00:00:04
Toronto, Canada. It's considered one of
00:00:06
the safest big cities in the world. The
00:00:09
church Wells leave a village. It was a
00:00:11
fun-loving jovial place for folks to
00:00:14
come in and celebrate. At Christmas,
00:00:16
people from all over filled the streets
00:00:19
of Toronto to
00:00:22
celebrate. But in 2010, an unknown
00:00:27
terror begins to prey on the city's gay
00:00:30
community. A series of disappearances
00:00:32
started happening at the center, the gay
00:00:35
village. I'm like, what the hell is
00:00:37
going on? There has to be a serial
00:00:39
killer. What follows is one of the most
00:00:43
shocking investigations in Toronto
00:00:46
history. We had no idea what was going
00:00:48
on. He just turned around and grabbed me
00:00:52
by the throat. My greatest fear was
00:00:55
being found dead. Someone was saying
00:00:59
that they had killed and consumed
00:01:01
brownskinned man in Toronto's gay
00:01:04
village.
00:01:06
[Music]
00:01:17
[Music]
00:01:37
Hello, I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for
00:01:39
being with us here at the Christmas
00:01:41
Killings. Christmas is the most
00:01:44
wonderful time of the year, especially
00:01:47
in Canada's largest city of Toronto.
00:01:51
It's Christmas
00:01:54
time in the city.
00:01:57
The climate usually delivers on the
00:02:00
promise of a blanket of snow for
00:02:02
Christmas. The Sea Tower lights up in
00:02:06
red and green. Even Santa himself
00:02:09
appears in shopping malls to greet
00:02:11
people from all around the world.
00:02:15
[Music]
00:02:17
It's a time of love, of generosity, of
00:02:21
giving, and people in Toronto truly come
00:02:24
out to help the less fortunate. Karen
00:02:28
Frasier is one of them. She's a
00:02:30
philanthropist who embodies the meaning
00:02:33
of Christmas by running charities and
00:02:35
helping others less fortunate than
00:02:40
herself. For Christmas, we help homeless
00:02:43
people and so we often spend Christmas
00:02:46
in a
00:02:47
shelter or helping kids in a shelter. We
00:02:50
have put
00:02:51
230,000 blankets and sleeping bags
00:02:54
mainly on the Toronto streets. So that
00:02:58
made Christmas much much better for us.
00:03:02
2005 Karen Frasier spreads Christmas
00:03:05
cheer when she produces a Christmas
00:03:08
podcast that features a department store
00:03:12
Santa.
00:03:13
How did you end up being Santa this
00:03:16
year? Well, it was through a friend that
00:03:19
I used to work with and said, "Uh, what
00:03:21
are you doing uh the month of November,
00:03:23
December?" I said, "Well, I'm free." eat
00:03:25
and he said, "Well, how would you like
00:03:26
to be Santa?" And I thought, "Well, that
00:03:28
sounds interesting." What do they ask
00:03:31
you at this Santa interview? Well, they
00:03:33
prepare you for how you would answer
00:03:35
questions that might be difficult. Like
00:03:38
kids would ask like they would want
00:03:40
their parents back together again for
00:03:41
Christmas. Oh, and what does Santa say
00:03:44
on that matter? Uh, well, I'm in the toy
00:03:46
business. And Oh, in that toy business.
00:03:50
Move along.
00:03:53
Karen Frasier's guest on that podcast is
00:03:56
a man named Bruce MacArthur. Bruce was a
00:03:59
man who had made a lot of big life
00:04:02
decisions, difficult ones. He moved from
00:04:06
the country to the city. He never said
00:04:08
to me that he was gay. It just
00:04:12
was. Someone had outed him to his wife
00:04:16
and that's what ended his marriage. So
00:04:18
that must have been very uncomfortable.
00:04:20
But, you know, the two of them worked it
00:04:22
out in quite a friendly
00:04:26
way. No one realizes that being a gay
00:04:30
man in Toronto would become so
00:04:33
dangerous, starting in late 2010. The
00:04:36
city welcomes people of diverse sexual
00:04:39
orientations. Haran Vijunathan is one of
00:04:43
them. I was living in Missaga, which was
00:04:46
just outside of Toronto, but I would
00:04:48
come down to visit friends and and go
00:04:50
for coffee or dinner or go out in the
00:04:53
evenings, just to come down and just to
00:04:56
be with people who were like me, who
00:04:58
looked like me in terms of my race, but
00:05:01
also people who shared my sexual
00:05:03
orientation. And it was just nice to
00:05:05
celebrate and get together.
00:05:08
There was a sense of security there
00:05:10
because people knew you.
00:05:14
But the feeling of community and
00:05:16
acceptance in Toronto's gay village
00:05:19
around 2010 started to shift a little
00:05:22
bit. That was when a series of
00:05:25
disappearances started happening. All of
00:05:27
them happening at the center, the gay
00:05:29
village.
00:05:32
4 days after Christmas, December 29,
00:05:36
2010, Abdul Bazir Fisy doesn't come home
00:05:40
from work, Fis, a 42-year-old Iranian
00:05:44
Canadian husband, a beloved father of
00:05:47
two children. Abdul Bazir Fisy worked at
00:05:50
a printing factory. He had told his wife
00:05:53
that he was going out to meet friends.
00:05:56
What his wife doesn't know is her
00:05:59
husband has hookups with men. So after
00:06:02
work, he heads to the gay village.
