Sentincing submissions reveal grim details of McArthur’s actions,
WARNING: This article contains graphic content.
Inside a downtown Toronto courtroom packed for the first day of sentencing submissions in the case of serial killer Bruce McArthur, the Crown prosecutor began with a grave acknowledgment.
“For years, members of the LGBTQ community believed that they were being targeted by a killer,” Michael Cantlon said in his opening address Monday. “They were right.”
Cantlon went on to describe an unprecedented Toronto police investigation, revealing new details about past police contact with McArthur, new information about the deaths of the eight men McArthur murdered and revelations about the ways he preyed on Toronto’s LGBTQ community.
Here are some major takeaways from Day 1 of the serial killer’s sentencing. How detectives broke the case
A combination of two key pieces of evidence lead Toronto police to “crack the case” of serial killer Bruce McArthur wide open, Cantlon said.
First, there was surveillance video that showed a glimpse of a red van outside the home of Andrew Kinsman, McArthur’s final victim.
Second, there was a simple note in Kinsman’s calendar from June 26, 2017, the day he went missing: “Bruce.”
Toronto police Det. David Dickinson was able to determine the make and model of McArthur’s van — a specialedition 2004 Dodge Caravan. He then searched registry information to produce 6,181 matches for similar vehicles.
Of those, five owners were named Bruce. But only McArthur had any recent contact with Toronto police — he had been arrested, but not charged, in 2016 over a report the 67year-old had attempted to strangle a man. McArthur was made a person of interest in Kinsman’s disappearance. Police interviewed McArthur in 2013
The statement of facts confirmed McArthur was interviewed in 2013 as part of Project Houston — the special Toronto police investigation of the disappearances of McArthur’s first three victims: Skandaraj (Skanda) Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Majeed Kayhan. That project ran from 2012 to 2014, but did not result in any charges.
Police interviewed McArthur on Nov. 11, 2013, after an analysis of Faizi and Navaratnam’s belongings revealed both men knew him.
Police did not consider McArthur a suspect at the time.
During the same interview, McArthur said he knew the third missing man, saying he had employed Kayhan as a landscaper and that they had had a sexual relationship, which McArthur said he’d broken off. McArthur’s plan for a ninth victim — and his rescue
McArthur was under police surveillance on Jan. 18, 2018, when a man was spotted entering his Thorncliffe Park apartment. It was then that Toronto police made the decision to arrest the killer.
The man told McArthur his name was “John.”
He said he was a recent immigrant to Canada who was married and whose family and friends were unaware of his sexual orientation. The man told police he had been intimate with McArthur on several occasions, and on that day McArthur had asked if anyone knew the two were meeting.
“John told McArthur it was a secret and no one knew,” Cantlon said.
The two arrived at McArthur’s apartment, where the killer told the man to go to his bedroom. McArthur returned with handcuffs and told him “they were going to try something different.”
He then put a black bag over the man’s head. The man took it off, then McArthur tried to tape his mouth closed. That’s when police, “due to exigent circumstances, knocked on the door and arrested Mr. McArthur.”
Forensic analysis later revealed McArthur had a USB drive containing nine subfolders — one for each of the men he had killed, and a ninth labelled “John.” How McArthur ‘staged’ his victims
Court heard McArthur’s bedroom was a “frequent” site of the killings, most of which were made possible under the pretence of sex.
The investigation uncovered what Cantlon called “postoffence rituals,” including that McArthur posed his victims, took photos of them and kept some of their belongings.
Forensic analysis showed McArthur looked at these photos, which were organized into separate folders, “long after the killings.” What police found in McArthur’s van
Investigators located a significant amount of evidence inside McArthur’s two vans: the 2004 Dodge Caravan he’d attempted to get rid of at a wrecking yard in Courtice, Ont., and a 2017 van he later bought.
That included: the DNA of some of McArthur’s victims; a metal bar wrapped in tape that contained Esen and Kinsman’s DNA; dark brown leather lacing, later found to contain Navaratnam’s DNA; and a fur coat police believe McArthur used to pose with his victims, in a hidden compartment.