SERIAL KILLER: Bruce McArthur

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now, wherever you get your podcasts. [00:31] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is an important story to close out this year's Pride Month. It's sometimes easy to see, like, the glitzy side of Pride, this, like, fun party with celebratory parades. But at its core, Pride was and is a protest. I mean, it began as a protest. A protest against police after they raided New York's Stonewall Inn back in 1969. [01:01] That particular police raid was hardly the first of its kind. More like the straw that broke the camel's back. [01:08] The complicated and often confrontational relationship between police and the LGBTQ community goes much further back than Stonewall. And it's easy to forget that it wasn't that many years ago here in America that being gay was illegal. Dressing in drag was illegal. And police were out there enforcing those laws, laws that today seem ridiculous.

[01:32] For the most part, at least in North America, police aren't out there with a mandate to enforce morality laws, the ones that govern who we can and can't sleep with or love and what we can and can't wear. But that doesn't mean everything is fine and dandy between the queer community and the police. [01:50] As straight cisgendered people, I think it's easy to look around at all the things like marriage equality and think that the fight for queer liberation is largely over. But the truth is a lot more complicated than that. And today's story, which unfolded within the last decade in the city of Toronto, shows us just how far we still have to go. [02:11] This is the story of Bruce MacArthur and the Men of the Gay Village. [02:17] Music. [02:48] It's late June 2017, just after Pride Weekend in Toronto, Canada, when friends of Andrew Kinsman start to worry about him. A close friend of Andrew's named Robin, who lives in the same building, first got concerned on Monday the 26th, when Andrew said that he was going to meet some friends for coffee, but didn't come back.

[03:08] But listen, Andrew is 49 years old. He knows how to take care of himself. So Robin just kind of parks her concern for the moment and goes about her business trying not to overreact. [03:18] But then by Wednesday, when she still hasn't seen him, that's when she starts to worry. [03:23] So Robin gets in touch with another friend of Andrew's, this guy named Tom, and they decide to let themselves into Andrew's apartment and see if there's anything in there that might help them understand where he went. [03:34] They let themselves into his place, expecting who knows what. But there isn't a single thing out of place. [03:41] The only thing missing is this satchel-type bag that Andrew carried with him everywhere he went. And, of course, Andrew himself is not there. But, of course, Andrew himself is not there. [03:51] But what's really concerning to Robin and Tom is that Andrew's cat is there. But the cat is there without food or water, right? [04:00] Robin told Salma Ibrahim for CBC News that Andrew loved that cat more than anything and would never, under any circumstances, leave him without food or water. So that's when Andrew's friends report him missing to the Toronto police that very day. And immediately, they start pulling together a search for Andrew. You mean the police started searching right away or the friends? No, no, no, the friends. And Andrew had a lot of them. [04:30] Andrew had a huge network of people in the Church and Wellesley part of Toronto, the area known as the Gay Village. And they immediately got to work trying to find him, just combing the streets and the alleyways, putting up posters on literally every light pole.

[04:44] I mean, you couldn't walk one block in the neighborhood without seeing Andrew's face on a poster. His friends aren't shy about calling the media either to drum up more awareness and put Andrew's face in front of even more people. And they call police, too. One friend after another, over and over. [05:03] That pressure is at least part of the reason police start looking into Andrew's disappearance pretty quickly. They check hospitals and shelters and morgues. They look into his finances, request his phone and banking records. And they reach out to dozens of people who knew him and who had seen him trying to get a handle on who he is, his patterns of behavior, any cause for concern. But they don't find anything that might help explain his disappearance. No crushing debt, no family or community issues. [05:33] And sure, he had his struggles with depression, who hasn't? But he wasn't in that headspace recently. See, to me, the lack of red flags feels like... [05:42] you know, a red flag in and of itself. But I mean, my question is, did his phone records or bank records show that he was active anywhere? No, there had been no activity in his bank account. I mean, he hadn't accessed his email or even his social media, and he hadn't used his phone either. It's literally like he walked out of the door of his building that day and disappeared into thin air. And I mean, to your point, [06:06] It is troubling. Yeah. What's even more troubling for his friends and for everyone in the village is that Andrew is not the first man to vanish from Toronto's gay village. Just a couple of months before, in mid-April, another man, 44-year-old Salim Essen, had vanished without a trace.

[06:26] Now, Andrew and Saleem were both gay men who frequented the village, but the similarities pretty much stopped there. I mean, Saleem was unemployed and known to use drugs. And even though his friends said he had just found his own place and was working toward recovery, he was more or less considered transient at the time. [06:45] According to a documentary called Catching a Serial Killer, Bruce MacArthur, Salim had no fixed address when he went missing. He just kind of carded around all of his things from couch to couch in a silver wheelie suitcase. And because the suitcase was gone, too, it wasn't a huge stretch to think that he left town or was just kind of laying low. Right. And at this point, is anyone saying that the disappearances are connected? [07:09] Well, police aren't, but... [07:11] people in the village, they had been connecting these cases from day one. And here's the thing, they're not just connecting them to one another, but to a string of men vanishing from the village without a trace that goes all the way back to 2010. So let me take you back there and tell you those stories so you can see why everyone is so concerned now. [07:36] The first was a 43-year-old man named Skanda Navaratnam, who went missing in September 2010. [07:43] A few months after that, at the end of December, a second man... [07:47] 44-year-old Abdul Basir Faizi, who went by Basir, also vanished. Two years after that, in October 2012, a third man fell off the grid.