00:06:07
As you can imagine, his wife wouldn't
00:06:09
have even known where to start looking
00:06:11
for him, but she did file a missing
00:06:14
person's report when he didn't come
00:06:19
home. Not long after Fisy went missing,
00:06:23
police found his car on January 4th,
00:06:26
just a few days after New Year's. Fisy's
00:06:29
car is parked about a 7-minute drive
00:06:32
north of Church and Welsley Streets, the
00:06:35
heart of the gay village. And it was
00:06:38
locked. There was no sign of anything
00:06:40
that had gone
00:06:44
arry. For police, Fisy's disappearance
00:06:48
was a complete
00:06:49
mystery. They didn't really know where
00:06:52
to begin. At first, police also do not
00:06:56
connect Fisy's disappearance to another
00:06:59
one in the same area.
00:07:02
So, four months before Fisy's
00:07:04
disappearance, another man had gone
00:07:06
missing.
00:07:08
Scandinavatnam was really well known in
00:07:11
the gay village. He was incredibly
00:07:13
outgoing. He was
00:07:15
smart and the last place that he was
00:07:18
seen was leaving zippers which is one of
00:07:21
the most famous bars in the gay village
00:07:24
was his friends who reported him
00:07:27
missing. Navaratnam originally from Sri
00:07:30
Lanka. He's working as a teaching
00:07:32
assistant at University Toronto. He has
00:07:35
no family in Canada, but he has lots of
00:07:38
friends, and they make sure missing
00:07:40
person posters are visible throughout
00:07:43
the gay village. I remember walking to
00:07:46
the grocery store that existed on Church
00:07:49
Street and then checking out the posters
00:07:51
like, "Oh, there's a brown person.
00:07:52
What's what's happening there?"
00:07:56
It was more the picture that I really
00:07:58
remember and and his ethnicity came out
00:08:00
in the picture and then I read his name
00:08:02
and I'm like, "Oh, a Tamil man. That's
00:08:05
interesting." And I remember having a
00:08:06
brief conversation about the about the
00:08:08
missing person's poster and again I
00:08:10
wasn't living in the village at the
00:08:11
time. However, I trusted the system when
00:08:15
because it was an official poster, my
00:08:17
hope was something was being done about
00:08:18
it.
00:08:20
So after Fisy goes missing that makes
00:08:23
two people missing in the village
00:08:26
Scandinavatam and Abdul Bazier Fisy. And
00:08:29
for police it's challenging because
00:08:32
these posters are going up in the
00:08:34
village. Two men have gone missing and
00:08:36
they don't have any leads.
00:08:47
Toronto police find no evidence of foul
00:08:50
play. Months go by, but no meaningful
00:08:54
tips are generated by the posters of the
00:08:56
missing
00:09:01
men. Two years later, another man goes
00:09:06
missing. Vegeta Cahan lived in the
00:09:09
village. He was also well known there.
00:09:14
He was from Afghanistan
00:09:16
originally and his son ended up
00:09:19
reporting him missing because he stopped
00:09:22
getting phone calls from his
00:09:25
dad. And that's when I moved into the
00:09:28
village in 2012 and my roommate and I
00:09:31
shared a apartment on Matland Street and
00:09:33
we'd be going down walking the dog. You
00:09:36
see the posters again, you're like, why?
00:09:38
what the hell is going
00:09:40
on? And and that fear started happening
00:09:43
in 2012. Is the village safe anymore for
00:09:46
people of
00:09:48
color? And I started working at the
00:09:50
Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention
00:09:51
at the time as the interim executive
00:09:54
director. We started getting questions
00:09:56
because those three individuals were,
00:09:58
you know, brown men. In particular, the
00:10:00
brown men community were quite
00:10:02
concerned. And of course, you know, we
00:10:04
tried to inquire. we were following up
00:10:06
with the police and we didn't get much
00:10:09
information. So, we would just say, you
00:10:11
know what, if you're going out and
00:10:13
you're meeting somebody for the first
00:10:14
time and it's anonymous, then just make
00:10:17
sure somebody knows. Let your roommate
00:10:19
or a friend know that you're going out
00:10:20
to meet somebody. People need to know
00:10:22
where you're
00:10:24
going. So, at this point, these
00:10:27
disappearances are being investigated
00:10:29
separately. They are picking up on the
00:10:32
fact that the men had each frequented
00:10:36
places in the village, but they're not
00:10:39
necessarily putting together these
00:10:44
disappearances. That all changes a few
00:10:47
weeks later. So, in November 2012,
00:10:49
Toronto police got a truly remarkable
00:10:52
tip coming from the Swiss
00:10:56
police. And what they said was that they
00:10:59
had an informant who was spending some
00:11:02
time on um some cannibalism fetish
00:11:08
sites and had gotten a tip there that
00:11:13
someone was saying that they had killed
00:11:17
and
00:11:18
consumed a brownskinned
00:11:21
man in Toronto's gay village.
00:11:31
Toronto, Canada, 2011. Christmas right
00:11:35
around the
00:11:36
corner. People who live in Toronto love
00:11:39
the holidays. Karen Frasier doing
00:11:42
outreach at a homeless shelter downtown.
00:11:44
Her friend Bruce MacArthur starting his
00:11:47
annual gig as
00:11:49
Santa starring in a local mall.
