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