RedHanded - Episode 97 - Bruce McArthur: The Gay Village Murders

Episode Date: June 6, 2019

In the late 2000s a spate of South Asian and Middle Eastern Men in Toronto's Gay Village vanished. The local community noticed almost immediately by the police seemed unable or unwilling to investigate the disappearances. By the time they realised that they had a serial killer on their hands the situation had escalated into horror movie proportions.     See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games and signature BetMGM service, there's no better way to bring the excitement and ambiance of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino app today.

BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti.

And welcome to Red Handed. And first of all, shout out to us for predicting Theresa May's resignation last week. Who saw that coming? Everyone, didn't we? Well, right. She held in for quite a long time, to be fair. I'll give her that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if we predicted it I don't know but to to clarify we did record that episode before

she had stepped down and then it was released after she stepped down so bye um yeah please anyone but Boris anyway I suppose we've just better get going really I don't think I can't are you I feel I'm so used to doing like notices at the beginning of the show now that I'm like nothing to say nothing has happened nothing has changed let's just give the people what they came for from around 2010 the LGBTQ community in Toronto Canada suspected that they were being targeted by a serial killer they were right and that is our story this week. Being an LGBTQ person can be just as marginalising as race or class. And we do talk about the less dead all the time. So it's time that we told another LGBTQ story.

And it's a very, very recent one. It's been all over the news. So today we're dealing with a series of very recent killings that it could be argued would have been solved a lot faster if the victims had been straight and white. A lot of factors come into play this week, so please wait until the end of the episode to make your mind up and then tweet to your heart's content. But just because we don't fall into a particular group doesn't mean that we shouldn't tell their stories. We can always be allies. So let's get into it. Homicide rates are incredibly low in Canada. In 2016, there were 611 murders across the whole country. That's only 1.68 per 100,000 people, compared to the US's 5.35 per 100,000 people. That is pretty good going. Now, I was originally going to put like a UK statistic in there, but I was surprised to find that in England and Wales, there were only 571 murders in 2016.

I was amazed by that. I was expecting to be much, much higher, but I think I'm just so used to London statistics that like once you get outside of London, if you average it across the whole country, it probably is quite low. I thought we were going to be able to make the old population argument, but it turns out that that doesn't work either. Because the UK has a population of 66 million, and Canada has a population of just 37 million. So we're not doing bad. No, we're not doing bad at all. Anyway, let's put the murder rate competition to one side. The point is that Canada has a very low murder rate. Apart from this case,

the most recent serial murders in Canada involved a 51-year-old nurse who lethally injected elderly patients with insulin between 2007 and 2016. Canada also has a reputation for being a very liberal country. Everyone's very polite. They say thank you all the time. That's definitely, you know, I haven't been to Canada, but that's definitely the stereotype, isn't it? That it's very polite and clean. I've been to Niagara-on-the-Lake, which is like rural Ontario. I went for my cousin's wedding. And it's very like, it's kind of like Disneyland in that like,

it doesn't look real. I mean, to me as like a grubby city girl, like it doesn't look real. Like everything is so clean and so like pristine and lovely and we were all dressed up for the wedding and at the time I was very into dressing like a 50s person so I had this like big blue like polka dot dress on who the fuck do I think I am anyway that's what I wore to my cousin's wedding me and my sister who was also dressed up not but she was still like looked like she was going somewhere people clapped as we walked down the street it was so strange

oh my god so strange that's so polite though look at this look at the effort these women have put into their outfits let's give them a round of applause because my cousin put on the wedding invite she was like oh cocktail attire and i texted her i was like does that mean i have to wear like a specific cocktail dress because that is a very specific kind of dress and she was like oh no no don't worry it's just to stop the canadians from showing up in jeans wow the canadian tuxedo is double denim brilliant so basically very polite very liberal guys have got um universal health care system over there like we do and gay marriage has been legal since 2005 in canada the case we're covering today concluded in toronto last year and for some

it threw Canada's all-accepting nature into question. The gay village in Toronto is quite a small area. It has gay bars, gay clubs, gay bookshops, your standard gay neighbourhood. I imagine it to be a little bit like Soho, like Old Compton Street in London. I can't think of another one. No. That and obviously heaven down by Charing Cross Under the Arches. Who hasn't been thrown out of heaven? I feel like everyone's got a I got thrown out of heaven because story. Have you been? I have been once and I didn't get thrown out. Everyone gets thrown out of heaven. For sure. It's true. It's a fact. Please tweet in your getting thrown out of heaven stories because I am here for it.

So like other gay parts of town in different parts of the world, there is a sense of community in the gay village of Toronto. And that community were the first to notice that gay men were going missing in the late 2000s. And it was even more specific than that. The men who were disappearing were all South Asian or Middle Eastern. Some were refugees and almost all of them were newly arrived in Canada. And I also learned while reading this week, Toronto doesn't have a dedicated missing persons unit,

which I thought was quite shocking for such a large city. Yeah, I did think it was shocking just because the murder rate's low. It doesn't mean the missing persons rate isn't low. People go missing everywhere and I find it strange. Especially such a cosmopolitan area with so many people. Yeah, strange. There's an important thing to note here. The homosexuality is illegal in 77 countries across the world and is punishable by death in 10.

