Arabnews24 - Canada:Toronto police may have saved the life of a man who was in Bruce McArthur’s apartment at the time of his arrest.Police had McArthur under surveillance the day he was arrested at his Thorncliffe Park area home.A police source tells CityNews that on Jan. 18, police saw a young man enter McArthur’s 19th floor apartment, and that’s when officers decided to move in.
The source says when police broke down the door, they found the man handcuffed to McArthur’s bed.The young man was not hurt and later interviewed by police.The Toronto police forensic unit remains on scene, combing the apartment for evidence.
The source said photos were found on McArthur’s computer that helped investigators identify some of the victims.The 66-year-old has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder and police believe that number will rise as the investigation continues.
Investigators are searching approximately 30 properties connected to McArthur, who worked as a self-employed landscaper.Police say they recovered the remains of three individuals from a home on Mallory Crescent, a property in Leaside used by McArthur to store landscaping equipment, but the remains have not been identified and it’s unclear if they’re connected to the five victims.“Right now, where we’ve recovered the bodies, are from large planters and they’ve been hidden in the bottom of these planters, so we’ve seized quite a few planters from around the city,” Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga said in a news conference on Monday morning.“They can’t be identified because they are skeletal remains and they have been dismembered so we have to wait for DNA tests… before we can identify those remains.”
Following his arrest, McArthur was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in relation to the disappearance of Andrew Kinsman and Selim Esen. On Monday, three more charges of first-degree murder were added, in connection with the deaths of Majeed Kayhan, 58, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, and Dean Lisowick, 47.
For over seven years, Navaseelan Navaratnam has been carefully guarding a devastating truth from his 80-year-old Sri Lankan mother: no one knows where his brother, Skandaraj, is.“She is a heart patient,” said Navaratnam. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, was last seen in the early hours of Sept. 10, 2010, leaving Zipperz Club and bar , a now closed located near Church and Carlton Sts., with an unknown man.The case of his disappearance would become part of Project Houston — an eighteen-month long police task force looking for Skandaraj and two other men who went missing between 2010 and 2012: Majeed Kayhan, 58, and Abdulbasir Faizi, 42....Skandaraj’s friends and family, have yet to hear any new information.Speaking to the Star from Dubai, Navaratnam, 42, tells a story of three brothers—two in Sri Lanka (aged 52 and 44) and himself—who continue to “hope and pray that nothing has happened” to their brother.Skandaraj moved to Canada from Sri Lanka a few years before he went missing.
- McArthur made his first court appearance on Jan. 19 and is next scheduled to appear via video link on Feb. 14. Police will not comment on any interactions with McArthur thus far.
- McArthur had been barred from the Gay Village after assaulting a man with a metal pipe in 2001. He was convicted in 2003 and given a conditional sentence of two years less a day and three years’ probation. As part of the sentence — except for work and medical appointments — McArthur was barred for three years from an area bounded by Bloor Street to the north, College and Carlton streets to the south, Sherbourne Street to the east and University Avenue to the west — an area encompassing the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood.
- Autoshop owner Dominic Vetere said police were investigating McArthur since at least October 2017, when they visited his shop — Dom’s Auto Parts — looking for McArthur’s Dodge Caravan. The vehicle was located and towed from the shop. Police later told Vetere they found trace amounts of blood in the vehicle.
- McArthur was self-employed as a landscaper, using the company name ‘Artistic Design’. He is believed to have worked on up to 30 properties in Toronto and the GTA.
- McArthur also played the role of Santa Claus for the past few Christmas seasons at Agincourt Mall, near Sheppard Avenue East and Kennedy Road.
- McArthur has a grown daughter who lives in Durham region. His ex-wife lives in Bowmanville.
- McArthur lived in an East York apartment building. A neighbour said he lived with a male partner, according to The Globe and Mail.
- McArthur provided free gardening services at a Leaside property in exchange for the use of a garage to store his landscaping supplies. In 2010, Abdulbasir Faizi’s car was found a few blocks away from the property shortly after he disappeared.
- Neighbours say they often saw McArthur at a rural property in Madoc, though he did not own the property. The phone at the property is registered to an R Horan.
- McArthur has also been connected to a home in Scarborough where neighbours say a man named Roger Horan lived.