00:11:53
I have some of the same kids will come
00:11:55
back every weekend to see me. That's
00:11:57
fabulous. You're a big hit. Yeah, I
00:12:00
never expected to enjoy it as much as I
00:12:03
have. It has been so much fun.
00:12:06
Kieran Frasier unaware at that point men
00:12:09
are going missing in the gay village.
00:12:12
Meanwhile, Toronto police responding to
00:12:15
a shocking tip that's come all the way
00:12:17
from Switzerland.
00:12:20
Someone online had admitted to consuming
00:12:24
a brownskinned man from Toronto's gay
00:12:28
village. The name of the online
00:12:30
community was Zambian Meat and the alias
00:12:35
of the person claiming to have killed
00:12:37
someone in Toronto was ChefMate 50. And
00:12:42
as unbelievable as that tip might sound,
00:12:45
it had come from someone who had a track
00:12:47
record of previously finding someone who
00:12:51
was a real cannibal in Slovakia. And so
00:12:55
police pursued
00:13:00
it. They end up sending someone to
00:13:03
Switzerland to do further investigation.
00:13:06
The tip also connects the three missing
00:13:10
person cases in the gay village to
00:13:13
become a joint investigation. They
00:13:16
launch Project Houston. It's a special
00:13:18
task force that is specifically to look
00:13:21
at these three disappearances. They can
00:13:23
no longer deny that there are some
00:13:26
similarities here and they decide that
00:13:27
they have to really drill down and look
00:13:30
at what's going on here. Navaratum,
00:13:33
Fizy, and Cayenne all go missing from a
00:13:37
threeb block
00:13:39
radius. All three men are physically
00:13:42
similar, and they come from similar
00:13:45
backgrounds. All three
00:13:47
middle-aged. The name of the project
00:13:50
comes from Houston. We have a problem.
00:13:54
Project Houston is an intensive
00:13:56
investigation, but Toronto police don't
00:13:58
go public with it. They're also not
00:14:01
working directly with gay organizations
00:14:03
in the
00:14:06
city. Project Houston saw police
00:14:09
investigators do a lot of the classic
00:14:12
tactics when you're running an
00:14:14
investigation. They did ground searches.
00:14:16
They conducted dozens of
00:14:19
interviews. They also focused in on that
00:14:22
tip about Chef Mate 50. They poured tons
00:14:26
of resources into that tip, examining
00:14:27
whether they could find this man who was
00:14:29
claiming to be a cannibal. And it did
00:14:33
ultimately lead them to an arrest, but
00:14:35
it was nothing like they were
00:14:38
expecting. Chef Mate 50 ends up being a
00:14:41
man in his 60s from Peterborough,
00:14:44
Ontario, James Bruntton.
00:14:49
They found a man in Chefm Mate 50 who
00:14:52
had fantasized a lot about
00:14:54
cannibalism, who'd written some
00:14:57
pretty disgusting things on the
00:15:02
internet, but ultimately a lot of it had
00:15:06
been just fantasy.
00:15:09
He had been a little league coach for a
00:15:11
hockey team and they found that he had
00:15:13
been placing cameras in the locker rooms
00:15:16
and were able to arrest him on child
00:15:20
pornography. He was ultimately
00:15:22
convicted, but police were able to
00:15:25
confirm that he had never in fact killed
00:15:27
or eaten
00:15:29
anybody. Toronto police go public about
00:15:32
Project Houston after the arrest of
00:15:34
James Bruntton. They hope to learn more
00:15:38
about the missing men. Right now, it's
00:15:40
we're just looking at the three men and
00:15:42
it's classified as a missing person
00:15:44
investigation. This foul play suspect is
00:15:46
still unclear. Right now, what we need
00:15:48
are leads. We need people to call in uh
00:15:50
giving us information on their
00:15:52
whereabouts.
00:15:54
It's great to know that the Toronto
00:15:56
Police Services did have a project to
00:15:59
look for these men, Project Houston. And
00:16:02
I'm grateful in that that project
00:16:04
actually resulted in a child porn ring
00:16:07
being shut
00:16:08
down. However, it really didn't do
00:16:11
anything
00:16:12
for the three men that went missing.
00:16:22
You know, the chatter in the community
00:16:24
was one of
00:16:27
fear of their own perceptions of what's
00:16:30
happening like a serial killer. And
00:16:32
there were some pretty racist uh things
00:16:35
that were being said as well in the
00:16:36
community. Oh, they're all brown people.
00:16:39
that are new to the country and they're
00:16:40
probably living a closeted life and
00:16:42
they're probably just gone back to their
00:16:43
wives or their families outside of
00:16:46
Toronto or back to their home
00:16:48
countries and I didn't unfortunately
00:16:51
take the time to learn about them and
00:16:53
that's something that I regret. That's
00:16:56
one of those regrets is that I didn't do
00:16:58
anything at that time.
00:17:02
In the end, Project Houston never solves
00:17:04
the missing person cases, but police do
00:17:07
uncover an important clue for future
00:17:11
investigations. So, as police are
00:17:13
continuing their investigation into
00:17:15
Project Houston, they find a link
00:17:17
between
00:17:19
Scandinavier Fisy, each of them had
00:17:22
written down a username, Silver
00:17:28
Fox. As it turned out, that was a
00:17:31
username that was on
00:17:33
silverdaddies.com. It's a meeting site
00:17:35
for gay
00:17:37
men. So, when police looked further into
00:17:39
that Silver Fox username, they found out
00:17:42
that it was a man named
00:17:45
Bruce, who was 61 and from Toronto.
