Serial Killer Bruce McArthur Gets Life With No Parole For 25 Years
- by Cecilia Wilkerson
- in World News
- — Feb 11, 2019
A vigil will be held on Sunday for family, friends and community members to grieve the lives of eight men killed by Bruce McArthur after his sentencing hearing wrapped on Friday.
With each murder carrying a sentence of 25 years, McMahon did not sentence McArthur to serve the punishments, consecutively, meaning he is eligible for parole in 25 years, when he will be 91.
Det. David Dickinson said that no deal or offer was made to McArthur by police to induce him to plead guilty to eight counts of first degree murder.
First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no parole for 25 years, but a court can impose consecutive periods of parole ineligibiliy for several convictions.
Serial killer Bruce McArthur's punishment for murdering eight men is exactly the same as if he'd killed just one: life without eligibility for parole for 25 years.
McArthur's victims were Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam. One man's remains were found in a garbage bin buried in a nearby ravine.
"We're presuming that homophobia and racism had something to do with how much energy and effort went into investigating Project Houston", he said, referring to an investigation into three missing men later found to be among McArthur's victims.
McArthur pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder in a Toronto courtroom on Tuesday.
Toronto police have faced criticism over the length of time it took them to confirm that a serial killer was stalking the Gay Village and to arrest McArthur.
However, Helen Kennedy, the executive director of LGBT+ rights group Egale, said an independent judge-led investigation should be carried out into the police's handling of McArthur case specifically.
"All of the victims were vulnerable individuals lured to their deaths", he said.
Because numerous facts presented at the hearing were so lurid, prosecutors cautioned people against remaining in court to hear them.
This "horrific" case, one man said, has left the close-knit Toronto gay community gripped by "despair and fear".
Since then, police have investigated locations around Toronto where McArthur worked as a landscaper.
McArthur pleaded guilty on January 29.
Kinsman had also marked "Bruce" in his diary on June 27, 2017 - the day he disappeared.
He sited the USB found with the sub file titled with the names of McArthur's victims and containing photos of them, both alive and dead, as something done "no doubt for his own perverted sexual gratification".
The court document said police uncovered a duffle bag containing duct tape, a surgical glove, rope, zip ties, a bungee cord, and syringes - evidence pointing to some of the victims being tied up, confined and sexually assaulted prior to their deaths. He was last seen leaving a village bar in September 2010. "What makes this particular case unique was that there was a serial killer".
"This is a crime of stark horror", prosecutor Michael Cantlon said in a statement.
Kinsman, a LGBT activist, former bartender and an apartment building superintendent who knew McArthur for about 15 years, was an exception.