[07:58] 58-year-old Majid Kayhan, who was known as Hamid. [08:03] The similarities between these three men were impossible to ignore. They're all Middle Eastern or South Asian. They're all roughly the same age, same build. They kind of had the same whole look, like literally down to the same facial hair. And did police investigate these other disappearances at all? [08:21] Well, they did. They investigated them as individual missing persons cases, but not as three potentially connected cases, or at least not right away. [08:31] But when Hamid vanished from the village, this was their third brown-skinned man in two years, it was hard for anyone not to wonder if there was something more going on here. I mean, people in the village started to whisper that maybe there was a serial killer preying on gay men. [08:46] Then again, if you looked, you could see patterns like this everywhere in Toronto. [08:52] Joseph Jafari wrote about this in a piece for Rolling Stone, saying as an example that women of color had been going missing in Toronto for years and no one jumped to say that they were connected or that there was a serial killer involved. Which is a fair point. But... [09:07] Just because someone isn't screaming it at you, you know, I think that you'd want to at least rule it out, like close that investigative door. [09:14] Yeah, and police did end up at least considering that the three cases were connected. [09:20] That was part of their work back in November 2012 when they created a specialized task force called Project Houston. As in Houston, we have a problem. Oh. It actually started as an investigation into just one of the cases when Toronto police got a tip through Interpol suggesting...

[09:38] that Skanda Navaratnam, who'd been missing more than two years at this point, wasn't missing at all, but had been murdered. [09:47] And at the center of that allegation is this guy named James Brunton. [09:53] This dude is like in his mid-60s, coaching minor hockey, he's married, but known to spend time in the village. [10:00] Police went hard at James during Project Houston, trying to figure out if and how he was connected to Scanda. [10:07] And at the same time, they figured they look at the other active missing persons files, which is what finally brought Basir and Hamid's cases to Project Houston. [10:17] Once they had all three files in front of them, investigators saw the similarities men in the village had been seeing all along. [10:24] That's when they started appearing in the village with posters of the missing men asking for leads and information. [10:30] And of course, people in the village are like, finally, finally, police are taking our concerns seriously. Yeah. But even though they're paying attention now and looking into the disappearances, police don't end up finding evidence to suggest that this James guy killed Skanda, let alone the other two men. [10:48] Which is not to say James came out of Project Houston squeaky clean. He ended up facing charges for creating, possessing, and distributing child sex abuse material. And he pled guilty to some of those charges. But in terms of the missing men, James Brunton was a dead end. So was Project Houston all about this James or did they look for any other suspects?

[11:13] It was mostly about James, but they kept Project Houston going as an investigation into the missing men, even after he was ruled out. I mean, police did tons of interviews with people in the village at the time, and they even brought in a few for questioning as witnesses. But no matter what they did, they weren't getting any traction. And by the time Project Houston winds down in April 2014, all police had was a pile of dead ends. And you can imagine the community is like, hang on a second, like, [11:41] You're just giving up? Like, that's it? Yeah, like, there are still three missing men. Like, let's keep going until we find something. Yeah, but the problem is they aren't getting anything to go on. And police say that they don't even have proof that a crime has happened at all. I mean, there are no crime scenes. There are no bodies, no witnesses saying that they saw anything out of the ordinary. And so the investigators on Project Houston move on to other files. [12:09] And really, people in the village started to move on too. The community level panic that was there when Project Houston began, that had really settled down. Which is not to say that anyone forgot about the missing men. That's not what I mean. It's just that whatever seemed to be going on in the village... [12:27] didn't seem like it was going on anymore. [12:30] That is, until Andrew Kinsman went missing and suddenly everyone's paying attention again. [12:39] Thank you. [12:40] Cape Fear is a new series now streaming on Apple TV. This 10-episode psychological thriller is executive produced by Martin Scorsese and stars Academy Award winner Javier Bardem, Academy Award nominee Amy Adams, and Emmy nominee Patrick Wilson. When convicted murderer Max Cady is released from prison, he begins infiltrating the family of the married attorneys who helped put him behind bars. Watch Cape Fear streaming now on Apple TV.

[13:09] In the summer of 2017, the community holds an open town hall where hundreds of people from the village get together. And those whispers in the area about a serial killer preying on gay men, those aren't so much whispers anymore. This is really interesting because... [13:25] The first four missing men all fit the same profile, but Andrew Kinsman [13:30] Like, does that ever make people wonder whether his case is even connected? Yeah, but he's still a gay man missing from this relatively small, tight-knit community. So the people who live there see the similarities between them in a way that police can't or maybe we wouldn't or maybe the way the police don't want to see. [13:49] There's actually a paragraph from Justin Ling's Vice article that quotes a Toronto police statement from around this time. I think it's like helpful. So here, let me have you read it. [13:59] It says, quote, [14:00] There has been some suggestion within the Church and Wellesley community that the disappearances of Andrew Kinsman and Salim Essen are linked as well as with the three other men reported missing from the same area from 2010 to 2012, a police statement reads. Detailed investigation and evidence obtained thus far in the course of both investigations has not confirmed a link, although as part of the police investigation, this is being considered. [14:25] End quote. [14:26] So they make this statement, but then something shifts for police. And in the summer of 2017, they set up a second task force dedicated to the missing persons cases from the village. This one they call Project Prism. Project Prism is really just about the 2017 cases, Salim and Andrew. And to me, based on the statement you read, I think they're mostly treating them as isolated incidents.

