McArthur trial would have served the public
Why did Toronto serial killer Bruce McArthur plead guilty to eight murders and avoid a trial? We’ll never know. It would be absurd to trust his explanation.
Such pleas are said to save the public the cost and bother of a lengthy trial and spare the feelings of the victims’ families. But think of who else’s interests they serve. The plea means McArthur, 67, will be in jail until he’s 91 anyway. He’s passing up what would doubtless be the most free months of his next 25 years. What’s in it for him?
Without a trial, the Toronto police service and individual unionized officers get a pass on a fatally poor investigation, with no police officers explaining how a serial killer at work in one city’s relatively small gay community was left free to kill so many men in seven years. How did McArthur get a pardon for a violent Halloween attack in 2001 that perhaps presaged a chain of death? We don’t know.
How odd to have a sergeant face a mysteriously swift Tuesday hearing on neglect-of-duty in the McArthur case. That’s rare. Journalist Robyn Doolittle’s famous Unfounded series on police treatment of rape cases reveals how widespread is police indifference. Suddenly the police care?
Serial killer Elizabeth Wettlaufer pled guilty and avoided a trial. CBC News has revealed that the public inquiry into her eight murders knew she had confessed to more and kept it quiet for unfathomable reasons. To save on photocopying? To give police, nursing unions, or government officials a break? If Wettlaufer killed more than even those, they were old and may be ashes by now, just as possibly more McArthur victims are in pieces, rotting in earth that may never be unturned. Who speaks for them? Guilty pleas are like white paint; they cover up any number of bumps, scratches and seams. There is a ceremonial aspect to sentencing hearings. As wrenching as the families’ statements are, they can be somewhat unfair.
Victim impact statements are a splendid idea after an era where the dead were considered more or less extraneous meat while the alleged killer took centre stage. But is a victim any less worthy when the statements come from distant countries or from people who express themselves less than well?
What if a family detested the relative who died? Is he any less valuable than the gentle victim who was a credit to family and friends? It’s a matter of principle, not “lived experience” as they say, but worth considering.
One advantage of victim statements is they may lead the judge to impose consecutive sentences rather than the concurrent ones that reward killers for going big. With concurrent sentencing, every murder after the first is a freebie. Run wild, run free, Marc Lépine/Gamil Gharbi, you’re on bonus time, 13 more women to go.
There will always be killers and victims. The only factor in our control is the trial, which might explain how those killers were born or made, and how future numbers might be reduced.
Trials don’t offer a glorious stage for strutting monsters. The truth is, serial killers are not international jewel thieves, suave soldiers of gleaming fortune. They’re boring. Pathetic men, failures, losers, unable to achieve or find love, their inept courtroom antics bore us and annoy the court.
Trials reveal what turn toddlers into murderous teens, what set off the chain of killing. The two 11-year-old boys who sexually tortured and killed little James Bulger near Liverpool in 1993 are not interesting in themselves. The parents who raised them, their violent videos, possible sex abuse by teachers, neighbours or family, now that’s interesting.
I was startled by how frequently journalists warned fragile Canadian readers of terrible things to come in the McArthur hearing. But why would they not be terrible? Murder usually is. The public didn’t used to be considered so sensitive, too emotionally frail to read about murder hearings. This may be why trials vanish.
Governments and corporations are secretive, police hold information close, the public is coddled. But we, the public, are not poor gentle creatures. We are hale, we are adults and we’ll always want to know the whole truth.