Toronto landscaper Bruce McArthur now faces three additional counts of first-degree murder, bringing the total to five in what police are calling a serial killing case that the city has never seen before.

Det.-Sgt Hank Idsinga said Monday that investigators have reason to believe McArthur killed Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick.

"What kind of case is this?" Idsinga asked rhetorically at a news conference. "It's a serial killer."

'I have no idea how many more there are going to be,' says Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga 1:35

Idsinga said there may be even more victims who have yet to be identified.

"We do believe there are more and I have no idea how many more there are going to be."

McArthur, 66, was previously charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman, who both disappeared in 2017.

Police say Kayhan went missing in October 2012 and Mahmudi in August 2015. They believe Lisowick was killed in 2016 or 2017.

Remains found in planters

Idsinga said police discovered dismembered remains in the bottom of large planters after searching a property linked to McArthur at Mallory Crescent in midtown Toronto.

"There's at least the remains of three people among those body parts," said Idsinga.

McArthur now faces first-degree murder charges in the deaths of Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick, left to right. (Toronto Police Service)

He added that more DNA and other analysis is being done on the remains to determine the exact identities of the victims.

Karen Fraser lived at the Mallory Crescent property with her husband and told CBC's As It Happens McArthur would often store equipment — including large planters like the ones where the body parts were found — on her property in exchange for cutting grass.

McArthur would do more for her, including helping her with charity work, she added.

Toronto police probed a home linked to Bruce McArthur, located on Mallory Crescent in the area of Bayview and Moore avenues. Although McArthur didn't live there, he did landscaping work for the couple who lived at the property and stored equipment there. (Mehrdad Nazarahari/CBC) "He has been kind, helpful, helped with our charity work, doing floral gifts for silent auctions," she said. "He went above and beyond what our original agreement was to cut the grass."

Fraser said she now struggles to fall sleep and thinks about how some of the alleged victims were immigrants.

"I know sometimes they feel incredibly vulnerable. A lot of them are here without family," she said.

"I picture these men, glad to be making friends. They found a community. They really think that their new life is going to be maybe more than they ever dreamed possible — and then that someone took advantage. The terror, the horror — that's what I have real trouble with"

Other sites to be searched

Since McArthur's arrest, police have identified approximately 30 properties where the self-employed landscaper may have worked.

Idsinga said police have searched the majority of the properties, and urged anyone who may have employed McArthur to contact them so they can search the area where he may have worked.

"He's taken some steps to cover his tracks and we have to uncover these victims," Idsinga said.

Investigators have also seized other planters to go through and have identified at least two other sites to be excavated.

Toronto police recovered body parts of 'at least' three victims inside planters at the Mallory Crescent home. (CBC)

'Unprecedented' investigation

Idsinga also confirmed that McArthur was first identified as a suspect in September in connection with Kinsman's disappearance.

Officers arrested him after uncovering evidence that also linked McArthur to Esen's death.

The ensuing investigation has required "unprecedented" resources, police said.

"We've never seen anything quite like this with the number of crime scenes that we have to process," Idsinga said.</s>Toronto police have announced three additional counts of first-degree murder have been laid against Bruce McArthur.

Detective Sgt. Hank Idsinga told reporters Monday that McArthur is being charged with three additional counts of first-degree murder in relation to the deaths of Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Marmudi and Dean Lisowisk. Lisowisk was never reported missing to police.

[ MORE: Missing bodies in GTA murder investigation suggests 'organized killer,' expert says ]

McArthur, a 66-year-old landscaper, was arrested on Jan. 18 and charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman, two men who went missing from Toronto's Gay Village area in 2017. Police said at the time there may be other victims.</s>Toronto police say Bruce McArthur is now being charged with three new counts of first-degree murder in the cases of three men who went missing from Toronto’s gay village.

McArthur was previously charged in the presumed deaths of Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman, both reported missing from the Church and Wellesley streets area at separate times last year.

Police say the dismembered remains of three unidentified bodies have been found at a property related to McArthur.</s>Toronto Police have charged suspected serial killer Bruce McArthur with an additional three counts of first-degree murder following the discovery of human remains at a Leaside property. Catherine McDonald has the details.</s>Toronto landscaper Bruce McArthur now faces three additional counts of first-degree murder, bringing the total to five in what police are calling a serial killing case that the city has never seen before.

Det.-Sgt Hank Idsinga said Monday that investigators have reason to believe McArthur killed Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick.

"What kind of case is this?" Idsinga asked rhetorically at a news conference. "It's a serial killer."