00:17:50
Police continue to look into that
00:17:54
lead and they ultimately land on Bruce
00:18:05
MacArthur. Bruce MacArthur, the shopping
00:18:08
mall Santa, agrees to meet with Toronto
00:18:11
police for an interview. MacArthur, also
00:18:14
gay, is a member of the Church Street
00:18:17
community.
00:18:19
What he told them was that yes he was
00:18:21
silver fox and he admitted to knowing
00:18:25
Scandinavaratnam and Abdul Bazir
00:18:28
Fisy. He also provided an important new
00:18:31
piece of information which was that he
00:18:34
knew Majid Cahan the third missing man
00:18:37
from the gay
00:18:38
village. He said that he had employed
00:18:42
him as a landscaper although he didn't
00:18:45
end up being the hardest worker.
00:18:48
In that sense, police had Bruce
00:18:50
MacArthur tied to all three of the
00:18:53
missing men who were the subject of
00:18:55
Project
00:18:56
Houston. But MacArthur came across as
00:18:59
quite helpful. He wanted to assist them,
00:19:02
and he seemed like someone who didn't
00:19:04
have anything to
00:19:06
hide. They didn't make him a suspect or
00:19:10
even a person of interest.
00:19:19
After the conviction of James Bruntton
00:19:22
and five months after police speak to
00:19:24
Bruce MacArthur, Project Houston is
00:19:28
closed. They ultimately ran out of
00:19:31
steam. They didn't have any other
00:19:33
evidence and they also didn't have any
00:19:36
definitive proof that these three men
00:19:39
were dead. They were missing and they
00:19:43
closed the case.
00:19:47
When Houston closed in
00:19:50
2014, most of the posters of Scandanda
00:19:53
Abdul Bazir and Majid came down in most
00:19:57
institutions.
00:19:59
After Project Houston
00:20:02
closes, there's no closure in the
00:20:05
village. There's just sort of like a
00:20:07
lingering unease about where these men
00:20:11
had gone and not having any
00:20:14
answers. And it stayed around for
00:20:19
years
00:20:21
until other disappearances start being
00:20:24
discovered.
00:20:33
[Music]
00:20:35
This is the Christmas killings. Thank
00:20:37
you for being with us. In 2011, Toronto,
00:20:41
Canada, seems like one of the safest
00:20:44
cities in the world. A city that at
00:20:46
Christmas time welcomes people from all
00:20:50
around the world, including all
00:20:52
cultures, ethnicities, and sexual
00:20:54
orientations.
00:20:57
But is evil lurking in Toronto's gay
00:21:00
neighborhood? Three men disappear. Karen
00:21:04
Frasier continues her Christmas charity
00:21:06
work on Toronto's streets. Unaware of
00:21:10
the
00:21:11
disappearances. Her Santa Claus friend
00:21:14
Bruce MacArthur also works as a
00:21:16
gardener, helping her raise money for
00:21:19
her causes.
00:21:21
[Music]
00:21:25
Bruce MacArthur was a genius at creating
00:21:29
container arrangements of foliage or
00:21:33
flowers. Really amazingly talented. He
00:21:37
donated porch arrangement for Christmas
00:21:40
and we auctioned it off and it it raised
00:21:43
a lot of money. Bruce MacArthur also
00:21:46
takes care of Karen Frasier's garden. In
00:21:49
return, she allows him to store his
00:21:51
landscaping equipment in her garage. He
00:21:54
loved his work and he knew he was really
00:21:57
good at it. He tended people's gardens.
00:22:00
He took care of them. He designed them.
00:22:02
He planted them. Bruce helped. Anytime
00:22:05
we needed something for a display, for a
00:22:08
charity to thank someone who done
00:22:11
something really nice for the charity,
00:22:13
Bruce never hesitated.
00:22:16
Karen Frasier's charity work regularly
00:22:18
brings her to Toronto's gay village, but
00:22:21
unfortunately she is still unaware of
00:22:25
disappearances happening right under her
00:22:29
nose. Ron and I were oblivious to it. We
00:22:33
had satellite TV and we saw a lot more
00:22:36
American news. We didn't see Canadian.
00:22:39
Between 2015 and 2016, three more men
00:22:45
disappear. Souch McMoody, a 50-year-old
00:22:48
Iranian Canadian, lives in the Toronto
00:22:51
suburb of Scarboro with his wife and
00:22:54
stepson. They report him missing August
00:22:58
22,
00:22:59
2015. Two more men are not reported
00:23:03
missing.
00:23:06
Krishna Kumar Kanagaratam is a
00:23:09
37year-old man from Sri Lanka. He makes
00:23:12
a dangerous journey to Canada as he runs
00:23:15
from persecution in his home country.
00:23:17
His refugee claim is denied by Canada
00:23:21
early 2016. His family in Sri Lanka
00:23:24
stops hearing from him in January. They
00:23:28
assume he's gone into hiding.
00:23:32
Three months later, 42-year-old Dean
00:23:35
Lissawick checks into a Toronto homeless
00:23:37
shelter for the last time. A familiar
00:23:40
and friendly face in the village.
