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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
00:02:05
with me as always is the man that chased the snakes out of Ireland. He is the captain. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
00:02:11
you. It's good to be seen and it's good to see you. Thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend.
00:02:20
Tonight we are drinking Keith's Irish Stout by the great people at Granite Brewery in fantastic Toronto. Garage
00:02:26
grade four out of five bottle caps. If you can get your hands on this, make sure you do so because this is a rich
00:02:33
multi stout with roasted chocolate and coffee notes ending in a dry finish. And Keith's Irish Stout was brought to us by
00:02:40
first a big thank you to Megan down in beautiful Grapevine, Texas. Big shoutout to Lauren in Rockville,
00:02:46
Maryland. And thank you to Margaret in Dune End down in sunny Florida. A big we like your jib to Paige in
00:02:53
Cornish, New Hampshire. Let's give a shoutout to Morgan in Pataskala, Ohio. Also a long distance
00:02:59
cheers to Jill in South St. Paul, Minnesota. And last but not least captain, a big thank you to Gareth in
00:03:05
the forever mysterious parts unknown. Yeah, and if you'd like to be a member of parts unknown, you can do so by going
00:03:12
to our website, click on the store page and pick up one of those parts unknown t-shirts.
00:03:16
And thanks everybody out there for helping us to fill up the fridge for this week. That's enough of the business
00:03:21
captain. Everybody gather around. Grab a chair. Grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
00:04:08
The update was expectedly grim as investigators continue to scour the grounds of a Toronto home where a
00:04:14
suspected serial killer stored his tools. The exhausted detective in charge stopped by. This is a 24-hour operation
00:04:23
and a horrific one. We believe there are more victims on top of those five and as
00:04:28
we identify those victims, I can't give you any idea about a number, but I do expect more charges to
00:04:37
be laid. The ominous prediction comes after police seized more than a dozen planters from homes that hired Bruce
00:04:44
McArthur as a landscaper. We're not just grabbing every planter we see. If there's an indication from the canine
00:04:51
units that there's some decomposition around that planter, we'll grab it. The implication is chilling considering
00:04:58
police have found the remains of at least three people in just two planters they've examined. At the same home those
00:05:05
were taken from, the plan now to warm up the frozen ground with heaters and start
00:05:10
digging. He's retired now, but for 14 years Kevin Bryant was a forensic investigator. He
00:05:18
says the scope of the McArthur investigation is staggering and will be tedious. Only certain parts of the
00:05:24
remains will reveal key information. Typically the skull, ribs can can give you if there's broken ribs or if
00:05:32
there's ribs with cut marks in them, that can indicate a cause of death. Grizzly details. Peters Gromoll follows
00:05:39
them all with the horror of someone who might have ended up a victim too. Skromoll knew McArthur for years when
00:05:45
they met up in Toronto last spring. He says they had drinks at this bar, then McArthur offered him a lift to his
00:05:52
hotel. A friendly encounter turned intimate, then suddenly violent. He really grabbed
00:05:59
my neck violently, twisted it right to his crotch, and his pants were undone. And that's when I really was quite
00:06:09
disturbed. Scrumo managed to get away and never saw McArthur again. I have a 10 and 1/2 inch neck. My neck
00:06:16
is big. And for him to grab my neck with one hand, twist it like that, I literally thought one one more second
00:06:24
he would have snapped and broken my neck, and I was a dead man. Scrumo says he had no idea, but some of McArthur's
00:06:30
dating profiles suggest he was into violent sex. Today, a man posted how McArthur pursued
00:06:36
him on a gay chat app last fall. In online messages, he says when McArthur told him he was into asphyxiation, too,
00:06:43
he got scared and blocked him. Experts say violent sexual fantasies are common among serial killers. They
00:06:50
rehearse in their head for many years, and then eventually they begin to sort of experiment and flirt with the idea of
00:06:57
actually acting them out. If they know, police aren't saying how the five men McArthur is accused of killing died.
00:07:03
Only that it's a matter of when, not if, they'll find more. Ioanna Roumeliotis, CBC News, Toronto.
00:07:11
There are more than 30 properties being scrutinized by police. This investigation is big and it's getting
00:07:17
bigger. Dozens of tips continue to come in, and the search for remains and other
00:07:22
evidence has already expanded well beyond Toronto to properties in Peel, York, and Durham regions.