[14:56] Salim had been reported missing several weeks after he was last seen, so long enough for potentially hot leads to cool off. So it's tough going for investigators on that case. But because Andrew had been reported missing pretty quickly, by the time this Project Prism kicks off, they're already chasing one potential lead in Andrew's disappearance. So remember how Andrew's friend Robin said that the last time she saw him, he was on his way to meet a friend for coffee? Yeah, but do we ever find out who? [15:26] you [15:27] I'm not even sure Robin knew at the time, but when police searched Andrew's apartment after he was first reported missing, one of the things that they found was like a handheld, like old timey calendar, like something you'd see on the wall. And it's where Andrew tracked pretty much everything. And there were two things written in that little box for June 26th, a reminder to pay his phone bill. [15:51] and a name. [15:52] Bruce. Now, that's not a name police know, but they think it's important because next to the name, it said two slash three. And police know that that's right around the time Andrew was last seen and potentially maybe going to get coffee. So while they figure out how to track this guy down with just a first name, they also start looking for security footage from the area where [16:22] of andrew's building and what they're looking for is video from the time frame when they think andrew left his place that day i'm actually going to send you a link to this video it's published on cbc's website so give me just a second and you'll just want to watch like the first eight seconds for right now okay so it's not like fully trained on his front door it's kind of like capturing all this from across the street and it's of course not the greatest quality

[16:49] But it does show a red van driving up the street, [16:53] And it stops for like a second or two and then pulls away. And it's all happening like at the very, very top of the frame. And you can't even see everything all the time. [17:04] What police are thinking is that somebody maybe got into the van during that little stop that the van makes, but they don't know for sure. I mean, like you said, it's like way at the top. This whole scene is barely visible. It's happening just at the edge of like the camera's range. But they were able to find a second security camera, one with a better view. So go ahead and press play on that video again, Britt. Okay. [17:27] Okay, so now the vantage point is farther away, but you can see like the whole red van now. [17:34] where before you could kind of only see its wheels or like the bottom of the frame. [17:40] 100% there is a man who comes out of the building, you said is Andrews, and hops into the passenger side. Yep. Now, the picture isn't clear enough to show us who got into the van or even who's driving the van. And police can't even make out a license plate either. But they can tell that the van is an older model Dodge Caravan. So according to the documentary, police take stills from the video to a local Dodge dealership. [18:10] further. Basically, they narrowed down this van to a 2004 Dodge Caravan 20th Anniversary Edition. So then they request a list of every 2003 to 2005 Dodge Caravan registered in the province of Ontario. And when the list comes back, it has more than 6,100 names on it.

[18:32] But that's not even daunting because they don't need to go through 6100 names. They just need to find all the Bruce's. Exactly. And that brings their list of more than 6000 Dodge Caravan owners down to just five. And only one of those five drove a 20th anniversary edition. And that man was Bruce MacArthur. [18:57] When police look into Bruce, they find a 66-year-old business owner who is a father and a grandfather. He'd been married for many years, but he and his wife divorced in the late 1990s, at which point Bruce packed up his things from the family home and got himself an apartment in the city. [19:15] He owned a landscaping business and had this big roster of clients all over Toronto. And he'd even worked as a mall Santa before. And listen, the dude totally had the look. He's like this big guy with snow white hair, kind of this easy smile and even a twinkle in his eye. [19:33] But this Santa was no saint because just a year before this, in 2016, Bruce had been arrested for assault after it was reported that Bruce had choked and almost killed a man in the back of his van. [19:48] But before anyone could even start investigating that, Bruce walked himself into the police station and sort of turned himself in. Okay, what do you mean by sort of turned himself in? [20:01] Well, [20:01] It wasn't like he just like walked in and said, here I am, like I'm guilty. What he said was, I'm here to make a statement about an incident that happened between me and my partner. So two officers sat down with Bruce and he told them that what the victim had said was true. Like he had choked this guy in his van while they were being intimate, but that his partner wanted to be choked, or at least he thought his partner wanted to be choked. And basically he was telling the police like this whole thing was a complete misunderstanding.

[20:31] Ling put it, a bunch of like mixed messages and crossed wires. Like, you know, there's no crime here. This is just like a big, like you said, a big misunderstanding. [20:41] Ultimately, police didn't have enough to charge him with anything, so they let him go. And based on what I've read and watched about this case, the victim, who has never been named, was married at the time of this encounter and his wife knew nothing about the fact that he was having sex with Bruce. So maybe not super motivated to push for charges since it would require outing himself in the process. [21:11] with another one. There was an assault conviction from 2001 when Bruce beat a man with a metal pipe inside the man's home. Now, he pled guilty in that case, but instead of jail time, based on a psychological assessment that he was a low risk to reoffend, he got a conditional sentence which included a ban on spending any time, period, in the gay village. [21:35] With all of this pointing in one direction, the detective who identified the driver of the van, he calls his boss and tells him, I think I might have a person of interest in the Kinsman disappearance. It's this guy, Bruce MacArthur. [21:48] And the boss, who'd been on the team for Project Houston several years before, his ears perk up right away because he knows that name. And the reason why he knows that name changes everything about the investigation.

