neighbourhood about the growing list of mysteriously missing men, it was the June 2017 disappearance of Andrew Kinsman that brought McArthur into police sights, the documents confirm.
And it was while police investigated McArthur in that case — first as a “person of interest,” then as a murder suspect — that officers began to suspect his allegedly deadly actions may not stop at Kinsman.
“Clearly, there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that McArthur could have been involved in the disappearance of Kinsman and possibly four other men, too,” wrote Det. Const. Joel Manherz in an October 2017 affidavit seeking the court’s permission to obtain data from Squirt.org, a gay chat website.
As early as August 2017 police were connecting the dots between Kinsman’s disappearance and that of four other men McArthur is now alleged to have killed.
Among the similarities noted by investigators: all of the missing men were middle-aged, bearded, frequented The Black Eagle — a bar in the Gay Village — and self-identified as ‘bears’, defined by police in the documents as “a larger, hairier man who projects an image of rugged masculinity.”
By early December, McArthur was a suspect in Kinsman’s death and a “person of interest” in four other disappearances. The police definition of “person of interest” refers to a person whose background, relationship to the victim or more warrants further investigation.
It was also in December that Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders stated at a news conference that there was no connection between multiple disappearances from the Village, downplaying the concern that there was a serial killer targeting the area.
Meaghan Gray, spokesperson for the Toronto Police, said Wednesday that the service stands behind Saunders’ comments, noting that the newly released documents detail “officers’ theories on what may have happened, but as a police service, investigators need evidence to support their theories.”
McArthur is next scheduled to appear in court Friday in the deaths of eight men between 2010 and 2017: Kinsmen, 49, Selim Esen, 44, Skanda Navaratnam,
40, Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, Majeed Kayhan, 58, Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, 37, Dean Lisowick, 47, and Soroush Mahmudi, 50.
The remains of all eight men were found at a Leaside property where McArthur had worked as a landscaper, seven of them inside large planters, the eighth in a forested ravine that was exhaustively searched this summer.
The documents show police brought cadaver dogs to the home on Mallory Cres. two months before McArthur’s arrest, with negative results. A subsequent search on January 18, one day after McArthur’s arrest in the deaths of Kinsman and Esen, led police to suspect there was crucial evidence inside the large planters.
According to one document, cadaver dogs “showed a strong interest” in the planters that day, but the planters were frozen to the ground and could not be moved. It wasn’t until the next day that police brought heaters to thaw the two largest planters and move them to the garage.
They were eventually taken to the coroner’s office for further thawing and processing.
On Jan. 23, the dogs were brought in again to the backyard of 53 Mallory, where by now police had set up a tent. Both dogs “made a full indication on the tented area of the backyard, indicating the presence of human decomposition,” one court document reads.
Police sources have told the Star police made a quick decision to arrest McArthur after watching a young man enter his building. Believing a life could be in danger, they opted to go in, discovering the alleged killer with a young man tied up but unharmed, the source said.