McArthur expected in court on Monday

Bruce McArthur is expected to appear in person in court Monday morning, the first time the alleged serial killer will be present in court in months.

McArthur, 67, is accused of first-degree murder in the deaths of eight men, all of whom had ties to Toronto’s Church and Wellesley area, the Gay Village. The homicides are alleged to have occurred between September 2010 and June 2017.

McArthur, a self-employed landscaper, was arrested at his Thorncliffe Park Dr. apartment in January and charged in the deaths of two men who went missing in 2017: Andrew Kinsman, 49, and Selim Esen, 44.

In the ensuing months, investigators went on to charge McArthur in the deaths of six more men: Majeed Kayhan, 58; Soroush Mahmudi, 50; Dean Lisowick, 47; Skandaraj “Skanda” Navaratnam, 40, Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, and Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, 37.

Toronto police acting Insp. Hank Idsinga, the lead homicide detective on the case, has said there is no evidence to indicate there are more victims.

The remains of the eight men were

found at a home on Mallory Cres. where McArthur worked as a landscaper. The dismembered remains of seven of the men were found buried inside large planters; remains later linked to Kayhan were located this summer, during an exhaustive excavation of a forested ra- vine behind the Leaside home.

Police have said McArthur was first identified as a person of interest in connection to Kinsman’s June 2017 disappearance. Recently unsealed court documents — released following an application by the Star and other media — revealed police were watching McArthur for weeks before his arrest, after uncover- ing evidence Kinsman had been killed and that McArthur was a suspect.

In the fall of 2017, police began tracking McArthur’s vehicle and following him around Toronto and Mississauga, watching as he travelled to various landscaping gigs and fast-food restaurants. They also obtained a log of the use of his key fob, which enabled police to see his comings and goings from the building, and later obtained a tracking warrant for cellphone, the documents state. In December, more than a month before his arrest, police surreptitiously entered McArthur’s apartment to access the digital files on his computer, the documents show.