[22:05] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Thank you. [22:25] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [22:32] wherever you get your podcasts. [22:36] He knows the name Bruce MacArthur because it had come up before. They had actually talked to him before, questioned him before. Wait, what? [23:06] of the missing men. You see, police had found an email address during the search of Skanda's computer. [23:12] SilverFox51 at Hotmail.com. [23:16] That same email address was also written on a notepad at Basir's place. And when police tracked the IP address associated with SilverFox51 at Hotmail.com, it led them to Bruce MacArthur. [23:30] According to Nicole Brockbank's reporting for the CBC, police asked Bruce to come in for questioning as just a witness. That was November 11th of 2013.

[23:41] He told them that he knew Skanda. They'd never had a sexual relationship or anything, but they both used to hang out at this bar in the village called the Black Eagle. [23:49] But he said he had no idea why his email was on a notepad at Basir's place. He said he didn't know Basir at all, period. I mean, I get that it's not proof that they knew each other. But I mean, because it's really just proof that Basir wrote down that email address. But also, how would he have gotten it other than from Bruce himself? Well, at that point, police were thinking Basir maybe saw Bruce's profile on this dating site they were both on. And actually that Scanda was on, too. [24:16] So they were thinking he just jotted down the email address thinking, oh, I'll reach out another time. I'm not entirely sure anyone knows the answer to that question. [24:24] That's kind of what I'm assuming, I guess. Yeah. [24:26] So what about the third missing person from Project Houston, Hamid? Did the police find any connection between him and Bruce during that first task force investigation? [24:35] "Not then, no. [24:38] They didn't have to because while they were interviewing Bruce back in 2013 for Project Houston, he just straight up [24:44] told them there was a connection. Bruce said that he didn't just know Hamid, they'd actually had a sexual relationship at one time. And Hamid even worked for Bruce in his landscaping business for a little while. [24:58] So... [24:59] they could connect him to all three men right then and there. Mm-hmm. [25:04] Surely, alarm bells would have been ringing everywhere, right? [25:09] See, that's the thing. I don't think they were. Like I said, the village has always been this pretty tight knit community. People know one another, know of one another, at least. So the fact that he admitted to dating one guy, knowing another from around and then possibly a third guy was on the same dating site, like to them, that isn't the kind of red flag that it might be to you or I or again to the people in the community.

[25:33] I mean, Bruce wasn't even the only person that they could connect, however loosely, to more than one of the missing men during the Project Houston investigation. [25:40] But even beyond all of that, like, Bruce is just not the kind of person that sets off those alarm bells easily for anyone, not even police. [25:50] In the documentary, they say that at the time, police considered Bruce affable, credible, believable. I mean, he was showing up freely. He didn't hesitate at all. And he was open about what he knew and seemed like he really wanted to help. Because, I mean, this was his community, too, after all. Bruce was pretty newly out at this point. And the village was just as much his safe space as anyone else's, or at least they believed. But now it's 2017. [26:20] new evidence and all of it is pointing to Bruce. Bruce and his red van. Except they're looking everywhere for this van and it's gone. And it turns out it's gone because he sold it. They didn't know to whom or where, but they figure he probably sold it for parts. So they start calling auto body shops and wrecking lots to see if anyone bought a red Dodge Caravan lately. It takes weeks, [26:50] at an auto parked shop almost an hour outside Toronto. [26:55] The owner tells the officers he indeed bought a red Dodge Caravan not too long ago. And lucky for police, they still had it on site.

[27:04] When the officers get there, the van's tires are off and the license plate has been removed, but it's otherwise in one piece. [27:11] According to a Post Media article written by Adrian Humphreys, police right away notice, quote, a dried liquid covering the inside of the tailgate from one side to the other, covered in small flies, end quote. [27:26] So they haul the van back to Toronto to their forensics lab to be processed for evidence. And we know that doesn't happen overnight. But when they do finally get the results back on November 8th, what they find is that the inside did test positive for Andrew Kinsman's blood. [27:44] Now, it's not a ton of blood, mind you, not enough to prove Andrew was killed there or anything like that. But it's enough to move Bruce from a person of interest to a suspect and enough for police to start some pretty heavy surveillance on him to track his movements and his online activity 24-7. [28:01] I'm sorry, how was Andrew's blood on the inside of the van not enough for an arrest? Well, here's the thing, right? Like, so they probably could get an arrest, but they don't think that they have enough to actually make a case against him for murder. And that's what they're aiming for. Like, when they get this guy, they want to lock him up for good. [28:18] So they decide that their next move has to be a search of Bruce's apartment, the one that he shares with a roommate. But they don't want him to know about the search. So they try and wait until both Bruce and his roommate are gone. [28:31] So are they looking for something like especially specific or more of like they'll know it when they see it kind of situation?

