Uncover - S3 "The Village" E2: Shame and Blame

Episode Date: April 9, 2019

The Village, Episode 2 - The community rallies as more men go missing and frustration and anger build. An anonymous source reveals how close police come to catching a serial killer, then let him go. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/uncover-season-3-the-villiage-transcripts-listen-1.5128216

The music teacher says it was consensual sex. His former students say it was rape. He had sex with me once in the classroom, in a closet. Something happened to me too. I thought he was our little predator. Why wasn't he stopped? These women seek answers and justice. I'm Julie Ireton, host of The Banned Teacher.

It's available now on CBC Listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just that somebody could be this diabolical. This is a CBC Podcast. Previously on The Village. Well, I saw the poster, and I'm like, what the fuck, man?

Why wouldn't you tell me this? He goes, well, it's everywhere. It was all over TV and the news. What we're looking at right now is a missing person investigation. That's what we have. It's foul play, suspect is still unclear. A strange case of three missing men whose only connection seems to be this neighborhood. If we see this is happening,

if everybody we know sees that this is happening, how can you not see this? And I go, serial killer? And he's like, probably. I'm Justin Ling, and this is Uncover the Village. It's 2016. Skanda and Basir have been missing for six years. For Hamid, it's been four. Some of the missing persons posters are still up inside shops on Church Street. They're yellow and faded.

The men might come up in conversation over coffee, like, hey, whatever happened to those guys who went missing? But mostly, people have moved on. I'm still trying to piece together the story, and there is so little to go on. Toronto Police provide me with a two-page summary of the case. Let me read you a little bit of it. Quote, The Toronto Police Service have not found any evidence to say that any of the missing men mentioned above knew each other. The only information between all three that is similar is that they all like to attend similar bars in the Church and Wellesley area, especially the Black Eagle. The same dark bar Joel Walker says Skanda often went to with Bruce. It's very nice people in there and everything like that, but it is a very good place to

hide and be anonymous. The letter outlines all the standard things police do in missing persons cases. They flag their debit and credit cards. They alert border agencies. The letter goes on to read that, quote, they have not returned any evidence as to their whereabouts or even a path of where they may have headed. That last line, it sticks with me.

Where they may have headed? It implies they simply took off. And that just seems so incredibly unlikely to me. Especially for Abdel Basir Faizi, known as Basir, the Afghan immigrant with a wife and children. Basir's car was found on Moore Avenue, in an upscale residential neighborhood ten minutes north of the village. It had been there for days. It was Bassier's wife that reported him missing. She told police that he didn't have any enemies, he wasn't suicidal, and his passport was still at home. I went to where they found Vassar's car. I wanted to see if I could figure out what he was doing the night he disappeared.

I went back recently to retrace my steps. I sort of drive up and down the block a couple times and try to scope out where someone would have parked and where a car could kind of get left for a couple days without anyone calling it in or getting towed. And basically this is the spot kind of right up here where there's overnight parking, you know, it's a pretty quiet stretch. And so I kind of pull in right here and get out. Basser lived in Brampton, about a 45-minute drive west of here. So I'm standing here thinking, why would you drive up here?

Why would you drive 10 minutes north of the village, away from your home, where you didn't seem to have any connections whatsoever? After sundown, this area is pretty quiet. It's mostly just homes and a big graveyard. So I think, why drive up here at night? That's when I spot a wooded ravine with a little opening from the street. This might well be a cruising spot. You know, a lot of parks in a city, little nature walks, end up being pretty good spots for guys who are married or in the closet to meet up.

So I looked for a specific website where I know a lot of these listings are. And sure enough, the first hit in the area is the Beltline, where I'm standing. According to police records, the night Bess here went missing went like this. It was December 29th, 2010. The factory where he worked closed early. A few hours later, around 7pm, he called his wife to say that he would be grabbing drinks with co-workers. In fact, he had driven to the village, to the Black Eagle. From there, he went to Steamworks, a men-only sauna. After that,

he bought himself a burger across the street. Then, somehow, his car winds up on Moore Avenue. It wasn't found until a week after he vanished. But police did not seem to piece together that Bassor may have driven to Moore Avenue for sex. And it dawns on me that talking to the police, I don't think they ever searched in here. They did a canvas of the neighborhood. They talked to people who lived around here. No one saw anything.