00:23:43
Lissawick often seen panhandling on the
00:23:46
corner of Church in Welssley. Locals
00:23:49
take notice when they stop seeing him,
00:23:52
but police are never
00:23:54
notified. When Salem Assing disappears
00:23:58
the following Easter, another poster
00:24:00
goes up. He's from Turkey and moves to
00:24:03
Toronto to marry his boyfriend. Their
00:24:06
relationship did not last, but they were
00:24:09
still in touch at the time of Sem's
00:24:12
disappearance and his ex was actually
00:24:14
the one who ended up reporting Sem
00:24:17
missing to police.
00:24:20
And again, the community still had that
00:24:22
level of fear as as Selen's poster went
00:24:25
up.
00:24:27
Two months later, the level of fear in
00:24:30
Toronto's gay community skyrockets in
00:24:34
June of 2017, right as
00:24:38
Toronto's Pride Festival is going on,
00:24:40
the preeminent event in the LGBTQ
00:24:43
community, Andrew Kinsman goes missing.
00:24:47
He is a pillar of the gay community in
00:24:52
the city. Andrew was someone that I
00:24:55
knew. He worked for the Toronto People
00:24:56
with AIDS Foundation. He was heavily
00:24:59
involved in community at that time. Um,
00:25:01
so we were at meetings
00:25:03
together. He was someone who looked very
00:25:05
intimidating. He's this
00:25:07
6'2 broad white guy with his beard and
00:25:11
his combat boots on, but a gentle giant
00:25:14
is what he was. and and everyone will
00:25:16
describe him as that. Um once he gets to
00:25:19
know you, he's the most uh gentlest
00:25:21
person uh that you will ever meet.
00:25:24
Andrew Kinsman is not an immigrant. He's
00:25:27
well known for his work in the
00:25:29
community. And unlike the missing men
00:25:32
before him, the response to his
00:25:34
disappearance is quick and loud.
00:25:38
He goes missing after Pride and his uh
00:25:41
friends had reported him missing. And
00:25:43
then there was a huge campaign by the
00:25:45
community, his friends and family coming
00:25:47
together to do searches for him and
00:25:50
raise the awareness of this man going
00:25:52
missing within our community. I'm very
00:25:54
concerned. It's been a week. It's this
00:25:55
is not characteristic of Andrew's
00:25:57
behavior at all. Um he's a generous,
00:26:00
kind person and he would not leave all
00:26:04
of us hanging like this. He would let us
00:26:06
know. And they're also putting
00:26:09
significant pressure on police. And the
00:26:13
police are prompted to take this
00:26:16
disappearance very seriously and the
00:26:19
disappearance of Salem Essen that had
00:26:21
happened just a few months before Andrew
00:26:24
Kinsman. And from that pressure came the
00:26:28
formation of a new special project that
00:26:31
Toronto Police called Project Prism.
00:26:43
One of the things that Toronto police
00:26:45
find in Andrew Kinsman's apartment when
00:26:48
they're conducting a search are two shoe
00:26:52
boxes that have been stuffed with cash.
00:26:54
About
00:26:57
$130,000. And you can imagine that
00:26:59
that's quite a strong sign that he
00:27:01
hadn't left by choice.
00:27:05
inside Andrew Kinsman's apartment.
00:27:07
Police ultimately home in on a really
00:27:11
important
00:27:13
detail. They see a calendar on Kinsman's
00:27:17
fridge and they note that on the day
00:27:20
that he disappeared, he had an
00:27:24
appointment. At around 2:00, he was
00:27:27
supposed to meet a man named Bruce.
00:27:31
Investigators check all security cameras
00:27:33
in the area of Andrew Kinsman's
00:27:36
apartment on the afternoon of June 26.
00:27:40
So, what they saw in that surveillance
00:27:43
footage was a man who fit the
00:27:46
description of Andrew
00:27:48
Kinsman, tall and wearing clothes that
00:27:52
Andrew had been wearing that day,
00:27:54
getting into the van, a red Dodge
00:27:59
Caravan. Police couldn't tell exactly
00:28:03
what year it had been made, but they
00:28:04
take a still image of the van to a
00:28:08
dealership. They learn that it was a
00:28:12
Dodge Caravan from
00:28:15
2004. They take that information and
00:28:17
they see how many 2004 Dodge Caravans
00:28:21
are licensed in the province. And they
00:28:24
learn that there are 6,000, which is a
00:28:28
long list.
00:28:30
But when one of the detectives on the
00:28:32
case searches the name that had been on
00:28:35
Kinsman's calendar,
00:28:37
Bruce, they end up finding five owners.
00:28:41
Of those five Bruces, there is only one
00:28:45
that has a criminal
00:28:47
history, and it's Bruce MacArthur.
00:28:52
Back in 2016, there had been an incident
00:28:55
that had been reported to police by a
00:28:57
man who said that a man named Bruce had
00:29:01
assaulted him in a red
00:29:03
van. He'd gotten away, but he really
00:29:07
truly believed he was fighting for his
00:29:10
life. Bruce had that same night walked
00:29:14
into a police station saying that he
00:29:16
wanted to explain his side of the story.