[28:37] According to Nicole Brockbank's CBC article, [28:40] They're looking for anything that belongs to Andrew Kinsman or any physical evidence that could link the two of them. [28:46] And they want to clone Bruce's computer, like his hard drives, all of that kind of stuff. So it is kind of specific. [28:52] So once they get in there, one of the officers gets to work cloning Bruce's computer, while another starts the physical search, checking closets, opening drawers, cupboards, checking under the bed, whatever. [29:03] And they do find a few things of interest. There is an orange stain on Bruce's pillow that they swabbed for DNA, a nine-inch metal bar wrapped in tape, [29:14] A pile of post-its with usernames and passwords for like a whole bunch of websites. And while they're collecting all of this, they're less than an hour into their operation and [29:25] When their surveillance team calls to tell them that Bruce, who, mind you, his movements, they have been memorizing for weeks. I mean, they had his patterns down to a science they never changed at all. But now, all of a sudden, he's on his way home and he is going to be in the apartment in 10 minutes. No. Yes. So they've got 10 minutes, 10 minutes to photograph or swab or copy whatever else they need to. [29:55] that they'd been there in the first place. [29:57] The problem is that what they really need is that download of his computer, and it's not done yet. It's not even close yet. [30:05] And they know with every second that ticks by, they get another potential piece of evidence off that computer. But at the same time, Bruce gets closer and closer. With only moments to spare, they shut down the search and hustle out the door just in the nick of time.

[30:20] Ultimately, they were able to get about 50% of the data off Bruce's computer and officers start sifting through it right away. According to the Catching a Serial Killer documentary, Bruce had tons of pictures of men on his computer. Nothing incriminating, just tons and tons of pictures. One by one, they would click open a file, a face flashes up and stares out at them, and then they would close it and move on. [30:50] Finally, a familiar face pops up. Andrew Kinsman. And then they click, and there's another file, and another man, and another face. Same thing, click, open, close. [31:03] Then, Scandinabarapnum. [31:06] And then another click, and another face. [31:09] Basir Faizi. [31:12] A few more clicks and there's Hamid Kaihan. [31:15] The next day, Toronto police hold their annual year-end press conference. They have a lot to answer for as 2017 comes to a close. Questions about Project Prism and about all the men missing from the village. Questions about Elora Wells, which is actually a story we just told in the fan club as a mini-episode, whose body was found in June but remained unidentified for five months. And there were also questions about someone named Tess Ritchie, [31:45] at the bottom of a stairwell in the gay village. [31:49] And her body was found two doors down from where she was last seen. And she wasn't found by the police assigned to her case, but by her own mother. Oh my God. I mean, I don't know the crime rate in Toronto overall, let alone like the village more specifically. Yeah.

[32:03] But that does seem like a lot of things for this small community in just a matter of months. For sure. And on the Project Prism side specifically, the community wanted to know where police are in their investigation. Like, they wanted answers and they wanted to know if they should be worried about a serial killer. And Britt, I'm going to let you read this paragraph from Justin Ling's book quoting Toronto police that day. [32:26] Okay, so this is written more like a series of statements on the same topic rather than like a... [32:30] whole standalone condensed statement. [32:33] Just keep that in mind as I read it. [32:36] The officer is saying, quote, there is no evidence at this point in time which in any way establishes that the disappearances of Salim Essen and Andrew Kinsman are linked to the disappearance of the males from the Project Houston investigation. [32:49] There is no evidence to support that the disappearance of Salim Essen or Andrew Kinsman are linked. [32:55] There is no evidence of foul play. [32:57] There is no evidence that a serial killer is responsible for the disappearance of any of the missing males. [33:02] End quote. [33:03] But wait, hold up. [33:04] This is after the van thing, like after the blood... [33:07] After this super covert operations search of Bruce's apartment, [33:12] End. [33:12] Pictures of all the missing men were found on his computer? No. [33:16] Yep, but the community didn't know about any of that stuff. So police are saying all of this knowing that no one hearing it would really be able to prove otherwise. [33:26] As December came to a close, police are still sifting through what they were able to copy from Bruce's computer. I mean, they're spending hours and hours each day for weeks and weeks at a time. And then in mid-January 2018, having exhausted what's actually stored on the computer, they start searching for what isn't on the computer. Files that had been deleted or moved. Files that would turn out to break this case wide open.

[33:56] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [34:16] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [34:23] wherever you get your podcasts. [34:27] While they're searching the deleted files from Bruce's computer, they find more pictures. And while they're searching those, they land on another familiar face. [34:37] Not Skanda or Basir or Hamid or Andrew or any of the men that they'd seen in those photos before. [34:44] This one is of Saleem Essent. [34:47] who by this time had been missing for nearly eight months. And this photo isn't like the ones that they found before. In this picture, Salim is lying on Bruce's bed, [34:59] dead. [35:00] In this same deleted folder were more photos. One of Andrew Kinsman photographed dead laying in the back of Bruce's red Dodge Caravan. And there were others, other dead men, men police didn't even recognize at all. [35:15] Just then is when police get a call from their surveillance team saying Bruce just got back to his apartment and... [35:22] He's not alone. [35:24] He is with a man who fits the profile of the men they now believe Bruce killed in that very apartment. Oh, my God. There's no time to meticulously plan an arrest. This is urgent. This just became life or death.

[35:39] Teams of officers jump into cars, speeding from all directions, running red lights, trying to get to Bruce's apartment before something awful happens. [35:48] They arrive at his apartment building just after 10 in the morning, and they painstakingly make their way up to the 19th floor, ready to bust down the door. But they decide to just... [36:00] knock first instead. I'm sorry, that is such a Canadian way to arrest a serial killer. Right? Now, they hear footsteps on the other side, but the lock turns, the door swings open, and standing right there in front of them is Bruce MacArthur. [36:17] Officers force their way inside the apartment and rush to the bedroom where they find that man that he was seen going to his apartment with. Bound to the bed, his mouth taped shut, and he is terrified, but he is still alive. [36:32] By the time they free the man from the handcuffs, Bruce himself was in cuffs, now officially under arrest for the murders of Andrew Kinsman and Salim Essen. [36:42] While in his apartment, police take the time to do a thorough search. And according to Nick Westall's reporting for Global News, they find a bag that had duct tape, a surgical glove, rope, zip ties, a bungee cord and syringes inside, along with jewelry belonging to Scanda and a notebook of Salim's.

