Toronto Police have found more human remains in their investigation of gay serial killer Bruce McArthur.
The police say they found the remains while investigating a forest ravine behind a property that landscape gardener McArthur used to store his equipment. This is the exact same property that police found the remains of seven of McArthur’s eight known victims.
This is the first time that police have found remains that weren’t hidden in planters. In addition, the police have yet to find out if the remains belong to one of the already identified victims or to a new one (or ones).
As Detective Sargent Hank Idsinga, who's leading the investigation, told reporters yesterday: “Yesterday afternoon, human remains were located at one of the first digging sites … We haven’t identified what the remains are or who they belonged to.”
Police continue to investigate the murders committed by Bruce McArthur, which date back to the mid-1970s.
The 66-year-old was arrested in January and initially charged with the murder of two men.
Prior to this, members of Toronto’s Gay Village were distressed after noticing the increased number of disappearances of LGBTQ men.
While police initially told those concerned citizens that there was nothing to fear, they now share that they had McArthur under surveillance for months. One of their hints toward McArthur’s misdeeds was that he had a prior record for violence in the area.
When the arrested him in his apartment, they also discovered a man within who was naked and tied up.
After police openly started investigating McArthur, they connected him to the disappearances and murder of six additional men. This is mostly due to the discovery of their remains in planters where McArthur used to work.
So far, the names of McArthur’s victims are Selim Esen; Skandaraj Navaratnam; Andrew Kinsman; Majeed Kayhan; Dean Lisowick; Soroush Mahmudi; Abdulbasir Faizi; and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.
Unfortunately, Toronto experiences sub-zero temperatures during the winter, so police investigation was thwarted by the weather. Now that the weather is warmer, police are investigating with a fervor.
McArthur is expected to return to court on July 23. We’ll see if police can identify who these remains belong to and if there are more than eight victims in the time before that.
h/t: The Guardian
I used to be against the
I used to be against the death penalty, until I learned about stuff like this.