Serial killer Bruce McArthur, who killed and dismembered at least 8 gay men he met in Toronto’s Gay Village district, was sentenced on Friday to life in prison with no chance for parole for 25 years.
Justice John McMahon called the 67 year-old 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, and said that McArthur’s guilty plea spared a jury four months of graphic and gruesome evidence that would have likely required counseling after.
“All or most of the victims were vulnerable individuals who were lured to their death,” Justice McMahon said. “The accused exploited his victims’ vulnerabilities, whether they involved immigration concerns, mental health challenges, or people living a secretive double life.
The Guardian reported: “The court heard heard that McArthur staged photographs of his victims’ corpses, posing the bodies in a fur coat and black leather hat, and – in two cases – with a cigar between their lips. and that McArthur kept photographs of his victims – many of them taken while they were alive. McArthur also shaved and stored the facial hair from his victims,
McArthur was in the middle of a ninth murder when police knocked on his door, The Independent reports: “Police, who had been monitoring the 67-year-old landscape gardener as a potential suspect, moved in for fears another murder was about to take place. When they arrived, they found McArthur had chained the man – identified in court only as John – to a four-poster bed and placed a black bag over his head. He was taping his victim’s mouth shut at the moment police knocked.”
McArthur pleaded guilty to killing Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.
JMcMahon said that even if McArthur lives to 91, the chances of him getting parole are remote at best.
