Bruce McArthur, the Canadian serial killer who murdered eight men between 2010 and 2017, was sentenced to life in prison Friday for the crimes that haunted Toronto’s LGBTQ community.

McArthur, a mall Santa and landscaper who dismembered his victims and placed their remains in potted plants, will be eligible for parole for 25 years, when he is 92 years old. If McArthur reaches the age of 92, the judge noted even then his chance for parole would be “very remote at best,” the New York Times reports.

On January 29th, McArthur pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi, Dean Lisowick, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, many of who were residents of Toronto’s Gay Village.

Life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years was the lightest possible sentence for McArthur, who avoided serving the eight life sentences consecutively by pleading guilty to the gruesome murders.

“The accused has saved the family, friends and community at large from enduring a graphic public trial that would have been a nightmare for everyone,” Justice John McMahon told the courthouse upon sentencing. The prosecution sought two consecutive life sentences to ensure parole was not even an option, the Globe and Mail reports.

However, McMahon also noted that he had “no doubt Bruce McArthur would have continued killing” if he wasn’t apprehended by police in January 2018, months after the disappearance of Andrew Kinsman. Upon searching McArthur’s residence, police discovered – in addition to victims’ remains – personal items belonging to the victims as well as photographs of them on McArthur’s computer. </s> TORONTO — Serial killer Bruce McArthur was sentenced on Friday to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years, the lightest penalty he could have received for the “murderous devastation” he wrought on Toronto’s gay community over most of this decade.

Crown prosecutors used those words to argue at McArthur’s sentencing hearing this week that he should be barred from seeking parole for 50 years — a recommendation Ontario Superior Court Justice John McMahon rejected in siding with the defence, which lobbied for the minimum punishment even as it acknowledged that McArthur’s crimes were “horrific.”

McArthur, 67, had to be sentenced to life for each of the eight first-degree murder counts to which he pleaded guilty last week. McMahon ordered him to serve those sentences concurrently, meaning McArthur could ask for parole at age 91 if he’s still alive.

McArthur, a former landscaper, admitted in court last week to murdering eight men — Selim Esen, Abdulbasir Faizi, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Majeed Kayhan, Andrew Kinsman, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi and Skandaraj Navaratnam — in Toronto between 2010 and 2017. His victims were mostly immigrants of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent and members of the city’s gay community.

Police arrested McArthur in January 2018 after officers saw him lead another Middle Eastern man into his east Toronto apartment complex — a man they subsequently found naked and handcuffed to McArthur’s bed.

At various points over the next few months, they charged McArthur in all eight murders as each victim’s dismembered remains were discovered outside the home of one of his clients, either hidden in planters or buried in an adjoining ravine.

Court heard at McArthur’s sentencing hearing this week that he arranged most of the killings under the pretense of sex. He repeatedly strangled his victims and posed many of them naked after death, shaving their heads and placing unlit cigars in their mouths. He dressed some in a fur hat and coat. Police found on McArthur’s digital devices photos of several of the men in these positions.

McArthur’s arrest a year ago brought to an end an extensive police effort to find the killer in Toronto’s gay village, dating back to the creation in 2012 of a task force to probe the disappearances of Navaratnam, Faizi and Kayhan. Although the men are now known to be McArthur’s first three victims, the investigation, Project Houston, was shuttered without resolution after 18 months.

McArthur went on to murder Mahmudi in 2015, Kanagaratnam and Lisowick in 2016 and Esen and Kinsman in 2017. Police first identified him as a suspect when they obtained video footage of Kinsman entering a red 2004 Dodge Caravan — which they later determined to be McArthur’s — on June 26, 2017, the day he was last seen alive.

An entry in Kinsman’s calendar indicated who he had planned to meet that afternoon: “Bruce.”

By pleading guilty on Jan. 29 to all eight murders, McArthur stopped his case from progressing to a trial that had been scheduled to begin next January, at which the Crown would likely have been forced to present graphic evidence of his crimes.

James Miglin argued McArthur should receive the minimum parole ineligibility period of 25 years because he is already a senior citizen and he pleaded guilty.
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During the Crown’s sentencing submission, assistant attorney Craig Harper compared McArthur to Robert Pickton and said the term “serial killer” is a “woefully inadequate” description of the severity of McArthur’s crimes. He called 50 years without chance of parole a “measured” penalty that would sufficiently denounce the murders and ensure, in all likelihood, that the victims’ families would never have to face McArthur at a future parole hearing.