00:29:19
He was arrested for assault. So sir, if
00:29:22
you would like to uh provide us with
00:29:24
your account of what occurred earlier
00:29:25
this evening. Well, and that we talked
00:29:28
about going for dinner. He said he
00:29:30
needed to take a shower. So I said that
00:29:31
meet him at the Tim Hortons at Finch
00:29:34
Doctors. He had explained, yes, we were
00:29:37
hooking up. Yes, this happened. But I
00:29:41
thought that he wanted it rough. And I
00:29:43
thought, okay, he likes it rough. So I
00:29:46
put my hand to his throat
00:29:50
and just for a few seconds because he be
00:29:54
before that he he's very strong he just
00:29:58
completely turned around and grabbed me
00:30:00
by the
00:30:02
throat. We have had sex you know
00:30:04
numerous times after I had a problem.
00:30:06
Sure.
00:30:09
Yeah. Okay. And as a result of that
00:30:13
information, Bruce MacArthur was let go
00:30:16
again. Time that I have is uh
00:30:20
10:28. Complete the interview here.
00:30:24
August 2017, police begin tracking Bruce
00:30:27
MacArthur. He's their prime suspect, but
00:30:30
they do not release his name to the
00:30:32
public. They see him coming and going in
00:30:35
his red van, going to landscaping gigs,
00:30:38
meeting with friends. What used to
00:30:41
happen on some days, if I wasn't busy, I
00:30:43
would go out and help unload the van or
00:30:46
load it up depending on what stage they
00:30:48
were at. I met quite a few of the men
00:30:50
who either worked with Bruce or were his
00:30:53
guests. I wasn't clear on who was an
00:30:55
employee and who was a guest visiting
00:30:58
who just wanted to see what Bruce did
00:31:00
for a living. You know, he traveled a
00:31:02
lot in the Middle East and may maybe
00:31:04
being a landscaper is sort of an unusual
00:31:06
job in their country, so they were just
00:31:08
coming along to watch. I thought and
00:31:11
then all of a sudden police notice that
00:31:14
he's got a new
00:31:15
van and the red van that was such an
00:31:19
important piece of evidence for them was
00:31:24
missing. Frankly, they don't really have
00:31:26
any other leads.
00:31:29
So they end up having this meeting where
00:31:32
one of the lead investigators says, "We
00:31:35
need to go out and find that
00:31:37
van, right
00:31:46
now." Toronto, Canada, 2017. Police
00:31:50
launched a desperate search for the van
00:31:53
in which they believe Bruce MacArthur
00:31:56
murdered Andrew Kinsman. For weeks, they
00:32:00
visit dealerships, body shops, and
00:32:03
wrecking yards across the greater
00:32:05
Toronto area. And finally, around
00:32:08
Canadian Thanksgiving, police get a
00:32:12
break.
00:32:14
They get lucky. They talk to the owner
00:32:16
of an auto wrecking company who says,
00:32:19
"Yeah, we have this
00:32:21
[Music]
00:32:23
van. They are very fortunate that it
00:32:27
hasn't been
00:32:28
crushed, that it hasn't been stripped of
00:32:31
any of its
00:32:33
parts. They have finally on their hands
00:32:37
uh an incredible piece of evidence,
00:32:39
which is the red Dodge Caravan that had
00:32:41
been driven by Bruce MacArthur.
00:32:46
So, police had lost this van once. They
00:32:49
did not want to lose it again. And so,
00:32:51
they towed it from the wrecking yard and
00:32:54
they followed behind all the way down
00:32:56
the highway, taking it to the Center for
00:32:58
Forensic
00:33:01
Sciences. When the forensic evidence
00:33:03
comes back, it's incredibly important.
00:33:08
They are able to determine that there
00:33:10
are bits of Andrew Kinsman's blood
00:33:13
inside the
00:33:16
[Music]
00:33:18
van. But it's not so simple because the
00:33:23
amount of blood was not significant. And
00:33:26
police knew that in the hands of the
00:33:29
right criminal defense lawyer, they
00:33:31
would be able to explain away why Andrew
00:33:34
Kinsman's blood was in the van.
00:33:38
[Music]
00:33:39
They need more physical evidence to
00:33:42
prove that he had in fact murdered him.
00:33:45
And so police, they apply to a judge to
00:33:49
do something quite invasive.
00:33:52
Police get permission through a warrant
00:33:56
to be able to go into Bruce MacArthur's
00:33:59
apartment secretly, covertly, and search
00:34:02
and see if they can find any physical
00:34:09
proof. It's December and Bruce is still
00:34:13
working, but there's a blanket of snow
00:34:15
on the ground and his schedule is
00:34:17
suddenly unpredictable.
00:34:20
They're following him and they believe
00:34:22
that he will be out for some time and so
00:34:26
the decision is made to go into the
00:34:31
apartment. He was taking a client out
00:34:33
for her
00:34:34
birthday. He picked up a lot of his
00:34:37
wealthy clients, the quite elderly
00:34:39
women, a lot of them. As he said, I'm
00:34:41
I'm
00:34:42
their beast of burden. They just keep
00:34:44
handing presents to me. He drove them
00:34:47
around town. He gave them wonderful
00:34:49
Christmas
00:34:51
[Music]
00:34:52
presents. They're searching his
00:34:58
bedroom and they are focusing in on his
00:35:03
computer and they start doing something
00:35:06
called cloning, which is essentially
00:35:08
making a copy of his hard drive and
00:35:11
taking its contents to be able to search
00:35:13
through them later.