No one recognized the guy. But I don't think they ever came down here. Maybe any more than just a quick walkthrough. through. I get in my car and I drive around. I'm looking for nothing in particular, but I end up on a leafy street just a few minutes away. It's a quiet cul-de-sac. I park in front of a modern looking home shaded by some huge trees. I'm kind of standing right here. It's

sort of a raised area so it's a great vantage point overlooking the entire Beltline Trail and the whole neighborhood. I had no idea at the time but I had parked my car right in front of Karen Fraser's home on Mallory Crescent. I had walked right past her front yard, over to a spot that was just a few feet away from where police would later dig up her lawn. That warm summer day, Bruce MacArthur may well have been in her backyard, tending to her flowers. Over the years I worked on this story, I felt the frustration police must have felt. There were just so few leads. But in June of 2017, I finally published my story on the missing men.

It was the only article about their disappearances in years. The only explanation that made any sense to me was that Toronto's gay village had a serial killer. And that raised the question, does it still? We were shocked last week to realize that our neighbor and our close friend, Andrew Kinsman, was missing. It's July of 2017. Toronto's annual Pride Festival had just wrapped up. I was there, and so was Andrew Kinsman. Now, he's missing. Along with a lot of people in the community, all of Andrew's communities, we're really upset and

we're really concerned. He's a really wonderful person. He's funny, he's warm, he's thoughtful, he's caring, and he's a man of great integrity. These are Andrew Kinsman's friends. They turn to the public for help. My husband and I saw him Sunday night, the evening of Pride, the last day of Pride. Andrew lived in a huge stately home in Cabbage Town, a quiet neighbourhood just adjacent to the village.

The day he disappeared, he chatted with one of his housemates for a few minutes, recapping what they had done over Pride weekend. He told his neighbour he was heading out to meet a friend for coffee. He never returned. He was happy, He was upbeat. He talked about his job. We joked around a bit. Maybe it lasted 15 minutes or so. And we separated. That was the last time I saw him.

Andrew's friends and neighbors knew something was amiss. He had a cat at home that he loved. He had medication he needed to take every day. His friends went to police and stressed that something was wrong. I've never known Andrew to just pick up and disappear like this. It's very out of character. His friends knew that the more attention they brought to Andrew's case, the more publicity it would generate, the more people would come forward with tips, and the harder it would be for police to ignore. So they held a rally in a local park. Thank you so much for coming out today to support Finding Andrew. We really, really appreciate it. I know Andrew would appreciate it. Come home safe, please, Andrew. We miss you and we love you. As you can see by all the people here, and we want you back.

That's Dwight Ferguson, a longtime friend of Andrew. I met him on Growler, a dating app. And that was when we officially first started talking. And that was about six or seven years ago. I meet Dwight at a public library in Cabbagetown. We get a small study room in the very back. It looks kind of like a police interrogation room, but the interview isn't quite that tense.

What did you do on your first hangout? We went for coffee and then went back to his place for coffee and just talked. It was kind of like a brother. We'd be baking or canning or just visiting and talking, come over for dinner, that kind of thing. Canning what? Tomatoes, jam, applesauce, that kind of stuff. Him and I fought over a Salvador Dali cookbook that he found at the Goodwill. They're very expensive. They're hard to find. I kept trying to steal it from him

every time I went to his house. He had a dark sense of humor. He was funny, but he was sweet and kind at the same time. He got me volunteering at the PWA essentials market. We used to talk afterwards and the days in between when we were there. PWA is the People with AIDS Foundation. That's where Andrew worked. And then it wasn't until I got a call on the Wednesday from PWA that he was missing, that I found out.

