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Toronto Serial Killer Who Targeted Gay Men Pleads Guilty
For years, Toronto police insisted there was no serial killer targeting the LGBTQ community.
Toronto’s infamous serial killer who targeted gay men and men with ties to the LGBTQ community and got away with it for almost a decade has finally pled guilty in court.
Bruce McArthur began his murder spree, as far as anyone knows, in 2010. Skandaraj Navaratnam disappeared after leaving a club in Toronto’s Gay Village. After that, six more men would disappear from the area over the years, most of them immigrants of color, some homeless, or addicted to drugs. An eighth man who was reported missing and had no known ties to the gay community was also ultimately linked to McArthur.
LGBTQ activists and community members tried for years to get police to acknowledge that the disappearances could be the work of a serial killer, but it wasn’t until a white gay man, Andrew Kinsman, went missing that the bodies, and the killer, were found.
On Tuesday, a year after McArthur was first charged with any of the murders, he pled guilty to all eight. In addition to Navaratnam and Kinsman, McArthur has copped to the murders of Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam.
Each count of murder will automatically result in a life sentence, but next week, a judge will decide if they will be served concurrently or consecutively.
McArthur himself came out as gay in his 40s, left his wife and kids, and moved to Toronto, where he frequented Gay Village. Not much is known still about his motives, or if there were more victims that have yet to be identified.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