00:35:17
And so they're about 45% of the way
00:35:19
through getting the contents of his
00:35:22
computer when they find out that he's
00:35:25
actually on his way
00:35:29
back. Having him discover that they were
00:35:32
actually in there might be fatal to
00:35:34
their investigation. So they have to
00:35:36
cover their
00:35:39
tracks and they have to immediately get
00:35:43
out of the apartment.
00:35:48
Police only have about half the
00:35:51
computer's contents, but that's enough
00:35:53
to get
00:35:54
[Music]
00:35:58
started. Soon enough, they find pictures
00:36:01
of Andrew Kinsman and of
00:36:07
Scandinavaratnam, but they're pictures
00:36:09
from much happier times from when they
00:36:12
were alive. and it's not necessarily a
00:36:15
smoking gun. So, they continue scouring
00:36:19
through the contents of this computer
00:36:20
for weeks. They're working through
00:36:23
Christmas. So, they start taking a
00:36:26
different approach and are looking for
00:36:30
images through a different kind of
00:36:32
software that allows them to find
00:36:35
deleted
00:36:36
images. And that breaks the
00:36:39
investigation wide open.
00:36:42
[Music]
00:36:44
What they end up finding is
00:36:47
devastating. They find a photo of Salem
00:36:51
Essen. He is in Bruce MacArthur's
00:36:56
apartment on his
00:36:58
bed. He is
00:37:03
deceased. This is the first time that
00:37:06
Toronto police have direct evidence that
00:37:08
Salem Essen is dead. and that Bruce
00:37:12
MacArthur is
00:37:16
involved. As they continue their
00:37:18
investigation, they find more photos.
00:37:22
The next one they find is of Andrew
00:37:23
Kinsman. The dead victims are dressed in
00:37:26
a fur coat and they're posed in
00:37:30
humiliating positions.
00:37:33
The photos have never been publicly
00:37:34
released for fear of retraumatizing the
00:37:37
victim's families.
00:37:39
They are a chilling discovery for police
00:37:42
who recognize them as a serial killer's
00:37:46
trophies. They know that they have to
00:37:49
arrest him as soon as
00:37:54
possible. So, they have a frantic
00:37:57
meeting where they talk about the
00:37:59
logistics of how they're going to arrest
00:38:01
him and ensure that they secure all of
00:38:04
the evidence possible. They decide
00:38:06
they'll need a couple of days
00:38:09
And in the meantime, what is absolutely
00:38:13
critical is that they do not allow Bruce
00:38:15
MacArthur to be alone with anybody. They
00:38:18
have to have him under constant
00:38:20
surveillance. On the morning of January
00:38:23
18, just one day before police plan to
00:38:26
arrest Bruce MacArthur, a complication.
00:38:31
Their surveillance team picks up on
00:38:33
Bruce MacArthur getting in his van with
00:38:37
another
00:38:39
[Music]
00:38:51
man. Police learned their prime suspect
00:38:54
in a series of murders targeting gay men
00:38:58
is on the move. His name, Bruce
00:39:01
MacArthur. Police have MacArthur under
00:39:04
surveillance, but now they fear he's
00:39:06
driving another potential victim to his
00:39:11
apartment. They realize they need
00:39:14
to immediately arrest
00:39:18
him. There is potentially a life that's
00:39:21
on the line. And so all of a sudden,
00:39:24
they are rushing. They are speeding over
00:39:26
to his apartment and they are fighting
00:39:28
against time to get there before he can
00:39:31
do anything rash. By the time police
00:39:33
reach the building, Bruce MacArthur and
00:39:36
his companion have already gone
00:39:38
upstairs. Police head up to his
00:39:40
apartment and they're ready to just push
00:39:44
in that door. But first, they knock and
00:39:48
MacArthur ends up answering the door.
00:39:53
and investigators tell him that he is
00:39:56
under arrest for the murder of Andrew
00:39:58
Kinsman and Sem
00:40:01
Essen. He doesn't seem
00:40:05
surprised. And then when detectives go
00:40:07
into his
00:40:09
bedroom, they make quite a
00:40:13
discovery. They find a man who was
00:40:17
handcuffed. He was
00:40:19
naked. and he also had a black hood that
00:40:23
had been placed on his
00:40:25
head, but he was
00:40:29
alive. The man on the bed very well
00:40:32
could have been victim number
00:40:34
[Music]
00:40:37
nine. Right after MacArthur is arrested,
00:40:40
police fan out to all the properties
00:40:44
that are connected to him through his
00:40:46
landscaping and very soon they focus in
00:40:49
on 53 Mallerie Crescent where he had
00:40:52
kept his landscaping
00:40:55
equipment. Was a very cold day. It was a
00:40:57
cold winter
00:41:00
actually. I was getting up when there
00:41:04
was a pounding on the door and I'm
00:41:06
surprised they didn't break the glass on
00:41:08
such a cold day. So, I pulled the door
00:41:11
open and there were two
00:41:14
guys in navy blue. I thought maybe they
00:41:18
were police, but it didn't really look
00:41:19
like a uniform. Man kept saying, "Are
00:41:23
are you Karen Fraser?"
00:41:25
"Yes." "Well, you have to leave your
00:41:27
house now."