Do you remember what your reaction was? Fear. from PWA that he was missing that I found out. Do you remember what your reaction was? Fear, worry, concern for him. It's not like him to just disappear, so it was, it was very scary. The day I found out, I went over to Andrew's house, and I actually started searching on my way over there, because I live not that far away. So as I was walking through, I started checking the alleys and the streets

and yards and stuff on my way over to his house. Andrew's network was a force. A small committee of concerned friends, neighbors, and family got together. They began printing posters, organizing searches, and they made sure that everyone in the city recognized his face. Yeah, and we just started postering and searching and getting search parties going, and PWA got involved and started helping us.

How many posters do you figure went up? At least 8,000. We put over 1,000 up just at Halloween. A picture of Andrew takes up most of the poster. He's facing the camera. He's tall, white. He's wearing a dark Bob and Doug McKenzie t-shirt. Andrew's mouth is covered by a neatly kept but

bushy beard. Even still, you can tell he's grinning. His eyes are squinting a bit. He has a look on his face like he just caught you doing something embarrassing. Underneath his picture, in big black letters, is the word missing. 49 years of age, 6'4", medium build, wears glasses, short brown hair. The posters are everywhere. You can't walk a block without seeing Andrew Kinsman's face. In those early days, did you have an idea of what might have happened? No. We didn't know.

Right. I'm sure we all had our thoughts, but after a while it got to the point, yeah, okay, something's happened bad, that we're not going to find out anything good after a while, but in the beginning there's always hope until you get the word that there isn't anymore. It seemed so likely that Andrew's disappearance was linked to Skanda, Hamid, and Basir. Yes,

Andrew was white, and the other three were brown-skinned, but there were too many similarities to ignore. They were all a similar age, bearded. They all spent time in the village. Andrew's friends feared from the very start that his disappearance would end up just like the cases from years before, unsolved and largely forgotten. They were determined not to let that happen. When the police finally listened to us and realized that, yes, he was missing

and we better take this seriously, then they were a great help working with us. Because you kind of had to underscore to them that this was very good character for him. Yeah, it took some coaxing to get them to start with us. Because you kind of had to underscore to them that this was very good character for him. Yeah, it took some coaxing to get them to start believing us, but once they did, they were right there all the time. Initially,

it appeared Andrew was the first man to go missing from the village in five years. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe all the cases weren't connected after all. Then, police delivered some more troubling news. Months earlier, there had been another disappearance. It confirmed something that so many in the community had always feared.

That men had never stopped going missing. Salim was, from my experience, like the softest person you could ever meet. Salim Essen had gone missing two months prior yet nobody rang the alarm the city wasn't blanketed in posters for him there were no press conferences but Salim's friends had been concerned the whole time there was a real thoughtfulness

a tenderness about him he had traveled so far he wasn't from here, he came here There was a real thoughtfulness, a tenderness about him. He had traveled so far. He wasn't from here. He came here. He was out there defining goals for himself, accessing support so he could achieve those things. Salim had come to Canada from Turkey. He had struggled with substance abuse, but he got sober.

He had even graduated from a peer counseling class. He wanted to help others get better. But now, he was missing. Another immigrant, another openly gay man, another brown face. And police hadn't connected the dots. It was déjà vu. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news.

So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Police start yet another task force. They call it Project Prism. Soon, the old missing persons posters, with the faces of Skanda, Hamid and Basir, are back up. Everybody knows that something is deeply wrong. It's been seven years since Scanda went missing, and there are now five unsolved cases of missing men. Andrew's friends are desperate for answers. It's been more than a month since Andrew was last seen,

and there's a growing sense of fear mixed with determination to find out what happened. There's a town hall at the 519 Community Centre, a brick building right on Church Street that is a focal point for the village. I'm standing in the back, off to the side, of a big conference room on the second floor of the building. Missing persons posters are taped up on the walls around the room. 200 people show up.

They pull up seats at big round tables. on the walls around the room. 200 people show up. They pull up seats at big round tables. When there are no chairs left, people stand in the back. The room is buzzing with a nervous energy. Some in the room are friends of the missing men. Others are honestly just afraid. Everybody is frustrated. The event is off the record, so people can speak freely about their fears and concerns. But someone does shoot a video of a homicide detective who gets up to address the crowd.