[37:12] nor is he going to point them in the direction of where the bodies of the missing men are. And here's the thing. Remember, this guy is a landscaper. He had hundreds of clients and had access to hundreds of properties. And nothing about a landscaper digging a hole is even going to be remotely suspicious. I had completely forgotten he was a landscaper. Right. But as police are like thinking about this and like looking at his client list, [37:42] most. [37:43] 53 Mallory Crescent, a home in the wealthy Leaside neighborhood outside Toronto. [37:50] The owners were close friends of the MacArthur family, and in exchange for Bruce's landscaping services, they actually let him store his tools on their property. So Bruce is like in and out of this place several times a day. [38:03] Police went to the Mallory Street house with cadaver dogs, focusing their attention on the backyard of the property. But the dogs weren't interested in that. They kept coming back to these huge planters. There were 15 of them stationed all around the property. Now, mind you, this is mid-January in Canada, and everything, including the soil in these planters, is frozen solid. So police decided to take the whole lot of them back to their forensics lab and x-ray them. [38:33] And that's when they see it clear as day, [38:37] a ribcage. [38:38] In total, they find the remains of seven victims inside those planters. Wait, seven? I thought there were five. There were more victims than police even knew.

[38:51] eight days after Bruce's arrest, police lay three more murder charges on him. [38:56] For the murders of Hamid Kayhan, Saroosh Mahmoudi, [39:01] and Dean Lisiwik. So who are the two new victims? Soroush was 50 years old, married and living in Scarborough, Ontario, which is part of what's called the Greater Toronto Area, but like 40 minutes outside of Toronto proper. Now, he was reported missing by his wife on April 22nd, 2015. But by the time he'd been reported missing, he had been gone for like a week. And police investigated his disappearance, but he didn't get connected to the men missing from the village at any point. [39:30] And Dean Lissowick hadn't been reported missing at all. He was one of thousands of people living on the streets of Toronto, staying at shelters when he could get a bed. And he just got by by panhandling on Church Street and with sex work. [39:45] In February, police charge Bruce with Skanda's murder. [39:50] In April, another charge, this one for Basir. [39:53] And then, a couple of days later, they lay on an eighth murder charge. An eighth? An eighth? [40:00] This one is for a man named Krishnakumar Kanagaratnam, who'd arrived in Vancouver, Canada on a cargo ship in 2010. [40:08] According to the Catching a Serial Killer documentary, he was one of hundreds of Sri Lankans fleeing the war and looking for refuge. Twice he claimed asylum and twice that claim was denied. He was about to be deported, but he fled to Toronto and went underground instead.

[40:26] That was January 2016. [40:29] Krishna Kumar had been in pretty regular contact with his family back in Sri Lanka. I mean, he called home every few weeks. He'd always find a way to send money, basically cobbling together what he could while working odd jobs for cash. But when his family stopped hearing from him, they just assumed that he had to go deeper underground, hiding from authorities. And he's not. [40:49] I mean, even if they didn't think that, it's not like they could report him missing, because if they did and he was found, he'd [40:54] be deported anyway. Exactly. Okay, so that's eight murder charges, but you said police only found the remains of seven men in those planters. I guess, how can they lay eight charges on Bruce with only seven bodies? Well, police still haven't found Hamid's body, but they must have had enough evidence without it to still lay the charge. So, you know, what I'm thinking is potentially maybe one of those photos, but I don't know for sure. But here's the thing. I mean, at this point, they're also not ruling out the possibility that there are even more bodies, more victims out there [41:24] in planters at other houses all over Toronto. [41:28] I mean, like I said, Bruce had over 100 regular landscaping clients, and any one of them could be concealing remains without even knowing it. [41:36] In May of that year, once the snow melted, police sent cadaver dogs out to all of those properties to search. But the dogs don't find anything. [41:45] So in July, they head back to the Mallory Crescent property, where they still have a huge backyard that turns into a ravine, that turns into a park, and just like a bunch of green space.

[41:58] Within an hour of their dig on Mallory, investigators find a body in a garbage pail. And this is Hamid. Okay, Ashley, can we pause for a second? Yeah. Why didn't they start... [42:10] At the Mallory place in May when the snow melted. Like that's where the bodies were found in the first place. Right? And that was the one that they pointed out. Like all of his tools were there. He came and went the most. I feel like there's been a place that he frequented. It was a place that was normal for him to be. He was doing their landscaping. They had already confirmed there were remains on the property. Why start on his list of hundreds of other clients? So much of this investigation feels backwards to me. Even going back to his computer, when they spent how many months just looking through the files, [42:40] look at the deleted files like maybe we should start we all know you need to go to the deleted emails first like that's the first place you go start in the trash yeah all of it you're not wrong all of it feels backwards [42:53] But they're at the Mallory property now, and for nine days they continue to dig, to sift, and to search. And according to Nicole Brockbank's timeline for CBC, quote, investigators say they dug up human remains nearly every day they were there, end quote. So you mean there were more victims? Not many. [43:15] That I'm aware of. This is what's so strange. They say that they found remains every day of that dig. But Hamid's body was out of there within an hour. So... [43:25] I don't know. I don't know if they were finding additional parts to the people they already found or if they found things that can't be linked to anyone else. I don't know. What I do know is that after this search ends, police say they have no reason to believe that there are more victims. And the people who own that home, you know, where all these bodies were found, did police investigate them for any involvement in the murders? Yeah, police did look into them, but they were cleared pretty quickly.