Those countries are Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Famously, Brunei has recently changed its stance due to international pressure. There's a part of my university that was paid for entirely by the Sultan of Brunei called the Brunei Gallery. And there is a street in Brunei called Soas. Facts. Facts. Coming at you with the facts. They probably had to change their mind quite recently. I think maybe they've renamed it now. So you can see how for LGBTQ

people fleeing the countries we just listed and other countries in Asia because of their sexuality, or maybe for other reasons, why Canada would have seemed like a safe bet. That is what makes today's story so heart-rending. This week's killer took advantage of this sense of security. documentary where they take you through the chronology of the crimes. It's much more about the LGBTQ community in Toronto and their reaction, and also the police's interaction with the community. It's called Village of the Missing. And if you Google it, the site says that it is only available in Canada, but you can quite easily VPN your way around that. You guys know what's up. I don't need to educate you on that. So in this documentary, Anthony says that as a brown gay man in Toronto, you seek out people who are not going to do you harm. This week's killer sought to be that person so that he could kill vulnerable people that he thought no one would miss. The killer this week took ruthless advantage of people's cards being down at the

beginning of their new life, where they could not be persecuted for being gay. The feeling of unease in the gay village was widespread, but every time another brown man went missing, locals felt as if they were dismissed by the police, in some cases even mocked. Activist James Dubrow had lived in the gay village for decades, and he recalls a time in the 70s when a friend of his asked for a police liaison officer for the gay community, and he was told that the police had no interest in liaising with a criminal group. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Canada in 1969, but that didn't mean that the stigma wasn't there anymore. And some details of the story today make't mean that the stigma wasn't there anymore. And some details of

the story today make us think that that stigma surrounding the gay community in Toronto may not have totally disappeared even now. But back in the 2000s, it wasn't just the police who were dismissing the disappearances of brown people. It was quite a lot of the civilians there too. People told themselves that perhaps the missing men had been deported or had gone back to their home countries after deciding that Canada wasn't for them. A journalist in that documentary made a really interesting point. I thought he said that our assumption is that when women go missing, immediately we think that they met with foul play.

But when men go missing, they have agency. So the assumption is that they want to disappear, that it was deliberate. So we don't get as worried about it. We don't try as hard to find them as when women go missing. And I'd never, I mean, I've had that thought, but I'd never sort of succinctly put it into words like that. Before we take you through the disappearances, we should say that the people we're going to mention today are by no means the only people who went missing in the 2000s from the gay village but they are the ones that are connected to this investigation as it currently stands so let's start at the beginning i feel like i haven't said that for fucking ages

in september 2010 you're gonna have to help me with these brown names got it i'm on it skandaraj navaratnam he's tamil actually yeah he's sri lankan skandaraj never never at them never at the rush never at the he's tamil actually yeah he's sri lankan skandaraj never nam was reported missing by a close friend of his his mates called him skanda which makes my life easier but also makes me feel like a bad person for not trying skandaraj had just got a new puppy in 2010 and it was discovered abandoned in his apartment and after his friends realized that none of them had seen him for a few days, they contacted the authorities. Skandaraj was 40, and he had moved from Sri Lanka in the 90s as a refugee,

and settled in Toronto's gay village. He had a lot of friends, an infectious laugh, and was unbeatable at Scrabble. Skandaraj's disappearance didn't generate much attention outside the gay village. People assumed that he'd gone back to Sri Lanka, which would seem like a pretty odd move for someone who had been living openly gay in Canada since the 90s. Exactly. And then they're like, I'm just going to buy this new puppy. But nah, I think I'm just going to go back to Sri Lanka. Yeah, exactly. Out of the blue. And aren't they genociding Tamils in Sri Lanka?

I mean, yeah, there's all that. There's all that. Odd move. Just two months later in December, Abdul Basir Faizi, is that how you say it? Yeah. Fucking smashing it. I'm also not Middle Eastern, so I'm also just taking a massive stab at that. I'm being so racist by being like, brown lady, you can do it. Apologies. It's all right. I wouldn't pile you in with the racists for that. Don't worry about it. Crawl out of the racist pile. Abdulbazir Faizi, who was 42, was reported missing by his family.

He was born in Afghanistan, but he'd emigrated to Canada from Iran. And unlike Skandaraj, Abdulbazir was married to a woman and had two daughters. He split his time between his family in the suburbs and the gay bars of the village. Abdulbazir was 42 in 2010, and he was leading a double life. Many claim that Abdulbazir's wife Karima had no idea that her husband was leading this double life.

But after his disappearance, she released a statement claiming that he was running from his children and from his responsibilities. She later initiated divorce proceedings to get custody of their children so i think she knew something was up maybe she didn't know exactly what and we're obviously not blaming her for this like if you're married to someone for nearly 15 years at this point and they suddenly go missing that's going to be incredibly difficult but my gut feeling is that she she knew something i don't know how she couldn't have known that something was amiss.

