Image copyright Reuters Image caption Bruce McArthur was arrested last January and pled guilty on 18 January 2019

A Toronto landscaper accused of killing eight men who went missing between 2010-17 has pleaded guilty to their murders.

Bruce McArthur, 67, was arrested last January and charged in the deaths of two men, and police subsequently charged him in six other cases.

Most of his victims had links to Toronto's Gay Village neighbourhood.

Many of the victims' remains were found in plant pots on one property in Toronto's Leaside neighbourhood.

Each of the first-degree murder charges carry an automatic life sentence, meaning he will not be able to apply for release until the age of 91.

His sentencing hearing will begin on 4 February, in which friends and relatives will be give impact statements, describing how the killings have affected their lives.

Image caption The victims clockwise from upper left: Selim Esen, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Soroush Mahmudi

The judge must also decide whether to sentence him to consecutive life sentences, or whether he can serve eight life sentences concurrently.

What were his crimes?

In court on Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Michael Cantlon described how McArthur had "staged" and photographed the victims, keeping mementos such as jewellery and a notebook.

He described all of the crimes as "sexual in nature", adding that there is evidence he tied the victims up during the murders.

While many of the remains were buried in planters at 53 Mallory Crescent in Toronto, where McArthur worked as a gardener, others were buried in a nearby ravine.

McArthur had an agreement with the home's elderly residents to store his landscaping equipment there in exchange for free lawn care, according to the authorities.

Police say they found a duffle bag with duct tape, a surgical glove, rope, zip ties, a black bungee cord and syringes in his bedroom when they searched his property, according to court documents.

They say that some of the victims were killed during a sexual assault or while being "unlawfully confined".

The arrest launched a massive investigation that spanned Canada's largest city, one of the largest such investigations in the history of Toronto police.

Investigators searched dozens of properties linked to the self-employed landscaper and looked into cold cases dating back decades.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A bagpiper played a lament for victims on the one year anniversary of McArthur's arrest

Why?

By Robin Levinson-King in the Toronto court

In a packed courtroom, Bruce McArthur's eight guilty pleas marked the beginning of the end of a saga that has haunted Toronto's LGBT community for years.

Dressed in a black cable-knit sweater and a plaid shirt, McArthur spoke softly and matter-of-factly when addressing the court, which was filled with family and friends of his victims.

As the plea deal was read, they were stoic, but outside of the courtroom, many embraced with signs of relief in their eyes.

For years, rumours of a serial killer stalking Toronto's Gay Village has left the city's LGBT community afraid.

McArthur's conviction, and his subsequent sentencing to life in prison, will bring closure for many.

But nagging questions remain: how did he get away with it for so long?

Why did he do it?

Who are the victims?

So far, all of the eight victims except one had ties to the city's Gay Village.

Many were immigrants from South Asia or the Middle East.

Members of Toronto's LGBT community have criticised police, saying they did not take their concerns about the missing men seriously.

The first two alleged victims were identified in January as Andrew Kinsman, 49, and Selim Esen, 44, who both went missing in 2017.

Since then, police have named Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, who disappeared on Labour Day weekend in 2010; Soroush Mahmudi, 50, reported missing in 2015; Dean Lisowick, 47, who is believed to have been killed in April 2016; Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, who disappeared in 2010; Majeed Kayhan, 58, who disappeared in 2012; and Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, 37, who police believe was killed in January 2016.

What's the reaction?

Karen Fraser, one of the residents of the home where victims were recovered, told reporters outside the courthouse that the couple feels "violated" by the man they knew for more than a decade.

"What does remorse look like? I only saw a blank face," she said, calling him "evil" and a "shuffling, broken man, as he should be".

She had previously met two of the victims, whom she did not name, at her property with McArthur. She said thinking about their last moments "haunts her".

"They're not just on a list or a photograph, they were people standing in front of me."

Mrs Fraser said that in her mind, there were two Bruce McArthurs: "Bruce A" and "Bruce B".

Lead Homicide Detective David Dickinson said investigators are glad for the guilty plea, which will spare victims and families a trial.

An independent review has been ordered to look into how police handle missing persons cases.

"If mistakes were made we should learn from them," Detective Dickinson said.

Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention Director Haran Vijayanathan, who has been speaking on behalf of many victims' families since McArthur's arrest, said they are grateful.

"We have closure now finally. We don't have to guess and wait and anticipate and come to court meetings and just walk away with no answers," he said.

"So this is really good for closure for everyone."</s>A former landscaper charged with killing eight men with ties to Toronto’s Gay Village district pleaded guilty on Tuesday to eight counts of first-degree murder.

Bruce McArthur, wearing a black sweater, stood up and said “guilty” to eight times as the charges were read. Sentencing will start Feb. 4.

Police last year found the remains of seven of the men in large planters at a property where McArthur had worked. The remains of the eighth victim were found in a ravine behind the same property in midtown Toronto.

The prosecutor, Michael Cantlon, said the cases involved sexual assault or forcible confinement and said the bodies were hidden and dismembered.

McArthur, 67, waived his right to a preliminary hearing last year, raising the possibility of a plea deal.

McArthur moved to the Toronto area around 2000 and previously lived in a suburb where he was married, raised two children and worked as a traveling salesman of underwear and socks.

His landscaping business was small, but he periodically hired workers, including a 40-year-old man who disappeared in 2010.

Police set up a special task force to look into the disappearances of men in the Gay Village area of Toronto shortly after some went missing. McArthur was arrested six months later.

The alleged victims fit a pattern: Most were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent and lived on the margins of Canadian society, their disappearances attracting little attention.

One victim hid the fact that he was gay from his Muslim family. Another was a recent immigrant with a drug problem. Another alleged victim was homeless, smoked crack cocaine and worked as a prostitute.

But then Andrew Kinsman vanished. The 49-year-old LGBQT activist and former bartender in Toronto had many friends. When he suddenly went missing the day after Toronto’s gay pride parade, his friends noticed quickly, and so did the police.

Police set up another special task force to look into the disappearances of men in the Gay Village shortly after Kinsman went missing.

Members of the LGBTQ community were long voicing concerns about a potential serial killer and pushing for answers in light of the disappearances, which were deemed suspicious. An initial police task force in 2012 didn’t lead to an arrest.</s>Bruce McArthur has pleaded guilty to killing eight men, including Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, a Brampton resident who was last seen at his Mississauga workplace in December 2010.

McArthur, 67, pleaded guilty in Toronto Superior Court Jan. 29 to eight counts of first-degree murder.

He showed no expression as the names of the men he killed were read out in the packed court. He will be sentenced to life in prison, but his parole eligibility will be decided by Justice John McMahon when court resumes Feb. 4. McMahon will have to decide if his parole ineligibility period will run concurrently or consecutively.

Court heard some of the facts surrounding the killings, which occurred between 2010 and 2017. More will be read out in court Feb. 4, along with victim impact statements.

The facts read out in court revealed six of the eight killings were sexual, and a ligature was used in some of the deaths.

In addition to Faizi, McArthur pleaded guilty to killing Andrew Kinsman, 49, Selim Esen, 44, Majeed Kayhan, 58, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, Dean Lisowick, 47, Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, and Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, 37.

McArthur also kept some property belonging to his victims including a notebook belonging to Esen and jewelry belonging to Navaratnam and Lisowick.

Faizi disappeared after leaving his Mississauga workplace on Dec. 29, 2010. He was last seen in the Church Street/Wellesley Street area of Toronto, and his car was found on a street not far from a home related to McArthur, according to police.

Toronto Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga said investigators believe Faizi knew McArthur before the night he went missing.

Lou Locke, Faizi's former boss at a Mississauga industrial printing company, said seeing Faizi's picture on the news was a "sad reminder of what happened to our friend." He described McArthur's guilty plea as the "appropriate response."</s>TORONTO -- An alleged serial killer accused of preying on men from Toronto's gay village has pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder.

Bruce McArthur, who had been set to stand trial next year, entered the guilty plea during a hearing in a Toronto courtroom.

The 67-year-old self-employed landscaper was arrested in January 2018.

Police eventually charged him with first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.

The victims went missing from the gay village between 2010 and 2017.

