Over the course of seven years in Toronto, eight men who identified as gay or bisexual disappeared without trace. Finally, the local police realised that a serial killer was at large…
Although Bruce McArthur, who came to be known as the ‘Santa Claus killer’, is now behind bars, how did he remain free to kill for so long? BBC reporter Mobeen Azhar, who travelled to the Canadian city in search of answers, tells Cliff Joannou more
On the surface, Bruce McArthur led an ordinary existence as a married man living with his wife and two children in Toronto, Canada. To all appearances, he was a kind, friendly guy — so much so that he played Santa during the festive season at the local mall. As time went on, he was found to have been living a double life as a closeted gay man. McArthur was eventually outed, and his marriage ended. In the years that followed, he began frequenting Toronto’s gay scene, meeting men for sex, including escorts, and engaging in chemsex and violent behaviour until one day he killed the first of his eight (known) victims. Often using substances like GHB during his assault, to dispose of the bodies McArthur dismembered them and buried the parts in the grounds and plant pots of one of the unsuspecting people who employed him as a gardener.
A master manipulator, in 2003, McArthur was found guilty of having violently attacked a man with a metal pipe in 2001. The judge believed McArthur was remorseful and he was given a two-year conditional sentence; he was also banned from Toronto’s gay village and from spending time with male prostitutes. Chillingly, in 2013, he was interviewed as a witness by police in connection with the disappearance of two of his victims who he had been linked to through a dating website. He avoided suspicion. And in 2016, he was reported to the police by a man who said McArthur had attacked him. Despite his 2003 conviction, the serial killer managed to persuade the police it had all been a misunderstanding and he was released.
McArthur’s killing spree was eventually discovered in June 2017 when police were forced to act after friends of his final victim, Andrew Kinsman, began a high-profile search for him. When the bodies of his victims were eventually discovered, McArthur, then 67, pleaded guilty in court in 2019, leading to a conviction without trial — 25 years without parole. But were there other undiscovered victims? How did McArthur manage to manipulate the police — and many others — so easily, and for so many years? With several questions left unanswered, reporter Mobeen Azhar went to Toronto to investigate for the BBC.
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