And something was amiss because Abdul-Bazir was never seen alive again. But because his family didn't know that he hung out at the gay bars in the village, and because he lived in the suburbs, Abdul-Bazir's disappearance was not connected to that of Skandaraj. And it wouldn't be until 2012 when another South Asian man went missing from the same area. Just like Abdul Basir, Majid Kayyam had a double life, one with his family and one with the gay village. I think this is going to be, you know, this is obviously like, these people are fleeing from countries where it is illegal to be

gay. And then they're obviously, even when they're moving to Canada or they are living in this country where it is a lot more acceptable, within these communities, it's still going to be very difficult for these men to live openly gay lives. And that's why I'd really recommend watching that documentary. Because they have the pride parade and one of the guys who's at the front, also an Asian guy, was saying, you know, people don't talk about the sort of marginalization of homosexual people within islam because you immediately get called islamophobic and he's like my whole family is muslim it is legitimately impossible for me to be islamophobic i'm talking about radicalism and i thought that was a really a really great point we need to talk about it i think um being lgbtq and then

also being from a minority group like being south asian being black being middle eastern just as a whole extra layer i mean i know there are plenty of white families that are not totally chill with people being gay of course i'm not saying that but culturally it's a, very ingrained thing to be not cool with homosexuality. Kayan, like the other men, had emigrated from Afghanistan with his wife, who he had children with. In 2012, he was 58. And in October 2012, Majid's son couldn't get hold of his dad, so he reported him missing to the police.

So what do we have here? We have three middle-aged brown men with strong connections to the same area, all going missing within the police. So what do we have here? We have three middle-aged brown men with strong connections to the same area, all going missing within two years. In a country where the crime rate is incredibly low. There was one person in the Toronto Police Department who had an inkling that these disappearances could be connected. And that man was Inspector Hank Idsinger. Inspector Hank started a task force called Project Houston to investigate the disappearances of Majid, Abdul Basir and Skandaraj. This investigation found that two of the men

were connected to a person called Bruce MacArthur. Bruce had once been married to a woman, but was now a staple of the gay scene. He was involved with the Gay Fathers of Toronto group, he brought flowers to people's birthdays and he worked as a mall Santa in the holiday season. He looks like such a Santa, too. Yeah, he does. He does. Bruce was 60 years old and drove a maroon van.

He was a landscape gardener, and so his maroon van was lined with plastic to carry around all of his gardening tools. Bruce was a long-term friend of Skandaraj and he had a brief sexual relationship with Majid. He had also employed Majid as a helper in his landscape gardening business. So there are your connections to two of the three victims or two of the three men at this point who have gone missing. And the third one is in the post. Important thing about Bruce, yeah, landscape gardener, as we said, and he'd been kicking around for a long time. A lot of his clients trusted him absolutely with the keys to their houses so he could come and go when he pleased. Weeks after he vanished, Abdul Basir's

car was found near one of these houses that Bruce MacArthur had unlimited access to. But despite these connections, during Project Houston, Bruce MacArthur was treated access to. But despite these connections, during Project Houston, Bruce MacArthur was treated by the police as a witness and not a suspect. I think it's the classic thing that we see all the goddamn time of like, oh, it can't possibly be him. He's so nice. He's so nice and normal and he's in the gay dad's network and he's just a really fucking great guy and he's so nice to all of these new people. I think so. And I also do think it does come back to what you said earlier that if these had been women i think

they would have looked at him oh yeah as a potential killer but being men i think they i just think at this point do they even really think that these men are victims i just think they're like what's happened here we're not quite sure this man is the only connection. They don't see him as a suspect at all, just someone who can help with their inquiries because he's so nice. After 18 months, Project Houston came to an end with no evidence that the disappearances were connected, but with also no idea where any of the three men had gone. Project Houston had failed to find any criminal evidence at all, but they did attempt to make a connection to Canada's very own Luca Magnotta, who sent body parts in post to schools. We're going to get a wave of people asking us to do Luca now.

Yeah, I know. I mean, I think most people listening do know the Luca Magnotta's case. If you don't, yeah, go have a look. It's pretty fucking grim. Now, the task force briefly entertained that Skandaraj Navaratnam may have been murdered by 65-year-old Alex Brunton of Peterborough, Ontario, who was under investigation for, get this, cannibalism. Alex Brunton was the key focus of Project Houston. He frequented an online cannibal forum called ZambianMeat.com. That just fucking makes you want to be sick and never eat again, doesn't it? It does. Definitely does. Excellent for the waistline, cannibalism forums. And this ZambianMeat.com website is where it's thought that Alex Brunton had interacted

with Skandaraj Navaratnam. Brunton's screen name was Chefmate 50. Good. Try harder. Try harder, be better, I think. Brunton was very tenuously linked with Luca Magnata in that he went to a strip club in Toronto called Remington's. And Remington's is where Luca worked as a dancer. Police thought that the cannibal Brunton may have groomed a young Luca Magnata.