Police said they recovered the remains of seven men in large planters at a residential property in midtown Toronto where McArthur worked while the remains of an eighth man was found in a nearby ravine.

More to come. ..</s>The 67-year-old self-employed landscaper was arrested in January 2018

Bruce McArthur is shown in a Facebook photo. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Facebook)

An alleged serial killer accused of preying on men from Toronto’s gay village has pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder.

READ ALSO: Remains of all eight Bruce McArthur victims now identified

Bruce McArthur, who had been set to stand trial next year, entered the guilty plea during a hearing in a Toronto courtroom.

The 67-year-old self-employed landscaper was arrested in January 2018.

Police eventually charged him with first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.

The victims went missing from the gay village between 2010 and 2017.

READ ALSO: McArthur could stand trial as early as September 2019

Police said they recovered the remains of seven men in large planters at a residential property in midtown Toronto where McArthur worked while the remains of an eighth man was found in a nearby ravine.

More to come.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.</s>WARNING: Some of the details below may be disturbing to readers

TORONTO -- A serial killer who preyed on men from Toronto's gay village has pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder.

Bruce McArthur, who had been set to stand trial next year, entered the guilty plea during a hearing in a Toronto courtroom.

The 67-year-old self-employed landscaper was arrested in January 2018.
• Scroll down or click here to follow our blog for live updates from the courtroom
• Read the brief statement of facts released in court

Police eventually charged him with first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.

The victims went missing from the gay village between 2010 and 2017.

The LGBTQ community had long said someone was targeting men who were vanishing from the city's gay village.

In November 2012, police launched Project Houston to investigate the disappearances of 42-year-old Faizi, 40-year-old Navaratnam and 58-year-old Kayhan. They closed the probe in April 2014 after being unable to identify a suspect in their disappearances.

In the summer of 2017, police launched a separate investigation known as Project Prism into the disappearances of 49-year-old Kinsman and 44-year-old Esen. Within months, McArthur came on the police radar, according to court documents.

On Jan. 17, 2018, investigators uncovered evidence alleging McArthur was responsible for both Kinsman and Esen's deaths, along with the deaths of other unidentified people.

The next day, police arrested McArthur at his apartment and charged him with the murders of Kinsman and Esen. They brought cadaver dogs the following day to a property nearby where McArthur, a self-employed landscaper, stored his equipment, court documents said.

Over the next three months, investigators made several grisly discoveries at the residential property in midtown Toronto, eventually finding the dismembered remains of seven men in large planters.

The remains of an eighth man were found in a large compost pile in a ravine behind the home, police said.

Partway through their investigation, police also made the rare decision to release a heavily edited photograph of a dead man in a bid to identify him. A month later they said the man in the photograph was Kanagaratnam.

Lead investigator Insp. Hank Idsinga said the McArthur probe was the largest forensic examination in the force's history.

Forensic officers spent four months scouring McArthur's apartment-- they seized 1,800 exhibits and snapped more than 18,000 photographs of the scene. They also searched more than 100 properties where McArthur worked across the Toronto area.

The force's cold case squad is currently investigating a series of homicides in the 1970s related to men with ties to the gay village, but Idsinga has said they've found nothing to link those to McArthur.

Reading on an app? Tap here for full experience.

Bruce McArthur statement of... by on Scribd</s>In a Toronto courthouse this morning, Bruce McArthur pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder.

McArthur, 67, faced eight counts of first degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam. Prior to today’s announcement, Ontario Superior Court Justice John McMahon scheduled McArthur’s trial for Jan 6, 2020. McArthur was arrested in January 2018 and police eventually found the remains of seven men in large planters at a midtown Toronto property which he was associated with. Investigators found the eighth set of remains in a ravine behind the same property.

Here’s some of Xtra’s coverage on the Bruce McArthur case and the killings that have shaken our communities.

When Cabbagetown resident Andrew Kinsman, 49, was reported missing on June 26, 2017, cases of missing men, whose disappearances had been almost forgotten by the general public, resurfaced and caught the attention of the police.

Prior to the Kinsman case, Selim Esen, 44, was also reported missing since April 14, 2017. But it wasn’t until reports of Kinsman’s disappearance that the Toronto Police Service established a special task force to look into the missing person cases of Kinsman and Esen.