Sadly, I do not have a lot of information for you at this time. I can say right now, I have no evidence of criminality. I also have no evidence at this time to link through evidence the cases of the disappearance of Mr. Kinsman and also the disappearance of Mr. Essig. That answer does not satisfy the community. The buzz goes around the room. How could these not be connected? I can see the cases that have disappearances that have not been solved do not get closed.

But they do wait for additional information to come in. So for us, even though we don't have a linkage now, we are certainly looking at previous cases. But if there's questions tonight that are going to be, what have you uncovered or what techniques are you using or where are you looking? I'm so sorry because I know it's not satisfying, but I'm not able to give you that information. You know, I remember the town hall at 519 next door. We were both there. Yeah, that's right. Nikki Ward is a transgender advocate and a community activist.

She was also at that town hall. We meet up, coffee in hand, at the park next to the 519 to chat. And I actually made a point of grabbing a few of the officers there, some of whom I knew, some of whom I didn't, and just literally pulling them out. They were sort of cloistered, if you remember, they were cloistered on one table. They were in the back corner.

Yeah, exactly. Avoid detection. Like the unpopular relatives at a wedding, you know, it's one table. And I physically got them up and said, go out and mingle, forced them to make some introductions. I think that helped as well. And everybody in the room was saying, is there a serial killer? And in fact, many of the people I talked to afterwards were saying, is there a serial killer? And was he in the room with us? Whenever the question was asked of the audience, have you ever been assaulted or do you ever feel unsafe? And I think it was show of hands if you've ever felt unsafe or if you've ever been assaulted.

There was actually a laugh like the one I just said that went around the room. Everybody raised their hands, right? Everybody in the room has experienced a physical and or sexual assault. And not just some time in the past, but in the recent past. That was a clear area where there was a lack of understanding of the nature of the community. So, yeah, that was a telling moment. Did you show up hands-in? Did you know Andrew? Did you know Salim?

Did you know Skanda? Did you know Basar? Right. It was varying, but someone in the room knew just about every person. Yeah, yeah, and many of us knew more than one. The anger in that room was palpable. But then summer turns to fall, turns to winter, the media moves on, some posters stay up, and you still see Andrew's face around the city,

but the feeling sets into the community that these cases would go unsolved, just like the others. Yeah, it was hard. It was really hard not knowing. It was exhausting. That's all you can think about. exhausting. That's all you can think about. Right.

From the time you get up to the time you go to bed, and even an hour or so after that, you're still going through in your head, what else could I do? Where else can I look? What else? At the very end of 2017, police give one last update on their investigation. There is no evidence at this point in time which in any way establishes the disappearances of Salim Essin and Andrew Kinsman are linked to the disappearance of the males from the Project Houston investigation. There is no conclusive evidence that establishes any of these males were the victim of foul play, although this cannot be ruled out. There is no evidence that the serial killer is responsible for the disappearance of any of the missing males. That conclusion was very, very wrong.

I want to take you live now to Toronto Police Headquarters where authorities are making an announcement about an arrest in connection to a missing persons case. It's just one month later, January 18th, 2018. I'm sitting at home. My partner calls me in from the other room. He turns his computer to show me a tweet. It says police are about to announce an update

on the disappearance of Andrew Kinsman. There's been an arrest. I turn on the TV just as Detective Sergeant Hank Nsinga walks to the podium at police headquarters. This morning at approximately 10.25am, police arrested police arrested 66 year old Bruce MacArthur of the City of Toronto. He is self-employed as a landscaper. He has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in relation to Mr. Kinsman and Mr. Essen and we believe he is responsible for the deaths of other men who have yet to be identified. In other words, we believe there are other victims. Just hours before this press conference, police had knocked on Karen Fraser's front door. And one of them said, you've got five minutes to get out. There's been a serious crime.