Idsinga said there may be even more victims who have yet to be identified.

"We do believe there are more and I have no idea how many more there are going to be."
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McArthur, 66, was previously charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman, who both disappeared in 2017.

Police say Kayhan went missing in October 2012 and Mahmudi in August 2015. They believe Lisowick was killed in 2016 or 2017.

Idsinga said police discovered dismembered remains in the bottom of large planters after searching a property linked to McArthur at Mallory Crescent in midtown Toronto.

"There's at least the remains of three people among those body parts," said Idsinga.

He added that more DNA and other analysis is being done on the remains to determine the exact identities of the victims.

Since McArthur's arrest, police have identified approximately 30 properties where the self-employed landscaper may have worked.

Idsinga said police have searched the majority of the properties, and urged anyone who may have employed McArthur to contact them so they can search the area where he may have worked.

"He's taken some steps to cover his tracks and we have to uncover these victims," Idsinga added.

Investigators have also seized other planters to go through them and have identified at least two other sites to be excavated.

Idsinga also confirmed that McArthur was first identified as a suspect in September in connection with the disappearance of Kinsman.

Officers arrested him after uncovering evidence that also linked McArthur to the death of Esen.

The ensuing investigation has required an "unprecedented" number of resources, police said.

"We've never seen anything quite like this with the number of crime scenes that we have to process," said Idsinga.</s>Toronto investigators have charged Bruce McArthur with three additional counts of first-degree murder, and say more charges may be pending as they search large planters around the city for human remains. The new charges are in connection with the deaths of Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick.

Authorities told reporters on Monday that they have recovered the remains of three unidentified bodies from a property connected to McArthur, a 66-year-old self-employed landscaper.

“These remains have not yet been identified,” Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga said at a news conference Monday. He said the remains were recovered from large planters at a residence McArthur is known to have used for storage.

“They’ve been hidden in the bottoms of these planters,” Idsinga said.

Idsinga acknowledged that it’s fair to characterize the string of murders as a serial killing.

“It’s a serial killer – alleged serial killer,” he told reporters, adding: “The City of Toronto has never seen anything like this.”

Kayhan, 58, had been among three missing men sought as part of the Toronto Police Service’s Project Houston, which was launched in 2012.

Mahmudi, 50, was reported missing by his family in Scarborough in 2015.

Lisowick was never reported missing, but Idsinga said it’s believed he was killed at the age of 47, sometime between May of 2016 and July of 2017. “He was an occupant of the shelter system in Toronto,” Idsinga said.

Idsinga said McArthur is known to have worked at 30 different properties within Toronto. Police have contacted the owners of those properties and have searched the majority of them, but are encouraging others who may have employed him to contact investigators.

“We do believe there are more, and I have no idea how many more there are going to be,” Idsinga said. “We’ll lay more charges as we get them.”

Police have not indicated the exact nature of the evidence that led to the charges. However, a source tells CTV News that photographs of the alleged victims were also found at McArthur’s residence.

McArthur was charged on Jan. 18 in connection with the deaths of Andrew Kinsman, 49, and Selim Esen, 44, who went missing last summer from Toronto’s gay village. Their bodies have not been found.

Idsinga said the murders do not all fit a clear pattern, as not all of them are Middle Eastern or members of Toronto’s gay community.

“It certainly encompasses more than the gay community – it encompasses the city of Toronto,” he said.

Police are now looking at disappearances from at least as far back as 2010.

Kayhan was one of three missing men who was never found as part of Project Houston. Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, and Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, were also sought as part of the investigation, and have not been found.

Court documents unearthed last week that McArthur has an assault conviction dating back to an incident from 2001. The self-employed landscaper was found guilty of one count of assault causing bodily harm and one count of assault with a weapon. He was handed a two-year conditional sentence in 2003 and ordered to receive counselling. He was also barred from visiting Toronto’s Church and Wellesley neighbourhood, and from spending time with male prostitutes.

The first-degree murder charges against McArthur have not been tested in court.</s>TORONTO: Police in Canada's largest city of Toronto on Monday accused a landscaper of murdering five people and placing their dead bodies in large planters on his clients' properties across the city in an "unprecedented" case.

The deaths are tied to a series of missing-persons cases in Toronto's gay village.

Toronto police said they had laid a total of five charges of first-degree murder against Bruce McArthur, 66.

McArthur, who is in custody, was originally charged with two counts of first-degree murder earlier this month.