In total, court heard 27 impact statements this past Monday and Tuesday from family and friends of the victims, as well as from Toronto LGBTQ community members. The speakers conveyed the magnitude of ways in which McArthur’s murders continue to harm them mentally, physically, emotionally and financially.

The Crown says it doesn’t have evidence that suggests McArthur killed anyone else. However, Toronto Police Det. Dave Dickinson, who helped lead the investigation into McArthur, said last week that the force is still probing cold and missing persons cases in search of other possible victims.

More to come. </s> The Canadian serial killer responsible for the murders of eight men in the Toronto area was sentenced Friday to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

The punishment handed against 67-year-old Bruce McArthur comes just days after prosecutors told a court that he dressed his deceased victims in fur coats and placed cigars in their mouths for a series of morbid, staged photographs.

"This sentence must reflect society's revulsion for such depravity and violence," Ontario Superior Court Justice John McMahon wrote in his decision, according to the CBC.

McArthur will get his first chance of parole at the age of 91, but “the practical reality is that Mr. McArthur’s release on parole is highly unlikely," his attorney, James Miglin, was quoted by The Globe and Mail as saying.

McArthur pleaded guilty last week to eight counts of first-degree murder. The former landscaper sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered men he met in Toronto's Gay Village district over seven years until his arrest in early 2018. Their bodies, prosecutors say, were then hidden in large planters at a home that McArthur used for his landscaping business.

"Victims were posed naked, with cigars in their mouth, shaved, and/or made to wear a fur coat and hat," prosecutor Michael Cantlon told a court on Monday during the first day of the sentencing hearing.

CANADIAN SERIAL KILLER BRUCE MCARTHUR DRESSED CORPSES UP FOR SERIES OF MORBID PHOTOGRAPHS, PROSECUTORS REVEAL

Canadian prosecutors had asked a judge this week for McArthur to receive consecutive life sentences so he wouldn't be eligible for parole for 50 years, when he would be 116.

But the sentence McArthur ended up receiving Friday, the Associated Press says, was the most lenient option on the table. McMahon noted earlier this week that McArthur, by pleading guilty, saved the families of the victims from the potential of more graphic details emerging in what was expected to have been a long, brutal trial.

Families and friends of McArthur’s victims are expected to speak out about the sentencing later today.

“Mr. McArthur would no doubt have continued killing innocent victims if not apprehended,” McMahon told a courtroom Friday, according to The Globe and Mail.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> TORONTO — Serial killer Bruce McArthur murdered eight men from Toronto’s gay village for “his own warped and sick gratification,” an Ontario judge said Friday as he sentenced the 67-year-old to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

The ruling means McArthur will be 91 before he can apply for any form of release, which the judge said he was highly unlikely to receive.

“Although Mr. McArthur has taken responsibility by pleading guilty, there has been no evidence I can see of remorse,” said Justice John McMahon. “Mr. McArthur would have no doubt continued to kill if he wasn’t caught.”

McArthur, a self-employed landscaper, pleaded guilty last week to eight counts of first-degree murder for men he killed between 2010 and 2017.

His victims were Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.

The judge found McArthur strangled all of them and then took photographs of their bodies in various states of undress, keeping the images on his computer and viewing them long after his crimes.

McArthur then dismembered his victims and hid their remains in planters at a Toronto residential property where he stored his landscaping equipment, and in a ravine behind the home.

“Bruce McArthur is a sexual predator and killer who lured his victims on the pretext of consensual sex and he ended up killing them for his own warped and sick gratification,” McMahon said. “The ability to decapitate and dismember his victims and do it repeatedly is pure evil.”

Parole eligibility was the only question for McMahon to settle as first-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence. The judge said McArthur’s age and guilty plea were factors in his decision.

“The accused has saved the family, friends and community at large from enduring a graphic public trial that would have been a nightmare for everyone,” he said. “The law is clear: a guilty plea is a mitigating factor. The second factor is the age of accused when he could apply for parole.”

The sentence wasn’t harsh enough for Nicole Borthwick, who was friends with Kinsman, Lisowick and Esen.

She said the punishment failed to either fit the crime or soothe the wounds of the community impacted by the men’s deaths.

“I don’t think that’s enough comfort for the families or the community or the people that he’s killed,” Borthwick said outside court. “I think that if you’re going to do a maximum crime, you deserve the maximum sentence.”