The cases were eerily similar to the disappearances of three gay men who frequented the Church-Wellesley Village — Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Majeed Kayhan — between 2010 and 2012. Police had set up the failed “Project Houston,” a task force to track down the men.

In July 2017, the police stated there was no connection between the disappearances of Esen and Kinsman and the three missing men.

But for years, there were rumours of a serial killer preying on men in Toronto’s gay village. Police continuously denied these claims until they were confirmed on Jan 18, 2018, when they charged Bruce McArthur with the deaths of Andrew Kinsman and Selim Esen. The following month, McArthur was charged with six counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Navaratnam, Esen, Kinsman, Lisowick, Mahmudi and Kayhan.

On March 5, Toronto police released a photo of a man they believed was another victim in the hopes of identifying him.

However, the police were criticized for mishandling the cases of the missing men. Here’s an explainer on how the Toronto Police Service handled the McArthur case prior to his arrest.

For Xtra, Arshy Mann wrote a piece arguing that Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders should stop blaming the community and instead, should look at his own force.

In April 2018, McArthur was charged with his seventh count of first-degree murder in the death of Faizi. Days later, he was also charged with the murder of Kanagaratnam, the man from the photo police circulated in March.

During our coverage of the investigation, we heard from friends and family members seeking help in finding their loved one.

LGBTQ2 advocates calling for public inquiry in the serial killer case.

We also were able to learn more about the lives of some of the victims.

“As the MV Sun Sea undertook it’s trans-oceanic journey, the 493 people aboard suffered from cramped conditions, shortages of food and water. One man would die along the journey.

Amongst them was Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, a 32-year-old Tamil man who was hoping to a build a new life abroad. A few years earlier, his brother had been killed in the violence of the civil war.

 According to other passengers, Kanagaratnam spent his time on the voyage singing songs, playing cards and getting to know the others on the ship. He was by all accounts a kind and helpful man.”

“Toronto man Selim Esen was getting his life on track before he went missing”

“He was gentle,” Richard [Esen’s friend] says. “We had a lot of discussions about good and evil, and philosophy.”

 Richard says that Esen missed his family in Turkey.

 “He was really trying to get his life back in order so he could face his family.”

“Andrew Kinsman’s sisters remember their little brother as kind and dependable”

“Shelley Kinsman, another older sister, knows that Andrew loved life and loved his community.

 “Andrew was the best of the best,” she says. “I want those who were part of Andrew’s life in Toronto, to say thank you to them.”

 “It showed you share my love for Andrew.”</s>TORONTO — Bruce McArthur officially became one of Canada’s worst serial killers by pleading guilty on Tuesday to eight counts of first-degree murder.

The 67-year-old landscaper admitted in court to the grisly killings of eight men who vanished in Toronto between 2010 and 2017. Many of them had ties to the city’s gay village.

McArthur appeared before Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice for about 20 minutes on Tuesday morning. Wearing a black sweater over a plaid collared shirt, he told the judge that he understood he is giving up his right to a trial and said he was pleading guilty voluntarily.

Sentencing is expected to begin Monday, Feb. 4, at which point victim impact statements will be filed with the court.

Court heard that six of the eight murders were sexual in nature. Evidence showed that McArthur used ligatures in five of the murders and confined two of those victims with ropes.

The men McArthur murdered, in alphabetical order, are Selim Esen, Abdulbasir Faizi, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Majeed Kayhan, Andrew Kinsman, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi and Skandaraj Navaratnam. Police found their remains either in planters to which McArthur tended at a property in Toronto’s Leaside neighbourhood or in the ravine behind that house.
• Are the unknown victims of alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur hidden among these 22 cold cases?

The plea comes slightly more than a year after police arrested McArthur last Jan. 18 on two initial counts of first-degree murder, and precisely a year after the force upped the murder charges against him to five. By mid-April McArthur’s alleged victims totalled eight.

By confessing to the killings, McArthur averts a trial that was to begin next January and that would have attracted considerable public attention. His decision in October to waive his right to a preliminary hearing was an indication that the case could be heading toward a guilty plea.