Magnata lived very close to Brunton in Peterborough for a while as a teenager. So as you can see, it's pretty tenuous. And this lead did eventually come to nothing. I think it's a case of, because there's so few cases like this in Canada, they're just like, let's find another one because maybe they're all in the same club.

With hindsight, it's like, but like, it's not that illogical them trying to make a connection to this. And they tried, they looked into it. It just doesn't come to anything. And Alex Brunton was never charged with murder, but he was convicted of making, possessing and distributing child pornography.

So still a pretty bad guy. After this brief Luca Magnotta detour, the Toronto police had no leads on the disappearances connected to the gay village. Mark Saunders, the chief of the Toronto police, told the city that there was no evidence to suggest a serial killer was hiding in their gay bars. He was wrong. But this point wouldn't be hammered home until five years later, until June 2017, when a cornerstone of the gay community, 49-year-old Andrew Kinsman, vanished into thin air.

Kinsman was such an active member of the LGBTQ community that when he went missing, everyone was looking for him. There were flyers everywhere, but Andrew was nowhere to be found. One of Kinsman's close female friends came forward during the investigation and told police that over Christmas the year before, Andrew had told her that he had met a man who was, quote, very into the psychology of serial killers and how they functioned. And if that is a signifier of serial killer, we are all in huge trouble. Andrew never told his friend what this man's name

was but he did reveal that they regularly met up and had sex with each other. The police found that this fascination with killers was mutual when they searched Andrew Kinsman's computer. Andrew was obsessed with the British killer of gay men Dennis Nilsen. He had a whole folder about him on his hard drive labelled pictures slash slash murder even i don't have one of those no no no that's when you know you've gone too far i just i don't file anything my desktop's a fucking nightmare it literally gives me anxiety just looking at it you just need to take a morning and resolve it and then you feel so much better that's what i had to do yeah i just get an assistant i need an intern we. I need an intern. Should we get a desktop assistant? I think we should get one.

One each. Please apply on social media. Non-judgmental desktop assistance required. So privileged. If something gets a little bit hard, I immediately want to outsource the labour. Mad is capitalism for you. Right, where am I? Dennis Nilsson.

Authorities also found a documentary about john wayne gacy on andrew's computer along with homemade pornographic photos featuring andrew engaged in a sex act with an unknown man who's wearing a blindfold and also in the photo there is quite clearly a noose hanging in the background very btk-esque isn it? It's so many of them. Like, it's literally like a mishmash of Dennis Nilsson, John Wayne Gacy, BTK. Like, it is just your classic older-ish man. Yeah. And it's like he's been studying them. Or maybe not consciously, but like his fascination with them.

Maybe he like took bits from there. Like, I don't know. It's very interesting that he's so... Bruce MacArthur. He's not a young man in his like 20s or 30s. I mean, he is basically just Canadian Dennis Nilsson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the real break in the case came with the search of Andrew Kinsman's home,

where the police found a calendar where on the 26th of June, one word was written. Bruce. I really feel like some bits of this feel like a movie. It so does. And like, I haven't, this is one of those cases where like, you've just got to read through scrolls and scrolls and scrolls of news articles. So like the way we've, we're telling it now isn't necessarily the way it's laid out. Like basically I've just sort of pieced together lots of different stories. So I am amazed that it has sort of fallen so logically

like this because it doesn't always happen but it is just it is like a film it truly is. And the attention that Andrew Kinsman's disappearance got prompted the police to put together another task force. This one was called Project Prism. This task force searched the missing persons register for people who could be connected to the disappearances of not only Andrew Kinsman, but of the three men from Project Houston. The police were finally starting to catch on that something was up and they started to look for a serial killer. And we've talked about this before, like serial killer investigations are so, so, so difficult and complicated. Because no one wants to believe that that's what they're looking for. And also, even if you want to believe and you are looking for that,

it's really hard. Even if you have decided in your mind, this is a serial killer, you've got a range of different DIMMs who maybe have no connection to each other apart from their sexuality or the way that they look, but no real tangible connection. And also, the killer often has no connection to the victims. He or she chooses them because they tick a specific box, not because they're angry at them or, you know, it's revenge or whatever. Or just because they will be difficult to find. It will be difficult for them to get caught. And that's what this guy's really good at. No connection between the victims, no connection between the killer. Like all of this

just makes serial killer investigations next to impossible, really. They're so difficult and expensive. And the police, they put together a profile of their likely killer once they decided that they were looking for a serial. And the profile was this. He was probably male. He probably had a blue collar job. And because all Skandaraj, Abdulbasir and Majid all looked pretty similar, they concluded that their murders were probably sexually motivated. Inspector Hank was on the case again, and this time, Bruce MacArthur was the number one suspect of the task force. Violence was apparent in Bruce's past. In October 2001, a male escort rang 911 and told them that MacArthur

had hit him in the head with a pipe, totally unprovoked. MacArthur turned himself in after the assault and told police that he didn't know why he had done it. In 2003, Bruce MacArthur pled guilty to assault causing bodily harm and he got a conditional sentence barring him from the gay village and from any contact with escorts. But that ban from the village didn't stop Bruce MacArthur from being very active on gay dating apps like Grindr, Scruff, Silver Daddies, and my personal favourite, Man Jam. Brilliant. Man Jam. I don't even want to think about what Man Jam is.