Bruce MacArthur has been arrested. And I was just stunned. Despite telling the public over and over again that there's no conclusive evidence of foul play, police had been investigating MacArthur for months. They had put him under

surveillance and watched him at Karen's property. They had seized a van he tried to scrap, and inside, they found Andrew and Salim's DNA. Then, they secretly entered MacArthur's apartment and searched his devices. Police found photos of the missing men. Some were taken after their murder. missing men. Some were taken after their murder. They had been strangled. That is when police made the arrest. Now they have enough evidence to lay charges, but there's one thing they haven't found. We have not yet found the bodies. We're actively looking for them. We're conducting these search

warrants in efforts to locate the bodies, but at this point in time, no, we actively looking for them. We're conducting these search warrants in efforts to locate the bodies, but at this point in time, no, we have not located them. Officers fanned out across the city and the province, searching more than 100 properties where MacArthur worked, including a home near Moore Avenue, where Bassier's abandoned car was found. Police would learn that MacArthur had been house-sitting there when Bassier went missing. But, ultimately, police make the most gruesome discovery at the place where MacArthur had been a fixture for a decade. To date, the dismembered remains of at least three individuals

have been recovered from the backyard of the residents at Mallory Crescent. The same spot where I had stood just a few months earlier as I tried to figure out what had happened to these missing men. Karen Fraser's leafy property on Mallory Crescent. These remains have not yet been identified. These remains have not yet been identified. Police discovered the victims' bodies in those huge stone planters that sat in Karen's backyard. They found Hamid's remains in the ravine behind her house. The community was expecting the worst, but nobody imagined it would be this bad. They weren't just killed, they were dismembered.

Disposed of in ways, even a year later, I just hate talking about. For a minute, this feels like an ending. I know more charges are coming, and even if we don't have all the answers yet, at least it would put an end to the disappearances. Police are finally ready to say the words that for years they have avoided. It's a serial killer. Alleged serial killer. It's a serial killer, alleged serial killer,

and he's taken some steps to cover his tracks, and we have to uncover these victims and identify these victims and hopefully get some good news or some closing news to the families of these victims. Mallory Crescent becomes an active crime scene. Yellow police tape surrounds the entire property. Police bring in vans, trucks, and even excavation equipment. Outside the tape are satellite TV trucks. Karen and her husband Ron can't even stay in their own home. Ron gets swarmed by reporters when he tries to move their stuff out.

This must be quite an ordeal for you. Sorry, not a good time. It would take months, but one by one, police do identify the missing men, including Skanda. Joel Walker, his friend, who bonded with him over games at pool,

remembers hearing the news. his friend, who bonded with him over games of pool, remembers hearing the news. It was the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. I hated it. But it was like, here's a crappy situation. Oh, by the way, it's 17 billion times as worse. And I felt sick to my stomach. Joel heard the news from his ex-boyfriend. Shut up. Like, because I just, right away, all of a sudden,

these memories really strongly came back of him trying to befriend me and trying to console me. This wasn't some stranger. It was Bruce MacArthur. He's a good actor, I'll tell you that, because he asked me to my face, so have you heard anything about Skanda? Any news? Any news? to my face. So have you heard anything about Skanda? Any news?

Any news? And the sick thing is that I started to feel like I should bond with him over it because I knew that was the last person he was with. So I assumed in my head that he had been going through the same angst that I was going through over it. And when I think about it now, Bruce was very focused on asking me,

did the cops say they heard anything? Are there any leads? And he was trying to find out if anyone knew what he had done. And I didn't even realize it at the time. There's a guilt Joel carries around with him. He knows it's irrational, but it's there.

And I wish I would have known. I would have snapped his neck right there. I have no problem saying that out loud. I would have, at a heartbeat, taken that man's life if I'd known he had done that to my friend. But that wouldn't have helped anything. It would have made me just like him.

So I'm glad I didn't. He wrecked my forever memories with that person that I can't get back. So I wish nothing but the worst for that person. Good morning. I will be providing you with an update on the Bruce MacArthur investigation. I will be providing you with an update on the Bruce MacArthur investigation. Many expected that MacArthur's arrest would be a conclusion. But there would be another announcement. This time, I'm in the room at police headquarters.