More to come.</s>Bruce McArthur pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder on Tuesday in a case that has gripped Toronto and haunted the city’s LGBTQ community.

McArthur, a 67-year-old landscaper, admitted to killing the eight men, who vanished between 2010 and 2017.

The disappearances prompted two police probes. Project Houston, launched in 2012, focused on men of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent, but was shut down in 2014 without a suspect. Project Prism, a task force on disappearances in the city’s Gay Village, launched in August 2017. According to police documents, officers noticed a pattern among the victims: middle-aged with facial hair and self-identified in the gay community as “bears,” a term for a “larger, hairier man who projects an image of rugged masculinity.”

Here are the victims, in alphabetical order:

Esen went missing from the Yonge and Bloor area on April 14, 2017. His disappearance, along with Andrew Kinsman, became part of the police investigation known as Project Prism, launched in August 2017.

On Jan. 18, 2018, McArthur was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Esen and Kinsman. At the time, police said McArthur was believed to be responsible for other deaths.

Det. Stg. Hank Idsinga said Esen had a relationship with McArthur, but did not provide further details.

On Dec. 29, 2010 Faizi was reported missing to Peel Regional Police, west of Toronto. He was last seen in Toronto’s gay village.

In November 2012, police launched Project Houston to investigate the disappearance of men from Toronto’s gay village, including Faizi, Majeed Kayhan and Skanda Navaratnam. The probe was shut down in April 2014 after police are unable to to identify a suspect in the disappearances.

On April 11, 2018, police laid a charge against McArthur in Faizi’s death, the seventh murder charge.

Originally from Sri Lanka, Kanagaratnam moved to Canada in 2010 and had been living in Scarborough. Police believed Kanagaratnam died on or about Jan. 6, 2016. He was never reported missing in Canada or Sri Lanka. There is no evidence linking him to the Gay Village in Toronto.

Kanagaratnam’s remains were found buried in planters that McArthur kept stored at the home of one of his clients. Unable to identify the remains, police made the rare move to release a photo as a last resort for information. Kanagaratnam was identified a month later with the help of an an unnamed international government agency.

On April 16, 2018, police laid an eighth murder charge against McArthur in the death of Kanagaratnam.
• Day before Toronto police chief said no serial killer was on the loose, his officers searched Bruce McArthur’s apartment
• Bruce McArthur charged with sixth first-degree murder. Police have ‘no idea’ how many more victims
• Bruce McArthur pleads guilty to eight counts of first degree murder

On October 2012, Majeed Kayhan, of Toronto, was reported missing. His disappearance became part of Toronto Police’s 2012 to 2014 Project Houston investigation which turned up no suspects.

On Jan. 29, 2018, McArthur was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Kayhan as well as Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick.

On June 26, 2017 over Pride Weekend, Kinsman was reported missing. Police have said Kinsman had a sexual relationship with McArthur which had lasted “for some time.” Kinsman’s sisters said they searched for their brother for six months before police eventually charged McArthur in his death. Karen Coles said he was “well-known in his community” and “loved by all.” Alphonso King, who knew Kinsman through volunteer work, described his late friend as “very well-known in the activist community.”

On August 2017, police launched Project Prism to investigate Kinsman’s disappearance as well as others in the community.

On Jan. 17, 2018, investigators uncovered evidence alleging McArthur was responsible for both Kinsman and Esen’s deaths, along with the deaths of others.

 The next day, police arrested McArthur at his apartment and charged him with the murders of Kinsman and Esen.

Friends remembered Lisowick as a polite and gentle man who was always offering to help out in Toronto’s Gay Village with odd jobs.

Lisowick, who also worked as a sex worker in the Village, was estranged from his family and struggled with homelessness and drug addiction. Lisowick wasn’t reported missing when he disappeared in 2016. Police believe McArthur murdered Lisowick on or about April 23, 2016.

On Jan. 29, 2018, McArthur was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lisowick as well as Soroush Mahmudi.

Mahmudi was reported missing by family in Scarborough in August 2015. Police have not said whether Mahmudi had any sort of relationship with McArthur.

On Jan. 29, 2018, McArthur was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Mahmudi, Kayhan and Lisowick.

