Close X
Thursday, November 28, 2024
ADVT 
National

Bruce McArthur Linked To 3 Missing Men Years Before He Was Charged With Murder: Docs

Darpan News Desk IANS, 21 Feb, 2019 09:06 PM

    Newly released court documents show Toronto police linked serial killer Bruce McArthur to three missing men with ties to the city's gay village years before he was charged with killing them and five others.


    The documents, submitted to the court by officers seeking search warrants, show investigators interviewed McArthur in late 2013 as a witness in the disappearance of Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Majeed Kayhan.


    Police say in the documents they had found an email address for a "silverfoxx51" under deleted contacts in Navaratnam's computer and the nickname also appeared in a notepad belonging to Faizi.


    The deleted contact also included a phone number that was linked to McArthur in a police database — a record related to a 2005 incident in which he was stopped for driving without valid insurance.


    The email address matched that of a profile on the adult website silverdaddies.com, and the photos from that profile resembled those for a Bruce McArthur in a Ministry of Transportation database and one listed among Navaratnam's Facebook friends.


    The documents say McArthur told police he was friends with Navaratnam and had a sexual relationship with Kayhan but denied knowing Faizi. He also told investigators he had learned of Navaratnam's disappearance from posters put up in the neighbourhood.


    McArthur, a self-employed landscaper, pleaded guilty last month to eight counts of first-degree murder for men he killed between 2010 and 2017: Navaratnam, Faizi and Kayhan as well as Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.


    The 67-year-old was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years, meaning he will be 91 before he can apply for any form of release.


    In handing down the sentence, Justice John McMahon said he had not seen any sign of remorse. "Mr. McArthur would have no doubt continued to kill if he wasn't caught," he said.


    The documents unsealed this week show it was only after McArthur was identified as a person of interest in Kinsman's disappearance in 2017 that investigators realized they had already interviewed him in the case of the previous missing men.


    Police linked McArthur to Kinsman after security footage showed Kinsman getting into a red minivan outside his building on the day he vanished, the documents say. That van was later traced to McArthur.


    An officer who had worked on the investigation into the disappearance of Navaratnam, Faizi and Kayhan recognized the name and confirmed it was the same person police interviewed in 2013.


    The documents also shed more light into a 2016 incident in which McArthur was questioned after he began choking a man during a sexual encounter in his van.


    The man, who is not identified, managed to escape and filed a police report. McArthur turned himself in and was questioned by Det. Paul Gauthier, who is now facing disciplinary charges in connection with the investigation and is set to appear before a police tribunal next week.


    McArthur told Gauthier that because the man had expressed a desire to be pinched hard during their encounter, he believed the man "wanted it rough," the documents show.


    "The investigating officer, Det. Gauthier, indicated that McArthur appeared genuine and credible in his recall of the incident," they said. McArthur was released without charges.


    He was arrested in early 2018 and eventually charged in the deaths of eight men. The documents released this week were filed about a week after his arrest but before all the charges in the case were laid.


    Police have faced criticism for not acting sooner on concerns from the LGBTQ community that a serial killer was behind the disappearances but Police Chief Mark Saunders has defended the work carried out by the force. Saunders said officers simply did not have enough evidence until 2017.


    Court heard McArthur strangled all of his victims and then took photographs of their bodies in various states of undress, keeping the images on his computer and viewing them long after his crimes.


    McArthur then dismembered his victims and hid their remains in planters at a Toronto residential property where he stored his landscaping equipment, and in a ravine behind the home.

    MORE National ARTICLES

    New Details In Lindsay Souvannarath’s Appeal Of Sentence In Halifax Mall Plot

    HALIFAX — New court documents reveal details of how one of the masterminds of a foiled plot to attack a Halifax mall on Valentine's Day plans to appeal her life sentence.

    New Details In Lindsay Souvannarath’s Appeal Of Sentence In Halifax Mall Plot

    Wealthy Nova Scotia Thief John Mark Tillmann Who Filled Home With Pilfered Artifacts, Art Has Died

    A man who filled his suburban lakeside home with historic artifacts and art stolen over decades of pilfering so stealthy that many of his targets didn't even know they'd been victimized has died.

    Wealthy Nova Scotia Thief John Mark Tillmann Who Filled Home With Pilfered Artifacts, Art Has Died

    Police Arrest 32 In Drug Bust Targeting Eastern Quebec, New Brunswick Network

    Police Arrest 32 In Drug Bust Targeting Eastern Quebec, New Brunswick Network
    Quebec provincial police say they've arrested 32 people allegedly linked to a drug trafficking ring in eastern Quebec and New Brunswick.    

    Police Arrest 32 In Drug Bust Targeting Eastern Quebec, New Brunswick Network

    Toronto Woman Rehab Dughmosh Found Guilty Of Terror Charges Sentenced To Seven Years In Prison

    A woman convicted of terror charges for attacking workers at a Canadian Tire store in Toronto was sentenced to seven years in prison Thursday after a judge found her mental illness played a key role in her crimes.    

    Toronto Woman Rehab Dughmosh Found Guilty Of Terror Charges Sentenced To Seven Years In Prison

    A Dinner Party For $10 A Guest Is Possible With Good Planning, Foodies Say

    A Dinner Party For $10 A Guest Is Possible With Good Planning, Foodies Say
    VANCOUVER — Tara Noland hosts dinner parties at her Calgary home at least once a month, plus for almost every Super Bowl and much more often over the holidays.

    A Dinner Party For $10 A Guest Is Possible With Good Planning, Foodies Say

    B.C. Proposes Stronger Security For Witnesses Testifying At Criminal Trials

    B.C. Proposes Stronger Security For Witnesses Testifying At Criminal Trials
    British Columbia is proposing changes to its witness protection program in order to strengthen security for people who could provide police with information on serious crimes.  

    B.C. Proposes Stronger Security For Witnesses Testifying At Criminal Trials