[43:55] Because some of the victims died in that apartment. [43:58] Did the roommate ever suspect anything? Apparently not. Okay, but you said that Bruce's apartment is 19 stories up, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. How did Bruce manage to get the body's [44:08] out of his bedroom, past this roommate, down 19 floors on an elevator, and out to the suburbs without anyone noticing? Yeah, I have not been able to answer that question for myself. Like, [44:23] Basically, the closest I got was that Globe story that I mentioned by Nick Westall. It says, quote, [44:29] A forensic expert determined MacArthur moved and mixed the body parts after the remains were already decomposed and skeletonized. End quote. So that statement says that basically he kept the bodies in his apartment until after they were decomposed and skeletonized. Like, and again, the roommate didn't notice anything, not a smell, not weird. He keeps that door locked like nothing. [44:59] mark to me because I understand what you're saying. Like, yes, you would see bodies being moved out if you're saying, OK, well, he wasn't moving bodies. He was moving skeletons. OK, then you have your bodies decomposing in your apartment. How did neighbors not even smell that? And I do think that's what happened. That's how I read the statement. [45:15] And like, I wish I knew more. And this is the kind of thing that ordinarily would come out through a trial and through expert testimony. But the reason we still have so many questions years later is that there was no trial because ultimately Bruce pleads guilty on all eight counts.

[45:34] First degree murder carries an automatic sentence in Canada of life without the chance of parole for 25 years. Now, the Crown at the time wants Bruce in prison for 50 years before he's eligible for parole. But Justice John McMahon says he can serve all of his time concurrently. [45:53] So... [45:54] parole after 25 years for killing eight [45:58] people. Yeah, I mean, I think it's total bullshit. I mean, I guess he'll be, what, in his 90s before he can apply for parole? I mean, you know, assuming he even lives that long. Yeah, I mean, even then, the chances that he will ever be paroled are very, very slim, almost none, honestly. So Bruce MacArthur heads off to prison where he belongs, where the community says he should have been long ago and would have been if police had listened to them when they said something was going on, [46:28] a serial killer was in the village. But police didn't listen. - Well, and I mean, not only did they not listen, [46:36] in my opinion, actively downplayed or outright dismissed the community's concerns and [46:41] I mean, even in the press conference that we mentioned earlier, they may have even outright lied. Yet the public demanded to know what went so wrong and why. And more than that, they wanted to know how Toronto police were going to fix it. [46:54] Retired Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Gloria Epstein was tapped to do an independent review of the police investigations into Bruce MacArthur, along with the deaths of Tess Ritchie and Allora Wells, who I mentioned earlier. Now, her report, Missing and Missed, was just released in April after an almost three-year review period.

[47:24] and build stronger relationships within the communities they serve. [47:28] Toronto Police has committed to implementing all the recommendations, but it's going to take a long time for Toronto Police to rebuild what has always been a complicated and often fractured relationship with the community. [47:43] Bruce MacArthur terrorized his community for nearly a decade. He invaded what had been a safe space for so many people. [47:52] For Skanda, Basir, and Hamid. For Soroush and Dean. For Saleem, Andrew, and Krishnakumar. And for so many others. [48:03] More than that, he preyed on the most vulnerable within an already marginalized community. [48:08] Men who were vulnerable because of who they were as gay or bisexual men, because of their immigration status, because of mental health, alcohol or drug addiction. [48:19] and often vulnerable because of the secrets they were keeping from the people in their lives. [48:25] So if you've been out there celebrating Pride this year or you're planning to still, remember to reflect on how this movement started and what it still stands for. Pride is a protest. And as long as there are stories like this one out there, it will always be a protest. [48:43] you can find all of the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com and be sure to follow us on instagram at crimejunkiepodcast we'll be back next week with a brand new episode but stick around for profit of the month

[49:35] So [49:37] you [49:38] you [49:39] you [49:39] *music* [49:43] Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. [49:46] What do you think, Chuck? [49:48] Do you approve? [49:57] Okay, Ashley, I'm going to tell the listeners exactly what I told you this morning before we even started recording. Gave me a warning. This is a happy story. [50:07] But I think you'll still cry. Well, that doesn't say a lot for me, but hopefully our listeners don't cry much either. I cried writing this, so I'm pretty sure this one's still a tear-trigger. But we'll see. I'm just giving you all the warning. People thanked me for not ruining their makeup as they were doing it last time. So I'm putting it out there. [50:25] So... [50:25] Most of the prophet stories I tell are either gotcha stories or moving out stories, but this one is a little bit different. Today I'm going to tell you about Magic and his family. Our listener Mia from Maryland said that Magic came to her family via Craigslist. They've always been a big pet family. They have a cat, some turtles, a bearded dragon, dogs, and a couple of fish. And I'm only mentioning their names because I want to hear you laugh, Ashley. The fish are named June and Swim Shady. [50:55] I do love that. [50:59] So Mia's mom was on Craigslist and saw a posting about a Boxer Lab puppy. His owner was working 14-hour days, and the puppy spent all of that time in his crate. And the owner knew it just wasn't fair, and the pup needed to go to someone who could spend time with him. So Mia's mom is a kindred.