00:41:30
A terrible crime has been committed and
00:41:32
Bruce MacArthur's being arrested. It's
00:41:34
like my brain split in two. It seemed
00:41:37
almost impossible. I guess part of my
00:41:40
brain had decided that I must I didn't
00:41:42
hear that right. So, he repeated it. So,
00:41:44
I said, "Okay." And then we
00:41:47
left and we didn't know that we wouldn't
00:41:49
be back for 23
00:41:53
days. Of course, we defended Bruce
00:41:55
MacArthur for several days because he'd
00:41:58
only been arrested and he'd been a
00:42:02
friend for 15 years. You don't kick a
00:42:04
friend under the
00:42:07
bus. When police search Karen Fraser's
00:42:10
property, they bring in cadaavver dogs.
00:42:14
The dogs show immediate interest in
00:42:17
Karen's flower pots. When I went in to
00:42:21
be questioned with the police at 51
00:42:23
Division, we sat there for hours. when
00:42:27
the police fanned out photographs on the
00:42:29
table in front of me and said, "Do you
00:42:33
know any of these men?" And I said, "The
00:42:36
man on the left, that's
00:42:40
Scanda." I met Scanda once for 10
00:42:43
minutes, like eight years before, and I
00:42:46
remembered his name and I remembered
00:42:47
everything about him. That's the kind of
00:42:49
guy he was.
00:42:51
He was
00:42:52
delightful,
00:42:54
smart,
00:42:56
charming. I did remember Hamid as
00:43:00
well. Well, I call him Hamid because I
00:43:03
feel like I know these men
00:43:06
now. He he was an employee and Hamid had
00:43:10
the most fabulous smile. You know, the
00:43:12
crinkly
00:43:13
eyed smile, very attractive man, looked
00:43:17
very pleasant.
00:43:21
And I said to the officer, "Uh, may I
00:43:25
ask what the crime
00:43:28
is?" No one had
00:43:31
said. They said, "Yes, he's been
00:43:33
arrested for the murder of two
00:43:36
men." The contents of the flower pots
00:43:39
are frozen solid, but x-rays are taken
00:43:43
and analyzed.
00:43:46
About 3 days later, one of the
00:43:49
detectives who were we were getting to
00:43:51
know quite well at that point just said,
00:43:54
"Stop wasting your sympathy on that
00:43:57
guy." I don't think we've ever had more
00:44:01
evidence on a killer than we've got on
00:44:03
that
00:44:04
guy.
00:44:07
Oh,
00:44:09
okay. We stopped defending him.
00:44:13
Eventually, the frozen skeletal remains
00:44:16
of seven innocent men will be discovered
00:44:20
in those flower pots. The eighth
00:44:23
victim's remains are found elsewhere
00:44:26
there on Kieran Frasier's
00:44:28
property. It is the worst serial murder
00:44:31
case in Toronto history.
00:44:35
When I found out what was in the
00:44:37
planters, the uh evidence of his
00:44:41
terrible crimes in my backyard, it
00:44:44
certainly confirmed he's a monster.
00:44:52
[Music]
00:44:54
When the news broke around how these
00:44:56
individuals were found and where they
00:44:58
were found um cut up and planted in
00:45:02
pots, people were just disgusted. People
00:45:04
were angry. People were just sad. You
00:45:07
know, that someone could be so cruel and
00:45:10
inhumane. In speaking with the families,
00:45:13
they were angry at MacArthur. They just
00:45:15
didn't understand why he did what he
00:45:17
did. But they were more angry at the
00:45:21
system for letting this happen to their
00:45:24
families. Like, how did the system let
00:45:27
this happen to my
00:45:31
child or my
00:45:33
brother? And then when you hear family
00:45:36
members
00:45:38
say things
00:45:40
like, "I wonder if he felt
00:45:43
anything." What do you say to that?
00:45:46
And so it was those kinds of questions
00:45:48
and and fear um that
00:45:52
really uh rested within community and
00:45:56
within definitely the
00:45:58
families which was the tragic
00:46:03
part. Bruce MacArthur waves his right to
00:46:06
a preliminary hearing on January 18,
00:46:09
2019.
00:46:10
He pleads guilty to eight counts
00:46:14
first-degree
00:46:16
murder. MacArthur gets an automatic life
00:46:19
sentence with no chance of parole. This
00:46:22
is Canada's longest sentence. Bruce
00:46:26
MacArthur shows no remorse in court and
00:46:30
he has never said another word publicly.
00:46:34
As for Karen Frasier, despite the evil
00:46:37
MacArthur showed the world, she remains
00:46:40
positive. She and her husband continue
00:46:43
their Christmas volunteer
00:46:46
work. Oddly, it hasn't changed us at
00:46:50
all. It just confirmed most people are
00:46:55
wonderful. We had people from across the
00:46:58
country who sent us cards. Some of them
00:47:02
shared scary times that they had been
00:47:04
through that they felt that they could
00:47:06
really empathize with us. It just
00:47:09
confirmed that you have to keep
00:47:13
[Music]
00:47:22
going. It's a shocking end to Toronto's
00:47:26
biggest serial murder investigation. A
00:47:29
group of men who are among the city's
00:47:32
most
00:47:33
vulnerable meet tragic fates at the hand
00:47:37
of a monster. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you
00:47:41
for being with us here on The Christmas
00:47:43
Killings.
00:47:45
[Music]
00:47:52
[Music]
00:48:04
[Music]
00:48:05
[Laughter]
00:48:12
[Music]
00:48:22
[Music]
00:48:24
Heat. Heat.