But now I've said it and you're all thinking about it, you're welcome. It's too late. You've made us. Bruce would hook up with men via these apps often, and it was starting to look like he was making some of them disappear. In June 2016, so bang in the middle of all of the disappearances, the Toronto police received another 911 call from a man called Isaac. I don't think Isaac is his real name, but that is what he is called in the press. So Isaac told the operator, quote, someone just tried to strangle me to death.

Isaac had first met Bruce in 2011, and they had been sleeping together on and off for years. They got on well, and Bruce never gave Isaac any kind of trouble until a few weeks before he had to call 911. Bruce MacArthur had started to stalk Isaac. He would do things like show up at his house unannounced. And sometimes when Isaac was coming home from work, Bruce would be waiting for him in his driveway. And he just sort of like literally like horror movie shit. He would just turn up at the window when he wasn't expecting him. But crucially, MacArthur never told Isaac where

his house was. On the 20th of June 2016, the pair met in a car park of a Tim Hortons in Toronto. Isaac got into MacArthur's van and lay on a fur coat that MacArthur had put on the floor. Then MacArthur got on top of Isaac and started to strangle him. Isaac remembered being absolutely sure that Bruce MacArthur was going to kill him. And then he thought about his mother. He thought, quote, she's not going to bury me. No way. What a thought. Jesus.

But it wasn't over for Isaac. He summoned his last bit of strength and managed to push MacArthur off him. He grabbed the handle of the van door and pulled himself out. MacArthur tried to follow him, screaming that he was going to kill him. But Isaac managed to make it back to his car Video footage from Isaac's dash cam showed MacArthur's maroon van leaving the car park and driving into oncoming traffic as he made his escape The police took Isaac's statement on the scene and caught up with MacArthur days later

and brought him in for questioning He told the police that he had just thought that Isaac wanted it rough Detective Paul Gauthier determined MacArthur's version of events to be credible and genuine, and MacArthur was not charged with anything. But he wasn't going to get away with much else. The police had their eyes on him now. So get this, the Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy.

She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals.

They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met.

But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him.

This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus.

You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Another disappearance from the gay village also fit the killer's profile. Selim Esen was 44 and originally from Turkey and he had moved to Canada in 2013. Selim lived in the gay village as well and was a regular at the bars there. He was well known and well liked. Selim spoke to his best friend every day so when he stopped responding to the text messages a missing persons report was filed. In the past Selim had had some substance

abuse issues, but it seemed that he had been on top of them for a while. And before his disappearance, he was talking about training to help those with addiction issues. On the 18th of January 2018, police observed a young male who we'll call John walking into Bruce MacArthur's apartment building. John had met Bruce on a dating app. The police followed John into MacArthur's apartment building. John had met Bruce on a dating app. The police followed John into MacArthur's building. When they knocked on the door to the apartment, the police found John bound and restrained on a bed. Bruce MacArthur was just about to duct tape his mouth shut.

Again, it's like a movie. Imagine walking in on that. It's like a movie, but there's something about this I don't understand. In all of the articles that I've read, it says that the police knocked on the door it doesn't say that they forced entry so bruce macarthur opens the door with duct tape in his hands is that what i'm supposed to believe like i don't i this bit i is a bit foggy for me like i don't know unless they and i don't know if this will happen unless they knocked on the door john screams because he doesn't have duct tape on his mouth yet they can then knock down the door because you don't know if this will happen unless they knocked on the door. John screams because he doesn't have duct tape on his mouth yet. They can then knock down the door because you don't need a warrant if you think someone's life is imminently in danger.

They knock it down and then that's when they see Bruce MacArthur trying to tape his mouth up. Yeah, quite possibly. As I said, I just don't know. It's not something that, in what I've read, it's not something that's abundantly clear. But, so what we do know, they do get in there eventually and they find John on the bed, restrained, just about to be duct taped to his mouth shut. So on the spot after that, MacArthur was charged with the first degree murders of both Andrew Kinsman and Salim Essin, even though their bodies had not been found. 1,800 exhibits and 18,000 photos were collected from MacArthur's apartment.

A notebook owned by Salim Essin was one of them. A thorough search of Bruce MacArthur's computer confirmed the task force's suspicions that Salim and Andrew were not MacArthur's only victims. They found folders on his computer that contained posed photos of dead bodies, naked, except for a fur coat, with their eyes taped open, and some of them had unlit cigars hanging from their lips. Each folder was saved under a different name, and ominously, the last folder was named John. Fucking hell. Honestly, it's like a horror film.

Fully. And he thinks he's so slick as well. Honestly, it's like a horror film. Fully. And he thinks he's so slick as well. Yeah, yeah. Like, he thinks he's all over this. And to be fair, he has been for eight years. Maybe even longer, we don't know. This is the thing, he's so like, he's not a young guy, that's what I was trying to hint, trying to get at before. Can this, you

just suddenly decide in your how old is he? Forties? Fifties. You just decide suddenly in your 50s that you're gonna start being a fucking serial killer like he's done stuff before that he's yeah I wonder whether the first one might have been an accident I mean yeah and then a lot people like he's like oh actually this is the best exactly like Casey this is it this is what I've been looking for yeah so it's pretty clear what MacArthur's intentions were with John. John was not supposed to walk out of his apartment alive.