"It's an alleged serial killer," Detective-Sergeant Hank Idsinga told reporters at a news briefing, describing the case as "unprecedented."

"The city of Toronto has never seen anything like this," he said.

Idsinga said police had found bodies hidden at the bottom of large planters at multiple addresses, and believed there were more victims than the five people identified so far.

Police are searching other properties where McArthur has done landscaping work, he said.

"We do believe there are more and I have no idea how many more there are going to be," he added.

McArthur is accused of killing Selim Esen, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Marmudi and Dean Lisowick.</s>The house on Mallory Crescent was a gray two-story shotgun with brown trim, its garage just a few steps up from the sidewalk.

In the summer months vegetation spilled out from the flower beds running along the driveway, but by the time investigators from the Toronto Police Service marched onto the lot on Jan. 18, the raw Canadian winter had scraped away the landscaping and police turned their attention to large flower planters stored at the back of the property.

They searched there because a self-employed landscaper named Bruce McArthur had worked on the property. That same day, he had been charged with killing two people. Police had reason to believe there might be more.

And they believed they knew where they might find more bodies. McArthur was a self-employed landscaper who stored items at the house where they were searching in return for yard work.

Indeed, inside the planters were hidden the dismembered remains of at least three people.

On Monday, McArthur, bulky-framed pink-cheeked 66-year-old who regularly donned a Santa Claus costume at a local mall during the holidays, was charged with three additional murders.

Police believe there are more bodies still. Right now, investigators are undertaking the macabre task of visiting the 30 other properties where McArthur performed lawn work, collecting more than a dozen planters that police believe contain additional remains.

“It’s a serial killer — alleged serial killer,” Sgt. Hank Idsinga explained at a news conference in Toronto on Monday. “He’s taken some steps to cover his tracks and we have to uncover these victims.”

“We do believe there are more. I have no idea how many more there are going to be,” Idsinga admitted to reporters.”The city of Toronto has never seen anything like this, so it’s very tiring and draining for everyone involved.”

The gruesome news in Canada’s largest city is unfolding this week against a backdrop of social outrage. Both McArthur and a number of his alleged victims had ties to Toronto’s Gay Village neighborhood. For years, members of the city’s LGBT community had reported disappearances from the area, sparking whispers about a possible serial killer targeting the community.

“We are validated in our concerns, but there’s no joy to be had in that,” Nicki Ward, a community activist, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. this week. “Why weren’t we listened to earlier? Perhaps some lives could have been saved if that was the case.”

According to the timeline provided by Idsinga at the briefing, beginning in November 2012, Toronto police launched “Project Houston,” an investigation into the disappearance of three men from Gay Village, all of Middle Eastern descent: Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40; Abdulbasir Faizi, 42; and Majeed Kayhan, 58. The investigation continued fruitlessly until April 2014. “At the conclusion of the project, no evidence is found which would classify anyone as a suspect in any criminal offense related to the disappearances,” Idsinga said.

But in August 2017, police started a new investigation — Project Prism — looking for traces of two other missing members of the gay community: Selim Esen, 44, and Andrew Kinsman, 49.

They learned that Kinsman had had a sexual relationship with McArthur, police say. Investigators began following McArthur. Eventually, police tracked down a maroon Dodge Caravan that they say McArthur had sold to an auto-parts store outside of Toronto.

“They said it was a high-profile case, but they didn’t tell us that it was related to these missing gentlemen in particular,” the shop owner told CTV News. Inside the Dodge, he claimed, police discovered a trace amount of blood in the vehicle, an assertion so far unconfirmed by authorities.

On Jan. 18, McArthur was arrested and charged with Esen and Kinsman’s murders.

After further investigation and the discovery of remains in the planters, authorities charged McArthur with the murders of three additional murders: Majeed Kayhan, 58; Soroush Mahmudi, 50; and Dean Lisowick, 47. Police have not publicly connected the victims to the planters. They said DNA testing was ongoing.

“Majeed Kayhan was one of the males whose disappearance was investigated by Project Houston,” Idsinga told reporters. “Soroush Mahmudi was . . . reported missing in Scarborough by his family in 2015. Dean Lisowick was never reported as missing, but we believe he was murdered between May 2016 and July 2017.”

The murder charges are not McArthur’s first experience in a criminal courtroom. In October 2001, he was charged with assault with a weapon after attacking a man with a metal pipe, the Toronto Star reported. Although the details of the arrest have not been reported, the paper noted to avoid jail time the defendant agreed to stay away from Gay Village and keep away from male prostitutes.