And what comes next feels like a punch to the gut. Mr. MacArthur has now been charged with three additional counts of first-degree murder. There are even more victims. Saroosh Marmoody was 50 years old when he was reported missing in Scarborough by his family in 2015. Dean Lissawick was never reported as missing, but we believe that he was murdered between May of 2016 and July of 2017. I can now report that the remains have been identified as Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam. He was not on file as missing. In total, the bodies of eight men were unearthed over seven months,

including three names I hadn't heard before. Dean Listowick was a fixture on Church Street. He panhandled for money, usually outside the 519 Community Centre. Everyone remembers him as an incredibly nice guy who had fallen on hard times. Soroush Mahmoodi came to Canada as a refugee from Iran. He was married to a woman and was a loving stepfather. And there was Krishna Kumar Kanagaratnam, an asylum seeker who had arrived from Sri Lanka in 2010. He went missing after his refugee claim was denied. His family thought he'd gone underground to avoid deportation.

And then, of course, there was Skanda, the Sri Lankan refugee with a sense of humor and a penchant for jewelry. Basir, the Afghan refugee and father of two who never had a chance to fully address his own sexuality. Hamid, the refugee from Afghanistan who would break into Bollywood songs at a moment's notice. Salim, who had struggled to get back on his feet and wanted to work as an addictions counselor. And Andrew, the activist who loved baking and had a dark sense of humor. Andrew, the activist who loved baking and had a dark sense of humor.

A big part of what MacArthur identified was people who he thought wouldn't be missed. And that's the really, really dark part of all of this. Oh, well, there's so much darkness, but... That's trans activist Nicky Ward. He picked people he thought he could get away with killing who wouldn't be missed, whether because they were recent immigrants, people of color, maybe closeted, for whatever reason. That's the common thread that ties all of these people together, I think.

And to find that he was somebody within a wolf in sheep's clothing was regrettably not surprising. I do take exception to the phrase, he was one of our own, because he most definitely was not one of my own or anyone else's own. It's very clear that he was able to navigate in a community. He had friends, family, loved ones. He would be in bars.

That's Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders. As his investigators were still digging up Karen's backyard, he sat down with my colleagues at the Globe and Mail newspaper. We wanted to know how and why his police service had failed to catch a serial killer. And all the while, nobody knew. If anyone would know before us, it's people that knew him very, very well. And so that did not come out. And I'm not, this is not, I'm not going to point fingers because we're past that. The loss of life is catastrophic here. We knew that people were missing and we knew that we didn't have the right answers. But nobody was coming to us with anything.

Nobody was coming to us with anything? That didn't go over well with the community, including Nicky Ward. General Police Chief Mark Saunders sits down with the Globe and Mail just a couple months after MacArthur's arrest and said if only the community had done more, if only the community had said more, if only they had spoken up, maybe we'd have caught them sooner. What was your reaction to that? Well, it was a certain amount of dark humor, and there's little doubt in my mind that this is part of the shame and blame philosophy. That's the first thing to do, the first sort of knee-jerk response, frankly, to any pushback from the community. I was really, even by the poor communication standards we've come to expect, I was still kind of stunned at the barefacedness of it.

It was quite brassy, to use an old-fashioned word. Brassy is a pretty good word for it. And that attitude is exactly why Mita Hans, the woman who knew Skanda, is angry at police too. We have already been doing your job for you. How much more do you expect from us? Do you expect this from other communities to do your work for you? And how dare you, how dare you further victimize the people that are already not getting the good end of this deal.

There's so much to be angry at. I don't even have words for it right now. It's so angry. Leave us! Try to blame us! But we know better! We know how! Saunders out! Justice now! Plenty of people agree. There are loud calls demanding Chief Saunders' resignation,

including coming from these protesters who gather outside of his office. And here's the thing about Saunders' comments. He's just wrong. Friends were coming to police with information. Remember Kyle, that friend of Hamid, the one who lives in Nova Scotia? I said that the last time I talked with him, and I gave a physical description, and I tried to look him up on the internet. He told police about Bruce MacArthur in 2013.

