McArthur pleaded guilty last month; at a sentencing hearing that ended Tuesday, Canadians heard how he lured and murdered men he met in Toronto’s Gay Village
For years, members of Toronto’s gay community warned that there was a serial killer on the loose, that vulnerable men were going missing, that the streets were not safe. They were right.
On Friday, Bruce McArthur, a 67-year-old landscaper and former mall Santa, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years on eight counts of first-degree murder, ending a trial that shocked a city – and a country – that likes to see itself as inclusive and safe.
McArthur was accused of killing and dismembering eight men between 2010 and 2017, hiding seven of the corpses in planters and the eighth in a ravine. He pleaded guilty last month.
At a sentencing hearing that ended Tuesday, Canadians heard how he lured and murdered men he met in Toronto’s Gay Village, then posed corpses in costumes, keeping pictures of each victim in labelled digital folders.
They learned McArthur was stopped when police raided his home, finding a man tied to a bed. He was a potential ninth victim, the court heard, and McArthur had a folder waiting.
In a city that prides itself on being gay-friendly and welcoming to new Canadians, McArthur sought out men marginalised by their sexuality, ethnicity, immigration status or poverty.
Most of his victims were refugees or immigrants. Several struggled with substance abuse. Some had not revealed they were gay.
The details of the case are so brutal, the crimes so depraved, that the headlines at times obscured the fact that eight men – Skandaraj Navaratnam, Majeed Kayhan, Abdulbasir Faizi, Soroush Mahmudi, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Dean Lisowick, Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman – had been killed.
Now, with the trial over, advocates want to put the focus back on why so many died before police cracked the case. Some have argued that the police response was slowed by homophobia and racism – that the force might have acted more quickly if different men had disappeared.