Some of the photographs in the folders showed victims with ropes around their necks, and some were tied to a metal bar. Some of the men in the photos had their beards shaved off. And in some photos, there is a silver hacksaw on the floor next to the bodies. We don't know how many folders there were on this computer and we don't know what the names of the folders were, but we do know that there were photographs of John that were downloaded on the same day Andrew Kinsman went missing. With MacArthur now in custody, finding the victim's remains was the next step. The police used MacArthur's client list as a starting point. As they searched these premises, one stood out from the rest, a home on Mallory

Crescent, where Bruce maintained the garden and stored all of his tools. Here the police found more than a dozen fiberglass planters. These were shipped off to the pathology lab, where they were received by the only forensic anthropologist in Canada, Cathy Graspier. I was going to do a master's in forensic anthropology. Well, because anthropology is my BA, and then I was sort of flapping around, not really knowing what to do with myself, as everyone does when they finish university. And I was like, oh, I quite like murder. Maybe I should do forensic anthropology. Anthropology. And then I looked into it and the only place in the country that does a non-distance learning, like an actual sit down master's degree in forensic anthropology is in Dundee. And I was like, oh, well, no shade to Dundee, but I'm not going to move there. So that was the end of that.

Oh, that's sad. Well, I moved to Costa Rica instead, so it was all right. I just love that Canada only has one as well because no one dies. She's just top of her field all the time. Good for her, man. I also, much to my ignorance, and maybe you know this, but I also had to look up what a planter is and I don't think I 100% still know what a planter is. But I think you should see the fucking state of my garden, man. It's so bad.

It's like, I mean, like embarrassed to bring people around my house because it is so bad. My dog won't piss on the grass. It's so bad. That's sad. So terrible. No, I try to be. I like go that's sad so terrible no I try to be I like go in and out of it I try to be green-fingered like I'll buy some plants that I'll like start a vegetable patch or something and then I'll just give up because it's too hard and they need a lot of attention I live in a shared house so like the people who live in this house like just rotate

and no one's here for more than sort of I think the longest stint is actually Lewis did seven years actually but um the no one cares um so basically people just let it get out of control before I moved in so I'm I just don't even know where to start because it is a literal jungle I was just about to say I'll put a picture on the Facebook group because I but I won't because I'm too embarrassed I feel like we're taking confession for your murdering of your garden it's's okay, Hannah. We forgive you. I was thinking about this, right, after we did the tomb things. We were talking about when we were in Cuba, we were just sort of talking about if you've done something really bad. I think we're talking about one of my mates who'd done something horrible. You were like, oh my God, I can't believe she's even talking about it. I would

keep that to myself. And I was like, oh no, I physically can't. I have to talk about it. And that's why. That's why, because it just eats me from the inside we'll have confession corner on this and you can just talk about something that is eating you up just so you can be a soft of it there you go but i think i i think a planter is just a big pot coming back to it i think okay i think it's just america like a north american phrase for a big pot. Fine, fine, good. And these planter pots that they found had plants in and all of them were frozen solid because of the harsh Canadian winter. So they were left to thaw for a few days.

And in those few days, the planters began to emit the foul stench of rotting flesh. So the planters were x-rayed, and it became clear that they were hiding something other than plants waiting to sprout. Inside these planters, Kathy Gruspier found human heads, torsos and limbs, which after painstaking fingerprint analysis and dental record searching, were found to belong to seven different people. The remains of one other person were found in a ravine behind the house where he had been hiding the remains, and Bruce MacArthur's van was the next piece of the puzzle. He had recently got rid of it and

bought a replacement in a hurry. He walked into a Chrysler dealership and told their staff that he just wanted the cheapest van. His relative then put down a $2,000 payment and he drove off with the cheapest van possible. But that didn't throw the police off for long. They soon located Bruce MacArthur's original old maroon van at an auto park scrapyard about 60 kilometers east of Toronto. And they didn't need to look too hard for it either because MacArthur's maroon van was the only one in the yard that was crawling with flies. The van was searched and was found to have dried up liquid covering the inside.