[51:19] She was like, "Absolutely. No way I can ignore this. We have to call." And after the owner interviewed the family and a few other respondents to the ad, [51:28] He picked Mia's family. [51:31] And Mia said for 12 years, they've always been so thankful that the owner... [51:35] you know, made the right decision, and they've loved every single second of having magic in their lives, until something went terribly wrong. Her family went on vacation over Christmas 2019 and a few days into the new year 2020. [51:51] all the way to Hawaii. [51:53] And... [51:53] As usual, when they went on family trips, Magic went to stay with his great aunt, who goes all out for him. She even cooks Magic breakfast and dinner every single day. This is like a vacation for Magic, too, you know? Love it. Yes. [52:11] So on New Year's Eve, Mia's family got a call from this great aunt. [52:15] Magic had gotten out and was missing. Her entire family packed up and flew home to Maryland from Hawaii the very next day, cutting their vacation short. Wow. Wow. [52:29] Yeah. And she said the entire flight home, they spent crying and worrying and posting on social media and praying he'd be home. [52:38] safe and sound by the time they landed. But that wasn't the case. So they get home and go into full hardcore operation mode. They made flyers. Friends were making and posting signs around town. They even brought out like a professional tracker looking to like literally hunt magic down. Oh, cow. Which she said was not super successful, obviously, but the tracker gave them some tips and tricks to keep in mind.

[53:06] Now, the house where Magic went missing from was actually right next to where Mia went to school. So all of her friends and classmates and even, like, teachers and administrators were, like, on the lookout for him. And the family was getting tips and sightings about him all the time, but no one could ever catch him. Not even Mia's grandpa or mom. You know, when they would spot him, he'd just bowl. Like, he wouldn't go to anyone. And remember, this is early January in Maryland. [53:36] Puxers aren't known for having like a thick coat of fur. Right. And Magic isn't a young pup anymore. He's over 12 years old. So everyone was even more concerned because Magic had gone from this fully cooked meal every morning and night to being exposed to the harsh elements of an East Coast winter like everything. [53:53] literally in the blink of an eye. [53:55] So the days slowly passed, and on day five, the search finally came to an end. And that's literally, Mia, what you wrote. You've been paying attention to our cliffhangers because this was good. I was like, weeping at this point. So bravo. Good writing skills. It came to an end because they found him? Yes. Oh, thank God. I was like, Mia! You did us dirty, girl. You tricked the tricksters. God, what like, this family though. [54:25] is loved. I mean, put aside the dinners and the breakfasts and all that, like for them to like their entire family to pack up their vacation and come home. Oh my gosh. And like, I've gone to Hawaii from Indiana. That is not a short flight. They've come from Maryland. Like this is, they spent like a day and a half just getting home for magic. I'm just, oh, so...

[54:48] Anyway, continuing on, let's tell the happy part of this story. Mia said she knew this would happen, but on the fifth day of the search, her dad, who was Magic's most funnily, [54:58] favorite person in the world, got a tip that magic was nearby. So he rushes over to the area, [55:05] But... [55:05] No magic. [55:06] and starts walking back to his car after searching around a little, [55:10] And he looks over and Magic is standing there at the top of a hill. [55:14] Oh, majestic. And that's when Nia's dad goes back to some of the advice that the tracker had given him. And he kind of heads towards magic, but not directly, kind of almost like around in a circle so he wouldn't scare him, you know? [55:31] he pulls out the big guns. [55:33] He has chicken nuggets. [55:36] And he starts tossing chicken nuggets towards magic and magic starts inching closer and closer [55:43] eating the nuggets, but he was still really skittish and wary and [55:48] Once magic was what Mia's dad thought was close enough, he forgot everything the tracker said about not looking the dog straight in the eye because that can be perceived as intimidating or threatening. And he gets down and looks magic straight in the eye. [56:05] and says, [56:06] Magic? [56:07] Do you want to come home? [56:09] Yeah! [56:10] And magic gently went right into his arms and started quietly whimpering. He finally had his daddy back and was heading home.

[56:21] home. This is where I started crying. Oh, stinking magic. I hope he had the time of his life out there while he worried his family half to death. Seriously. So in the car, magic got the entire bag of chicken nuggets. And once they got home, the whole family sat around and loved on him. And magic fell asleep right next to Mia's. [56:40] dad. [56:42] You know, Mia said that, of course, this was incredibly traumatic for her family, but they learned some important lessons. [56:48] Now, Magic and his prophet sister Maui, [56:51] wear tracking collars basically all of the time. [56:55] But... [56:55] Most importantly, they learn that you are the one that knows your puppet best. [57:01] If her dad hadn't trusted his instincts, this may not have [57:04] then how Magic's story is continuing. And I'm going to quote Mia directly here: [57:09] Quote, [57:10] So trust yourself like your dog trusts you and love them every day like it's your last day on earth. [57:17] End quote. [57:22] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [57:41] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [57:45] I think you'll love it too. [57:46] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.