Toronto’s police Chief Mark Saunders was satisfied with the sentence, saying McArthur will never see daylight again.

“I do not see him in a public setting ever again,” he said. “In this case life will mean life.”

Saunders also defended the work of his investigators, who have been criticized for not acting sooner on concerns from the LGBTQ community that a serial killer was responsible for the disappearances of several men from the gay village.

The chief said officers had launched an investigation into the disappearances of McArthur’s first three victims, but simply never had enough evidence to proceed further until 2017.

“This was not a case of police didn’t think anything was going on,” Saunders said. “We knew something stunk and we did everything we could to find it. We just didn’t.”

Court heard that many of McArthur’s victims were immigrants and of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent. Some lived parts of their life in secret because of their sexual orientation. All of them had ties to the city’s LGBTQ community.

“This is a crime of stark horror,” prosecutor Michael Cantlon said in a statement. “Although there can be no closure from a crime of this magnitude, we hope that these eight convictions for first-degree murder will assist our community in beginning a new chapter of healing.” </s> Bruce McArthur, the serial killer in Toronto who pleaded guilty to the murders of eight men in the Church-Wellesley Village, has been sentenced to life in prison,with no chance for parole for 25 years.

The hearings took place over the past two weeks and included victim impact statements read by Justice John McMahon. Court also heard many harrowing and gruesome facts of the case.

It was found that McArthur kept digital folders for his victims, within which he kept photos of them before and after death. He also created a ninth folder for a man he had planned to kill, but who was rescued the day of McArthur's arrest.

The court did acknowledge the commonality of the eight victims, and how they came from vulnerable backgrounds. Their names are Skandaraj (Skanda) Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi, Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, Dean Lisowick, Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman.

After being convicted on eight counts of murder, McArthur immediately faced an automatic life-in-prison sentence without a chance for parole for 25 years.

Crown prosecution, however, fought for 50 years with no parole. </s> TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian serial killer Bruce McArthur was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday in a trial that gripped the country and shocked the gay community of Toronto.

McArthur, who pleaded guilty to eight charges of first-degree murder from 2010 to 2017, was arrested in January 2018 by Toronto police and was initially charged with the murders of five men. Most of his victims had ties to the “Gay Village” of Toronto.

Justice John McMahon in the Ontario Superior Court said he had “no doubt Bruce McArthur would have continued killing” and noted McArthur had shown no signs of remorse or turned himself in.

McArthur, 67, will be eligible for parole after 25 years, the judge said.

Some victims’ remains were found in the planters of homes where McArthur did landscaping contracting. Evidence revealed in a hearing showed McArthur kept items from his victims and had photographs of them on his computer. </s> TORONTO — A Canadian judge handed down a sentence for serial killer Bruce McArthur on Friday, condemning him to life in prison with no chance for parole for 25 years.

McArthur pleaded guilty last week to eight counts of first-degree murder. The 67-year-old former landscaper sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered men he met in Toronto’s Gay Village district over seven years.

Convicted killer Bruce McArthur has been sentenced to life in prison.Facebook via Reuters

Justice John McMahon called McArthur a sexual predator who killed for his own “warped sick gratification” and said the victims suffered slow and painful deaths. He called their dismemberments pure evil, but said the guilty plea spared a jury four months of graphic and gruesome evidence that would have likely required counseling after.

McMahon said that even if McArthur lives to 91, the chances of him getting parole are remote at best. Prosecutor Craig Harper had asked for a parole ineligibility period of 50 years, when McArthur would have been 116. The judge said that would’ve only been symbolic.

“All or most of the victims were vulnerable individuals who were lured to their death,” McMahon said. “The accused exploited his victims’ vulnerabilities, whether they involved immigration concerns, mental health challenges, or people living a secretive double life.”

The victims fit a pattern: Most were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent and lived on the margins of Canadian society. Their disappearances attracted little attention.

One victim hid the fact that he was gay from his Muslim family. Another was a recent immigrant with a drug problem. A third was a refugee who was ordered deported. And still another victim was homeless, smoked crack cocaine and worked as a prostitute.

Many of Toronto’s LGBQT community said for years a serial killer was at work.

McArthur has been in prison since January 2018 when investigators discovered dismembered remains in planters at home he used as storage for his business. He also staged photos of some of his victims after they died, posing corpses in fur coats and putting cigars in their mouths. McArthur would access some of the photos long after the killings.

The prosecution said that a frequent site of the killings was McArthur’s bedroom and that he repeatedly strangled his victims either with his hands or with rope and a metal bar.