At least 18 points of the van tested positive for blood and semen. Andrew Kinsman's DNA was also found in the van. And under a floor panel, the police discovered the fur coat that Isaac had been told to lie on and that featured in so many of Bruce MacArthur's post-mortem photo shoots. Why do you think he went after Andrew Kinsman? Because he was picking pretty like low-key people and not drawing too much attention to himself. It's when he went after Andrew Kinsman because he was such like a

cornerstone of the gay community, that this really, you know, ramped things up. I mean, the police started Project Prison after Andrew Kinsman went missing. The other men were sort of part of Project Houston, completely separate. It was it, Andrew Kinsman was onto him. Did he just want more of a thrill? It's a weird step, don't you think? I think he's cocky. And I think he saw an opportunity and he took it. He'd known Andrew Kinsman for years. Possibly there was an want more of a thrill it's a weird step don't you think i think he's cocky and i think he saw an opportunity and he took it he'd known andrew kinsman for years possibly there was an element of you know if i can take him out and i don't get caught i am untouchable so i think it's the escalation also we see from the the download on his computer when he's looking at the new pictures

of john he downloaded them the day he killed andrew kman. So that's as we always see the ramping up of the time is closing. So I think it stands to reason that his confidence would be sky high. So like the folders on the computer, we don't actually know whose remains were found in the planter pots and whose were in the ravine. But we do know that over the following months, eight first degree murder charges were brought against Bruce MacArthur. Andrew Kinsman and Salim Essin we know about. MacArthur was also charged with the murders of the men that we met in Project Houston, as Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbazir Faizi and Majid Kayhan. That takes us to five victims and eight bodies. So, MacArthur was also charged with the murder of Sura Mahmood, a 50-year-old refugee from Iran who was reported missing by his wife in 2015. His DNA was found in MacArthur's van. Next was Kirushna Kumar Kangaratnam. He was 37. He was Sri Lankan and an asylum seeker who had come to Canada by sea in 2010. He was declined asylum and disappeared. His family assumed that

he had gone into hiding, but the police suspect that he was murdered asylum and disappeared. His family assumed that he had gone into hiding but the police suspect that he was murdered in 2016. Then finally MacArthur was charged with the murder of Dean Lissowick, 47, who unlike all of the other victims, was never reported missing to the police. Like Andrew Kinsman, Dean Lissowick was white.

He was homeless, so I think that's why no one reported him missing because no one really knew where he was at any one time. He had a daughter though that he loved dearly and he was really trying to get back on his feet so he could support her. We don't know when he went missing because it was never reported but police believe that he was murdered in April 2016. In February 2018 his name was added to the Toronto Homelessness Memorial. Bruce MacArthur pled guilty to all eight counts of first-degree murder. The evidence presented at his hearing was so disturbing, the prosecutor, Michael Cantlin, addressed the

crowded courtroom and said, quote, ask yourself if you need to be here. An example of the graphic nature of the evidence was a Ziploc bag full of facial hair that MacArthur had shaved off his victims and hidden in a Toronto cemetery. Our victim, John, who had been released from MacArthur's clutches the day that he was arrested, gave his version of events. We just have to keep calling him John because we don't actually know his name yet. But he did fit MacArthur's profile perfectly. He was married to a woman and had arrived from the Middle East five years before. His family did not know that he was gay,

which is why we suspect that he did not want to give his real name and why we know so little about the actual circumstances of this case. I think that the omission of information in this case is an attempt to protect the families of the victims. During this hearing, it was found that in 2014, after he had committed at least three murders, Bruce MacArthur was given a criminal record suspension which meant that his previous violent convictions no longer showed up on any subsequent

background checks he's been expunged of things like it's all just been cleaned up it's like fritzel yeah and some people make a thing of this but he was questioned by project houston in 2013 so it's unlikely that this would have made a difference in him flying under the radar for quite so long. Yeah, I mean, so when they call him in for Project Houston, he still has the assault charge on his record. They overlook it, is the point. In Canada, first-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence

without parole for 25 years. So Bruce MacArthur will be 91 by the time he is eligible. And as he pled guilty, Bruce MacArthur's case did not go to a public trial, which again is probably why we know so little about the contents of the planters. This case has shone a very stark light on the Toronto Police Department. Could misconduct have been the reason that MacArthur went undiscovered for so long? Had the police listened to reports of a serial killer in the gay village could they have saved lives did misconceptions about the lgbtq community and

men from the middle east hinder this police investigation i think to a certain extent it kind of has to be because you've got this people from the lgbt community for years saying something's wrong here and I suppose Project Houston is them sort of attempting but you know nothing gets done and I also think race comes into it too and also just the fact of them being foreign men I just think it makes people less likely to think something is up than if it was white women definitely I think it's like we touched on this when we covered the Stephen Port case and that was like to another level. Not only like here, yes, all the men like look the same. You know, they're from the same sort of, they fit a same sort of ethnic profile, more or less. They come from, they're connected to one part of town. They're all part of the LGBTQ community. But in the Stephen Port case, they're literally, their dead bodies are found in exactly the same spot. And the police are still like. Yeah, by the same dog walker and the london met are like no i think it does come down

to it must come down to or it must this prejudice that we could see must play a part in it the idea of somehow like we did the stephen port case they were all dying of like quote unquote drug overdoses the idea that well gay men you know they're just out partying, they're living a high risk lifestyle. This was bound to happen. And then also add into it the idea that in this case, these men were from ethnic minority backgrounds. And living double lives as well. You know, what other reason to disappear? Exactly. Exactly. I think that those factors must have played a part in why Bruce MacArthur went undetected for so long. I agree. But the chief of police that we heard from at the start of the show doesn't think so.