Idsinga declined to provide further details of the evidence linking the defendant to the victims. Vice News reported that before McArthur’s Facebook page was deactivated this week, it showed the suspect was listed as a friend with Navaratnam, one of the missing men targeted in the Project Houston investigation. But police have yet to say if the victims were targeted for any specific reason.

“It certainly encompasses more than the gay community,” Idsinga told reporters. “It encompasses the city of Toronto.”

McArthur is scheduled to make a plea appearance in court on Feb. 14.

Follow the Bangor Daily News on Facebook for the latest Maine news.</s>Bruce McArthur, who police are now describing as an “alleged serial killer,” has been charged with three additional counts of first-degree murder.

The three new murder charges are in relation to the deaths of Majeed Kayhan, 58, whose disappearance was investigated by Project Houston when he was reported missing in October 2012; Soroush Marmudi, 50, who was reported missing in August 2015; and Dean Lisowick, 47, who used shelters in Toronto and was never reported missing.

Police said today that the remains of at least three dismembered bodies were found in the backyard of McArthur’s storage property at 53 Mallory Cres.

The remains have not been identified and police suspect there are more bodies connected to disappearances in the Church/Wellesley village area.

In a press conference today, Detective Sergeant Hank Idsinga gave an update on the case of McArthur, 66, who is now charged with five counts of first-degree murder.

Police are still searching approximately 30 properties linked to McArthur.

He worked as a landscaper and police say they’ve found remains at multiple properties connected to him. The bodies that have been recovered were found at the bottom of large plant pots.

“We do believe there are more [murders], and I have no idea how many more there are going to be,” said Idsinga.

However, remains could be buried all over Toronto. Homeowners who hired McArthur for landscaping are being urged to contact police. “It certainly encompasses more than the gay community, it encompasses the city of Toronto,” said Idsinga.

While police do not know the full extent of this case, Idsinga said he’s never seen anything like this before.

When asked if McArthur’s case was comparable to Canada’s most infamous serial killer, Robert Pickton, Idsinga said police weren’t sure, but wouldn’t rule it out.

Police previously charged McArthur with the deaths of Andrew Kinsman, 49, and Selim Esen, 44 even though none of the remains have been identified.

At this time, almost all the victims are males who were associated with the gay village and of Middle Eastern descent, leading police to believe McArthur is an alleged serial killer.</s>TORONTO — Dismembered skeletal remains have been recovered from the bottom of large planter boxes at a home linked to an alleged serial killer who worked as a landscaper, Toronto police announced on Monday.

In what police called an unprecedented situation in Canada’s largest city, investigators announced three more first-degree murder charges against Bruce McArthur, who had already been charged with killing two men who had disappeared in the city’s gay village. They also said they there might be more victims.

“We do believe there are more. I have no idea how many more there are going to be,” Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga said. “We’re investigating some 30 properties. We believe there are more remains at some of these properties that we’re working to recover.”

Forensic experts have yet to identify the remains, Idsinga said.

McArthur, 66, was charged Jan. 18 in the presumed deaths of Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman. He was further charged on Monday in the deaths Majeed Kayhan, 58, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, and Dean Lisowick, 47.

Kayhan went missing in 2012, Mahmudi was reported missing in 2015, while Lisowick was never reported missing. Mahmudi and Lisowick did not fit the profile of some of the other men who were reported missing — Middle Eastern men known to frequent Toronto’s gay village area.

Police previously said McArthur had a longer-term relationship with Kinsman, 49, which they described as being “sexual.” McArthur’s relationship with Esen is still unknown, as are his relationships with the other three people whose murders he has now been charged with.

“We know that many in the community are struggling to understand and process these developments,” Idsinga said. “(But the investigation) certainly encompasses more than the gay community. It encompasses the city of Toronto,” Idsinga said.

Police had initially shut down the rumour that a serial killer was prowling the streets of the city’s gay village, stressing in December that they did not know whether Esen’s and Kinsman’s disappearances were linked or even if the men were still living. That has now changed dramatically.

Investigators said they have identified 30 properties where McArthur worked and are now scouring them for any further evidence. They also said they are planning to excavate at two properties “where people might be buried” but said it’s not known what, if anything, they might find.

“We believe there are more remains at some of these properties that we’re working to recover,” Idsinga said.
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Toronto Police charge landscaper Bruce McArthur with a total of five counts of first-degree murder, after garden planters containing the remains of three additional people are found on a property linked to him.