The killings took place from 2010 to 2017.

Criminal experts say it is unusual for someone to become a serial killer later in life, but the prosecution said there is no evidence of earlier murders. </s> Serial killer Bruce McArthur will be eligible to apply for parole after spending at least 25 years in prison for the murders of eight men in Toronto, a judge ordered on Friday.

McArthur, 67, will be 91 when his first chance at parole comes up.

In his sentencing decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice John McMahon noted the gruesomeness of McArthur's crimes, but said there is a "fine line between retribution and vengeance."

He also told the packed University Avenue courtroom that there is very little chance the former landscaper will ever be granted parole.

Bruce McArthur is a sexual predator and killer who lured his victims and ended up killing them for his own warped and sick gratification. - Ontario Superior Court Justice John McMahon

Last week, McArthur pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of eight men between 2010 and 2017. Most of the victims, as well as McArthur himself, had deep ties to Toronto's Gay Village neighbourhood.

First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no parole for 25 years, but until today, the question remained whether he would be sentenced to consecutive periods of parole ineligibility.

Crown lawyers had asked the judge to hand down a sentence that would ensure McArthur would have to serve at least 50 years in prison.

While McMahon said the murders were "pure evil" and the harsher sentence would have been "symbolic," he cited McArthur's guilty plea — which saved victim's families and the community at large from "enduring a graphic public trial" — and his age as reasons for his decision.

McMahon said that while McArthur took responsibility by pleading guilty, "there has been no evidence of remorse" from him during his interactions with police.

"Bruce McArthur is a sexual predator and killer who lured his victims and ended up killing them for his own warped and sick gratification," he said.

Furthermore, McMahon said, he believes McArthur "would have kept killing" had he not been apprehended by police in January 2018 after months of surveillance.

Bruce McArthur pleaded guilty to killing these eight men. Top row, from left to right: Skandaraj Navaratnam, Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen and Abdulbasir Faizi. Bottom row, from left to right: Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi and Majeed Kayhan. (John Fraser/CBC)

Family and friends of McArthur's victims addressed the court, giving impact statements, during the first two days of the sentencing hearing earlier this week. Some also spoke this afternoon to media outside the courthouse.

A 36-page agreed statement of facts read out in court on Monday disclosed that McArthur restrained and strangled at least some of his victims. He also kept images of his victims, both alive and dead, in eight digital files stored on a computer in his Thorncliffe Park apartment.

"These men, sadly, did not die a quick and painless death," McMahon said Friday.

When he was arrested, court heard that officers found a man tied to McArthur's bed. Police later found another folder on McArthur's computer labelled with the man's name that contained images of him.

In a number of instances, victims had been posthumously staged before the photographs were taken, which McMahon said was "no doubt for [McArthur's] perverted form of sexual gratification."

Remains of seven of the men were found in five garden planters at a mid-Toronto home where McArthur had worked and stored his landscaping tools. Remains of another man were found buried in a ravine at back of the property.

McMahon said McArthur's ability to repeatedly decapitate and dismember his victims was an aggravating factor. He also noted McArthur specifically targeted people living on the margins of society.

As part of his sentence, McArthur will be added to the sex offender's registry and is banned from contacting his victims' families. Throughout the week in court, McArthur appeared sullen, said little, and wore a plaid shirt and black sweater each day. When court adjourned, he was led out in handcuffs.

Santhanaladchumy Kanagaratnam, mother of Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, speaks to reporters following McArthur's sentencing. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)

'It's not enough'

In a statement, Crown lawyers thanked police investigators for their work on the case and said they hope McArthur's sentence "will assist our community in beginning a new chapter of healing."

"This is a crime of stark horror. The murder of eight of our citizens has impacted many: family, chosen family, the LGBT community, and the city in which we live and work," the statement read.

There is no closure. There is no grace. This community is broken and it's going to be broken for a long, long time. - Nicole Borthwick, friend of Andrew Kinsman

McMahon similarly addressed the profound effect McArthur's arrest and subsequent sentencing has had on Toronto's LGBT community.

"His crimes have instilled fear and distrust," McMahon told the court. "It will never be the same."

Outside the courthouse, family and friends of some of the victims expressed anger and frustration that the judge did not hand McArthur the harshest possible sentence.

"It's not enough for the families, it's not enough for the lives lost and it's not enough for the community," said Nicole Borthwick, a friend of Andrew Kinsman. Kinsman was the last man to be killed by McArthur, in the summer of 2017. He was 49 years old.