He's attempted to quiet concerns several times by saying that every report and statement is looked into with passion and that no community is marginalized. I find that so difficult to believe. How can no community be marginalized? And I think whether you want to believe that that's how it is or not, inherently bias is there and inherently prejudice is there. Like people make up, like we all are. I believe, yes, I'm sure they have good intentions, but there is no way that these factors didn't play a role in this investigation.

And the people of Toronto agree with us. There will be an independent investigation into Project Houston in the hopes that they can uncover what was missed. This report has been backed by the mayor of Toronto, John Tory. And in interviews, he said that you always assume that the system is working as it should. But in hindsight, things were not as they should have been. And this immediately made me think of the McPherson report. I think that police departments being willing to introspectively look is a very rare thing. And I applaud them for doing it. And I hope that positive things come out of it. But even still today, some people call the Macpherson report a kangaroo court. A lot of people say, you know, there was nothing institutionally racist about

the British police, they just needed to be seen to be doing something. So I wonder whether that is having a similar reaction in Canada. I don't know. I mean, if you're going to do inquiries like that, they need to be genuinely independent. They need to be fully robust and they need to be properly resourced and transparent. And it's not always the case. So I think if you do something like that and it doesn't tick all those boxes, it just leaves room for people to say that you're just doing it to be seen to be doing something and to shut people up. I can see why that would be the general feeling. But to close our case up today, Haran Vijaynathan is the Executive Director for the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention. He had been appointed as an advisor to the investigation into the Toronto Police Department and he, among many, has pointed out that it took a white person to

go missing before anyone paid attention. And we're talking here about Kinsman. Because no one knew about Dean until they found the bodies. No one even knew he was gone. Harron was also the Grand Marshal of the Toronto Pride Parade in 2018. The Toronto Police Department withdrew their application to participate. I think that is very telling indeed. A friend of Andrew Kinsman, Nicole Brothwick, told the press that Bruce MacArthur's sentencing was not enough. Quote,

There is no closure. There is no grace. This community is broken, and it's going to be broken for a long, long time. The chief of the Toronto Police Department remained staunch that nothing was mishandled during either Project Houston or Project Prism. We will keep an eye out for that independent report when it eventually surfaces and we'll let you know. I think it's probably quite hard for him to, if he's sort of pointing fingers within his own department, that's going to be hard. Like there'll be a mutiny, do you know what I mean? So I kind

of understand why he's taking that stance because you don't want the people in your city to feel unsafe. You don't want them to feel like you don't know what you're doing. So I can understand why he's taking that stance, but I wonder whether he will have to concede it when this report comes out. Let's see. Time will tell. Yeah, we'll keep an eye on it and we'll let you know. Absolutely. So yeah, that is the story of Bruce MacArthur. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.

We're so lost without... I'm so lost. So yeah, thanks for listening. As ever, you can come follow us on all the social medias at Red Handed The Pod. You can also help support the show on Patreon.com. And there are, oh my God, again, so many of you who have done this. I'm guessing it's for those new bonus episodes we are dropping every month, which is very exciting. So let's take half and half because, again, there are so many. So thank you very much to Brooke Hardy, Sophie North, Ariel Brennan, Sydney Woods, Lee Deuce, Valerie S. Johnson, Sydney, Astor, Karen, Magnus.io Shields, Eva, Kelly Kalben, Colleen Sosa, Sarah Botcher, Simone Shabatsky, Angie S.

I'm really enjoying just being a sideline ball boy on this. I love it. Oh my God, I'm so jet lagged. I just can't read today. I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it. Madeline Winkler, Stephanie Queensberry, Elisa McBride, Robin Palford, Karina, Delaney McKenna-Brown, Vic Summers, Eileen Snyder, Jessica Hunter, Shaquille Oatmeal. Hiya. Michaela Zurner, Lisa. Oh, no, Lisa. I'm sorry.

I bet Lisa's listening at home being like, yep, she's got to my name. Makrin Kolos. Makrin Kolos. Is that Greek? Yeah, it sounds Greek. sorry if you're not greek lisa elise her alice her jessica gore julia break summers thacker jennifer gearing emma chapman noah elizabeth rachel buck nancy backer jessica e guerrero ashley winder or winder judith lewis rochelle edwards amy mcintosh cara olsen sawyer michelle germany

jamie j george i nearly i thought that said jamie t then and i nearly had a fucking heart attack i love you jamie georgia comroy elizabeth morris jason baskerville warren johnston kathy pool jonathan almond travis cocker sherry kolwaki travis crocker what did i say cocker travis crocker and jarvis cocker um sherry kolwaki taylor munich do you not know who jarvis cocker is no okay never mind take that offline victoria chevlin he's the front man of um fucking um pulp the one who do um common people got it join us next week for hannah's pop quiz um and just because we pronounce your names horribly horribly horribly badly doesn't mean we don't love you we do love you it means we love you more because we're trying we're trying exactly so thank you guys so much we honestly honestly appreciate it a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge amount.

We will, with that, see you next week. See you next week. Bye. Bye. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts.

You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more.

Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.