Originally from Sri Lanka, Navaratnam was known to friends as “Skanda.” They described him as “happy all the time,” social and “charming.”

He was reported missing in September 2010 after last being seen leaving the now-defunct Zipperz nightclub in Toronto’s Gay Village. Friends were immediately alarmed, believing Navaratnam would never leave his newly adopted puppy alone at home. They covered the Village with missing posters.

According to reports, Navaratam knew McArthur; he worked with him as a landscaper and, according to the CBC, dated him in 2000. They had also been seen chatting at Village bars such as Woody’s or the Black Eagle.

On Feb. 23, 2018, police identified Navaratnam as one of the alleged victims.

With files from Jake Edmiston, Nick Faris, Victor Ferreira, Adrian Humphreys and Monika Warzecha</s>Nearly a decade after men started to disappear from Toronto’s Gay Village, Bruce McArthur has admitted he was the serial killer who murdered eight men.

Mr. McArthur, a freelance landscape artist who was arrested a year ago, told a judge he would plead guilty to first-degree murder in a Toronto courtroom on Tuesday morning.

"Are you doing so voluntarily?" Superior Court Justice John McMahon asked.

Crown attorney Michael Cantlon said police found evidence that six of the murders were of a sexual nature, with use of ligature and staging afterward.

Mr. McArthur was charged with the first-degree murders of Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Dean Lisowick, Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman, the eight men disappeared from Toronto’s Gay Village between 2010 and 2017..

The minimal sentence for first-degree murder is a life term, with no chance for parole before 25 years, so Mr. McArthur would be in his 90s before he can apply for a conditional release.

The McArthur investigation was one of the largest forensic cases in the history of the Toronto police. Officers executed more than 90 search warrants and production orders, collected 1,800 pieces of evidence during a four-month search of Mr. McArthur’s apartment, and also searched more than 100 locations linked to his landscaping business.

The remains of seven of the eight victims were found hidden in gardening planters at a house on Mallory Crescent, a property in the Leaside neighbourhood where the owners allowed Mr. McArthur to store his tools in their garage. The remains of Mr. Kayhan were discovered in a ravine nearby.

Mr. McArthur was born in 1951 on a farm near Lindsay, Ont., the youngest of the two children of a devout couple, an Irish Catholic mother and a Presbyterian Scottish father.

While growing up, Mr, McArthur realized that he was attracted to the same sex but chose to ignore those feelings, according to a presentencing report prepared in 2003 when he had his first brush with the law, an assault conviction.

He married a woman who had been a childhood friend. They raised two children in Oshawa and he worked as a key account manager for a sock manufacturer.

His life changed drastically after he came out as gay at age 45. He moved to Toronto and became a landscaper. He remained on good terms with his ex-wife, and his son often visited him at the apartment. He occasionally worked as a shopping mall Santa.

Shortly after he turned 50, Mr. McArthur went to the apartment of a male sex worker in the Gay Village, and without provocation hit the man several times on the head with a metal pipe. Mr. McArthur later went to police, saying he didn’t know why he attacked his victim.

He received a two-year conditional sentence, and had to stay away from the Village and not be in the company of male prostitutes.

Starting in the fall of 2010, men began disappearing from the Village. Despite setting up a special team, Project Houston, Toronto police were unable to solve the cases for seven years.

During that period, Mr. McArthur was interviewed by police twice, in 2013 during Project Houston, and in 2016 after a sex partner said he tried to choke him. He was not suspected on either occasions.

Toronto police began another special investigation, Project Prism, in the summer of 2017, after Mr. Esen and Mr. Kinsman went missing. Mr. McArthur became a person of interest by late August, 2017.

By November, Mr. McArthur became a suspect and was placed under surveillance almost every day for more than two months before his arrest as Toronto police covertly searched his home several times.

Detectives tracked Mr. McArthur’s van with a GPS device and installed a secret camera aimed at a garage where he was suspected of hiding the bodies of victims.

They broke into his apartment, on the 19th-floor of a high-rise, to copy the content of a memory key, an external hard drive and a desktop computer.
Bruce McArthur, a Toronto landscaper charged on January 18, 2018, in this decade-long investigation, pleads guilty in Ontario Superior Court to murdering eight men.