"There is no closure. There is no grace. This community is broken and it's going to be broken for a long, long time," Borthwick continued.

Watch a friend of the victims react to McArthur's sentence:

Nicole Borthwick, a friend of three of the serial killer's victims, said McArthur's sentence provides 'no closure' to families and the LGBT community. 0:51

​McArthur also pleaded guilty to the murders of Selim Esen, 44, Majeed Kayhan, 58, Dean Lisowick, 47, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, Abdulbasir Faizi, 44 and Kirushna Kanagaratnam, 37.

A memorial for the men will be held at Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto on Sunday evening. Reverend Deena Dudley said there is a "sense of relief" that the legal proceedings are over and hopes there may be some healing moving forward.

"It has traumatized a lot of people. I think the only redemptive thing that I can think of coming out of this, is that we use this as an experience to learn from," she said.

Police chief stands behind investigation

James Dubro, a writer and longtime LGBT activist, said "people are outraged" by the thought McArthur could, in theory, eventually apply for parole.

Dubro is among a group of advocates calling for a public inquiry into Toronto police's handling of the investigation into McArthur, something that has drawn sharp criticism from some corners of the LGBT community.

People who frequent the Gay Village say they suspected for years that a serial killer was preying on gay men in the area. Some have alleged their concerns were downplayed or outright ignored by police.

Watch a top detective on the case pinpoint what helped to crack the McArthur investigation:

Homicide Det. David Dickinson says the key piece of evidence that led Toronto police to the serial killer was found in Andrew Kinsman's calendar. 0:25

At a news conference at Toronto police headquarters, Chief Mark Saunders and two detectives who led the probe into McArthur said they were satisfied with the sentence.

"I do not see Bruce McArthur seeing daylight again. I do not see him in a public setting again," said Saunders. "Life will mean life."

Saunders drew considerable ire for his public comments in December 2017, when he said investigators had no evidence of a serial killer. McArthur was arrested just over a month later.

On Friday, Saunders defended the statement, saying once more that it was accurate given what was known by police at the time. Earlier this month, it was revealed an officer who arrested, questioned and released McArthur in connection with an assault in 2016 is now facing disciplinary charges.

Saunders said the force will work with the Toronto Police Services Board to explore any possible deficiencies in the investigation. </s> TORONTO — A Canadian judge handed down a sentence for serial killer Bruce McArthur on Friday, condemning him to life in prison with no chance for parole for 25 years.

McArthur pleaded guilty last week to eight counts of first-degree murder. The 67-year-old former landscaper sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered men he met in Toronto's Gay Village district over seven years.

Justice John McMahon called McArthur a sexual predator who killed for his own "warped sick gratification" and said the victims suffered slow and painful deaths. He called their dismemberments pure evil, but said the guilty plea spared a jury four months of graphic and gruesome evidence that would have likely required counseling after.

McMahon said that even if McArthur lives to 91, the chances of him getting parole are remote at best. Prosecutor Craig Harper had asked for a parole ineligibility period of 50 years, when McArthur would have been 116. The judge said that would've only been symbolic.

"All or most of the victims were vulnerable individuals who were lured to their death," McMahon said. "The accused exploited his victims' vulnerabilities, whether they involved immigration concerns, mental health challenges, or people living a secretive double life."

The victims fit a pattern: Most were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent and lived on the margins of Canadian society. Their disappearances attracted little attention.

One victim hid the fact that he was gay from his Muslim family. Another was a recent immigrant with a drug problem. A third was a refugee who was ordered deported. And still another victim was homeless, smoked crack cocaine and worked as a prostitute.

Many of Toronto's LGBQT community said for years a serial killer was at work.

McArthur has been in prison since January 2018 when investigators discovered dismembered remains in planters at home he used as storage for his business. He also staged photos of some of his victims after they died, posing corpses in fur coats and putting cigars in their mouths. McArthur would access some of the photos long after the killings.

The prosecution said that a frequent site of the killings was McArthur's bedroom and that he repeatedly strangled his victims either with his hands or with rope and a metal bar.

The killings took place from 2010 to 2017.

Criminal experts say it is unusual for someone to become a serial killer later in life, but the prosecution said there is no evidence of earlier murders.
Bruce McArthur is sentenced to life imprisonment for eight murders in Toronto, making him the oldest known sexually motivated serial killer in Canadian history.