00:07:40
All right. Well, we kind of left you hanging yesterday everybody and we that's the magic of the garage right
00:07:46
Captain we can do whatever we want. No, but we we ran out of time there and there was
00:07:52
sinister. Smug even. Um, there was a lot to talk about in that little 3-minute news clip that we left you with
00:08:00
yesterday. And the thing here is regarding Bruce McArthur and what's come down the pipeline as of late. You need
00:08:07
to understand this is about as new of a case as you can get. This is pretty this
00:08:12
is like breaking news for the garage here because we have a a man that's arrested late January. Here we are the
00:08:19
beginning of March trying to figure out what happened here and how this thing's going to go down once it gets to court.
00:08:25
Well, because there was so much information coming out from this, we're getting a lot of emails and a lot of
00:08:30
people on social media saying, "Hey, look into this or cover this case." Um, then you have to it's the balance of can
00:08:38
you cover this case? Is there enough to talk about? Yeah, well, the interesting thing too
00:08:43
Captain is that this kind of came on to our radar uh, middle to late of last year. When we started getting emails
00:08:52
from our good listeners that are saying, "Hey, there's something going on here in
00:08:55
Toronto. There's all these missing men." Right. And at the time you have these two different task force and we don't
00:09:02
know that anything's connected. It wasn't until the breaking news in in January that they had tied a lot of
00:09:08
these cases together and all the big thing here is that they all share the same suspect. So, let's talk about that
00:09:15
news clip a little bit here Captain. So, what does that tell us? That tells me some very
00:09:20
very scary stuff at the at the very beginning of that news clip is where the the man states that police saw a man go
00:09:30
up to the apartment with Bruce McArthur up to Bruce's place. And then they decide to kick in the
00:09:36
door. And when they get into the apartment, they find that this man that went willingly into Bruce McArthur's
00:09:42
apartment, that he's chained up to the bed. Yeah. So, what does that tell us? So, we know at that time that for some
00:09:48
reason in September of 2017, Bruce McArthur became he he came onto their radar onto police's radar.
00:09:56
Mhm. They go to this auto parts this auto body auto parts uh sounds more like a salvage yard type
00:10:03
thing to me. But, he sells them. Bruce sold these people his vehicle. His creepy van, yeah. This Dodge Caravan.
00:10:11
The rumor that I keep hearing the most is that there might have been dried blood in the back of the van. Yeah, my
00:10:19
thought on this was when they're looking into Bruce or or even this van is at some point they probably took cadaver
00:10:27
dogs and had them sniff around. And I'm I'm guessing that they got hits uh from these dogs and that's why they
00:10:35
do- took this van over. I would be willing to wager that you're probably exactly right.
00:10:42
Exactly right. Because here here's what my thoughts are, Captain, is that there was
00:10:45
something in that van, something in or on that van Mhm. that was enough for police We talked about gut feelings as
00:10:52
well. There was enough for police with their expertise and their years involved in in sleuthing and in homicide
00:10:58
investigations where these guys felt that this guy, this Bruce McArthur guy, this guy that sold this van,
00:11:06
he's guilty of probably murder. There's a chance he's linked to more than one of
00:11:11
these disappearances of these men. So, we have enough evidence to to stay on this investigation. We don't have
00:11:19
enough evidence to wrap him up to to arrest him and send this thing to court. So, what do we have to do here? This guy
00:11:28
is potentially very very dangerous. Yeah. We need to follow this guy. Maybe Here's what I wonder, too.
00:11:37
Do you Are you follow You're following the guy probably for a multitude of reasons. Right. But one is if you think
00:11:45
that he might be linked to more than one disappearance, are you following him with the simple
00:11:51
fact that let's see where he goes because we have no bodies. Mhm. We have all these guys
00:11:57
that have disappeared. We have no bodies. We have We don't even know where to start looking for bodies yet. Right.
00:12:03
Cuz possibly there's a dumping ground somewhere. I think the other possibility too is that, you know, he has a violent
00:12:10
past. He played guilty to attacking a man with a lead pipe. And so if you think that two of them are
00:12:16
connected and possibly more than two. Mhm. And then you start looking in the database of all the men that are roughly
00:12:23
40 to 60 years old that have gone missing in the gay village of Toronto, then you start going well, there could
00:12:30
be more than five. Right. And then you start going well, this is a possible serial killer
00:12:37
and if so, you want to stop him from having another victim. And could you imagine
00:12:44
the horror that you're tracking this individual and he has a gentleman with him.
