Consecutive life terms sought for Toronto Gay Village killer
TORONTO — A Crown prosecutor asked a judge Tuesday to sentence serial killer Bruce McArthur to consecutive life sentences so that he won’t be eligible for parole for 50 years, when he would be 116.
McArthur pleaded guilty last week to eight counts of firstdegree murder. The former landscaper sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered men he met in Toronto’s Gay Village district over seven years.
The most lenient potential sentence he faces would be life in prison with no chance for parole eligibility for 25 years.
Justice John McMahon said that even if the 67-year-old McArthur received the most lenient life sentence, he wouldn’t necessarily get parole in 25 years if he were to apply for it. By then, McArthur would be 92.
McMahon noted that McArthur saved the families of the victims a long brutal trial by pleading guilty. He said he expects to hand down a sentence Friday.
“The certainty that Mr. McArthur will never leave prison is a fit result,” prosecutor Craig Harper said.
McArthur has been in prison since January 2018 while investigators discovered dismembered remains in planters at a home he used as storage for his business.
He also staged photos of some of his victims after they died, posing corpses in fur coats and with cigars in their mouths. McArthur would later access some of the photos long after the killings.
“He created a macabre cemetery of his victims,” Harper said. “It was an act of selfdegradation and self-gratification. He wanted to relive each of his murders.”
The victims fit a pattern: Most were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent and lived on the margins of Canadian society.
One victim hid the fact that he was gay from his Muslim family. Another was a recent immigrant with a drug problem. Another was a refugee who was ordered deported. Another alleged victim was homeless, smoked crack cocaine and worked as a prostitute.
Many of Toronto’s LGBQT community said for years a serial killer was at work.
James Miglin, McArthur’s lawyer, called the crimes horrific and acknowledged the case calls for the most serious penalties and sanctions under the law.
But Miglin said the practical reality is that McArthur would likely never get parole if he gets the most lenient sentence.
McArthur declined to address the court when asked by the judge.
“No, your honour. I’ve discussed this with my counsel and I don’t want to say anything,” McArthur said.
McArthur pleaded guilty to killing Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.
The prosecution said that a frequent site of the killings was McArthur’s bedroom and that he repeatedly strangled his victims with rope and a metal bar.
The cases ranged from 2010 to 2017.
Criminal experts say it is unusual for someone to become a serial killer later in life, but the prosecution said there is no evidence of earlier murders.