He was in Hamid's apartment with MacArthur just months before he went missing. And that his name was Bruce, and I didn't know his surname. So the first time you spoke with him, or one of the first interviews you did, they had said, you know, oh yeah, we know that there's a guy named Bruce. But I always wondered, why didn't that tip change the entire course of the investigation? Turns out, it could have. A few days after Sondra's comments, I get a phone call. Hello? Hi, do you mind if I answer your call?

This is an officer from inside the Toronto Police Service. They're cautious, and honestly, I understand why. They could lose their job for making this phone call. That's why I only communicated with them over a prepaid cell phone, which I bought with cash. And that's why we've disguised their voice. They have inside information. Information that they're not supposed to be passing on to journalists. They've read Chief Sandra's interview. And they're angry. They also have a problem with the suggestion

that the community didn't come forward to help. Yeah, so why don't we just dive right in? I mean, we got some of what you're frustrated about from our friend. The cop tells me that the investigation wasn't started to find three missing men. It was started because of a tip that Skanda had been murdered. Right. And obviously that tip didn't pan out. No, it did not. But that was Project Houston. They left two inexperienced officers on Project Houston.

After the original project was disbanded, most of the investigators were taken off the project. During the investigation, it was discovered that there was two more missing gay men that had the same description as Skanda, same characteristics. Police discovered that Skanda and Bassier both knew MacArthur. They found his social media, his handle or whatever he was using.

Was it Silver Daddy or something like that? Oh, his dating profile. Yeah, the dating profile. So they had him on both. Then after they had put out the flyers in the community, they got information that Bruce was associated to Kayan as well. So they had MacArthur on all three of them. Kayan is Hamid. So police had linked MacArthur to all three missing men. I see.

They interviewed him. Toronto police interviewed Bruce MacArthur in 2013. But he wasn't a murder suspect. He was a witness in a missing persons case. So if I can ask you, how are you sure that they interviewed him? I've received that information. Okay. It's a good source. I would later find out that MacArthur admitted in that interview he'd known Skanda and Hamid

for years. He told police he'd hired Hamid for landscaping, and that he knew Skanda from the Black Eagle. But he denied knowing anything about their disappearances. So, police let him go. He went on to kill five more men. I remember sitting in my dark living room after I hung up the phone and thinking, holy shit. Police now have their killer, but the investigation isn't over. But the investigation isn't over. We are tracing his whereabouts as far back as we can go, essentially,

and seeing if we can link any outstanding occurrences to his movements and then see where we go from there. Police say there may be more victims. The trail of bodies may go back decades. Our investigative team are currently reviewing 15 homicide cold cases from 1975 to 1997. 15 more homicides. 15 more men with families and friends who have been waiting for answers for decades. Unsolved and largely forgotten. Gay rights now! Gay rights now! Gay rights now! Gay rights now! Gay rights now!

Coming up on The Village. Most homosexual murders you could identify from the brutality the overtill. You always got the sense that you were being targeted. I mean, one of the fears of coming out was that somebody was just going to wallop you when they found out. On that Tuesday afternoon, after I walked out of the police station, After I walked out of the police station, neither I nor any member of my family ever heard from the police again. Not once. The Village is written and produced by me, Justin Ling, Jennifer Fowler, and Aaron Burns.

Cecil Fernandez is our audio producer. Sarah Clayton is our digital producer. Additional production on this episode by David McDougall. Thank you to Extra, a Canadian LGBTQ news source, for their audio. Tanya Springer is the senior producer of CBC Podcasts, and our executive producer is Arif Noorani. To watch our additional video profile on community leader and victims advocate Haran Vijayanathan, join our Facebook group Uncover or follow us on Twitter at Uncover CBC. Uncover the Village is a CBC podcast.

Check out the first season of Uncover, Escaping NXIVM, which takes you inside the bizarre self-help group that attracted actors, politicians, the super wealthy, and that some say is a cult. Binge on the entire season of Uncover, Escaping NXIVM wherever you get your podcasts. wherever you get your podcasts.