Jail McArthur for life, Crown says

50-year parole eligibility sought to ensure serial killer, 67, will never leave prison

With photographs of the eight men killed by Bruce McArthur on large screens in the courtroom and their loved ones filling rows in the public gallery, the Crown asked for “certainty” the serial killer will never leave prison.

McArthur, 67, who pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder, faces an automatic sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for a minimum of 25 years.

At McArthur’s sentencing hearing Tuesday the Crown asked for a parole ineligibility period of 50 years — by which time McArthur would be116. That sentence would effectively keep the families of his victims from ever having to face him at a parole hearing.

McArthur’s defence lawyer, James Miglin, said a period of 25 years parole ineligibility is appropriate given the killer’s age and guilty pleas, which Miglin said indicate his public acceptance of responsibility for his horrible crimes.

Given the opportunity to address the court, McArthur declined. He will be sentenced on Friday.

Crown prosecutor Craig Harper said McArthur is clearly a serial killer, but that term is “woefully inadequate to de- scribe his moral blameworthiness ... and heinousness of the offences.” McArthur is a “sexual predator,” Harper said, “he preyed on his friends. He preyed on the vulnerable.”

McArthur was also caught apparently moments before committing another murder, Harper said. “He was not remorseful. He was not ashamed. He was not repulsed by what he had done.”

Harper said death was only the beginning of the indignities visited on McArthur’s victims. The killer posed and photographed them, and would later access those photographs — indicating how he relished what he had done, Harper said. McArthur then dismembered their bodies and placed them in planters. Some of their remains have never been recovered.

McArthur is “unique in Ontario for the number of victims,” and in Canada for the cruelty of his murders, Harper said, adding the killer preyed on the vulnerable and overlooked for seven years.

McArthur’s crimes have devastated those who knew and loved the men he murdered, as well as the broader LGBTQ community in ways that words cannot adequately express, Harper said.

“This case has a haunting quality to it,” he said.

In victim impact statements heard Tuesday, Soroush Mahmudi’s wife Umme Fareena Marzook described fainting when she learned her beloved husband and soulmate had been murdered by McArthur. Amid her vivid nightmares, her ongoing grief and her post-traumatic stress disorder, she also

now has thyroid cancer, she said.

Mahmudi was the family breadwinner, she added.

“Financially, I am unable to survive as I only have limited source of income and my rent is high … I am on Ontario Works and after paying the rent I have no money left for food.”

Majeed Kayhan’s brother Jalil said the pain his family has felt at the loss of his youngest sibling is impossible to put into words. “I believe this suffering will last forever,” he wrote.

Abdulbasir Faizi’s wife Kareema said their two daughters — ages 10 and 6 when Faizi was murdered — pretend to be strong in front of her, but they take photos of their father into their room and she hears them “crying constantly.”

Selim Esen would often spend nights walking the streets of the city, his friend Richard Kikot told the court.

“He was a romantic. He believed in the power of love. When he had nowhere else to go or had been turned out from where he was, he would walk,” Kikot said.

“This was present in my mind when I learned that Selim’s remains had been identified. To think that all he had walked into was an agonizing end. It was misery going over what he may have gone through that led to what was discovered.”

Esen was shortly to become a peer support worker at St. Stephen’s Community House. Gab Laurence, a manager there, told the court “there is nothing more heinous than deliberately seeking out the most vulnerable of individuals.”

She said Esen was “one of the most compassionate, caring and inquisitive people that we got the pleasure of knowing” and a “beacon of hope.”

Piranavan Thangavel, a refugee who came to Canada from Sri Lanka with Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, said he and many other refugees continue to live in fear that something like this might happen to them. Kanagaratnam was never reported missing.

“We, as refugees, fled in disgust and in fear, after bearing eyewitness to the widespread vile, torturous murders and crimes against humanity during the war in 2009 in Sri Lanka,” he said.

“For us now to hear of such a horrible death, we who live in this world as refugees feel like there is no safety for us anywhere in the world,” he said.

Kanagaratnam’s sister said she was devastated by her brother’s death and feels “vengeful” towards McArthur. “I don’t want to live in this world which became so terribly cruel,” wrote Kirushnaveny Yasotharan.

Dean Lisowick’s cousin Julie Pearo said she struggles with the finality of his death. She has no room in her heart and mind to hate McArthur, or to even think about him.

“My love for Dean, my grief at his absence, the movie reels of memories in my head, mostly of us laughing, and his amazing smile that I’ve known all but 12 days of my life, take up all the space in my heart and my thoughts,” she said.

“I believe this suffering will last forever.” JALIL KAYHAN BROTHER OF MAJEED

Skandaraj (Skanda) Navaratnam was always there to help out his friends, his close friend Jean-Guy Cloutier said in his statement. “I was always afraid that he would get himself in trouble or hurt because if anyone was in trouble he would step into help.”

After Navaratnam went missing, Cloutier thought of him daily, hoping one day he’d get a call and learn his friend had started a new life somewhere.

“When a person goes missing it brings up another level of anxiety and a loss that is hard to describe,” he said. “Having someone that I loved dearly killed is another level of loss and life changing. It puts your spirit and faith into question. How can this happen?”

Shelley Kinsman told the court she lost a “kindred spirit” when her brother Andrew Kinsman was murdered.

“Please do not let Andrew’s death be just a statistic,” she said. “Let’s take what he has given us in his half-century here and make a difference. Please do one good and unselfish deed for your fellow man. Help someone, hug someone — start a conversation but most of all, be kind.”