00:12:50
Yeah. to go into their They're going to go into Bruce's you know, apartment and for all you
00:12:55
know, that's the that's his dungeon. Uh so Well, that that's the scary thing, Captain, because you know what happens
00:13:04
during that situation is you don't have I wouldn't imagine that you have the top
00:13:09
cops. You know, you don't have the the super detective out following around Bruce McArthur. That's kind of a uh a
00:13:15
tedious task that you give you give to some the rookie. That's right. So, you got these guys out following Bruce
00:13:21
McArthur around. There's there is a phone call. There's a cell phone call made at that time that says, "You know
00:13:28
what? Look, boss. I understand that we have an active investigation here. I understand
00:13:34
that our number one priority is to follow this dude around and see what he's up to. However, I have to tell you
00:13:41
a guy that that could potentially fit this dude's victimology just went into his apartment. What do we do, boss?
00:13:49
Because you run the risk of completely sabotaging your investigation here. Or you also run the risk of one not Your
00:13:57
job is to protect the public, protect and serve. You could You could be sending a guy to his to his to the death
00:14:03
sentence. Yeah. It's to Bruce Bruce McArthur's apartment. And then that's on your hands as a as a
00:14:08
department. And I'm sure that the chief or whoever says, "Hey, you got to go in because if if it gets out that they're
00:14:17
following this individual and he basically murders somebody underneath your nose. Now, you're going
00:14:22
to catch him for that crime. You're going to lock him away for that, but you got to get him on these other crimes as
00:14:28
well. But it's also going to come out to the public that you were watching him and
00:14:32
basically murdered somebody and you knew it. Right. You knew it. Under Under your watchful eye, this guy
00:14:38
was killed. Now, the thing here is what they do ultimately do decide to do is break down the door. They go in and they
00:14:44
find this this man um chained to the bed. Now, okay. Now, there's a lot of people out there going to go, "Okay,
00:14:51
well, he went into the apartment willingly." Yes. And he could have been He could have been involved in a
00:14:58
consensual act. Right. George Dstanzel. So So, what we're talking about here though
00:15:04
is there there are some wording within these news reports where we find out very quickly after them going into
00:15:12
Bruce's apartment that they start to search Bruce's apartment. They start to search areas and locations that are tied
00:15:19
to Bruce McArthur. Well, and a lot of a lot of homes are going to be tied to him
00:15:24
because he does work at a lot of homes. Yeah, and I want to be clear here because we are making some assumptions
00:15:30
in today's show, and we have to because this is such new information that once the police make their arrest and they
00:15:37
they announce to the public that we've made an arrest, guess what? You're not going to get much information after that
00:15:42
because we need this stuff for trial. Right. So, we have to make some assumptions here to kind of tie this
00:15:48
story together to tell it completely. And that being my suspicion is that when they kicked in that door and they found
00:15:55
that gentleman chained to the bed, Yeah. there's a good chance that he told police, "Look, yeah, I came in here
00:16:02
willingly. Mhm. At some point, this guy's doing something against my wishes without my consent." Well, he could have
00:16:10
pulled I mean, there's so many weird things here that Bruce's, to me, like it just reminds me of a lot of things.
00:16:20
One, the lead pipe, you know, attacking an individual out of nowhere with a lead pipe. Mhm. And then
00:16:26
having that attack where he apologized for it. That that is something that happened with Gacy.
00:16:32
Yeah. And then you got this situation where you have an individual that goes into your house willingly,
00:16:38
but now you get him handcuffed. Reminds me of Gacy, as well. Mhm. The old you know, the old handcuff trick.
00:16:46
And so, was he tricked? And then also, you know, preying on the gay community, bathhouses and bars, that's very
00:16:54
Dahmer-like to me. Yeah, and when you hear that this guy is charged with a couple of couple counts
00:17:01
of murder, you start to wonder, "Okay, well, if he did do this, and you know, me, I like to
00:17:08
I like to call him out on the show. He's looking very guilty even early on in this. Even with the assumptions that we
00:17:15
have to make, he's he's looking to be very guilty here. Well, maybe you can clear this up for me. The The guy that
00:17:22
they found handcuffed to the bed. Does he come out and state I I didn't want to be handcuffed?
00:17:31
Um I don't know that. I'm making a complete assumption there. I'm Here's what I'm guessing. Because they found
00:17:38
Some people are into that. Right. Of course. Of course. You just said it like that. Okay.
00:17:46
Anyway, um the thing here is though, my assumption is that this guy felt threatened or
00:17:53
concerned for his life or well-being at some point and was probably thankful that the cops had kicked in the door.
00:18:01
And my The reason why I say that is because I don't know exactly how the the rules
00:18:06
and the laws work up in Canada. Mhm. But here, okay, if they would have kicked in the
00:18:12
door, they can kick in the door on probable cause. But if that guy then says, "Look, I came
00:18:16
in here willingly and we're just we're two grown men, we're two adults doing adult things. Nobody's in trouble here."
00:18:23
Bruce McArthur has every right to tell the police get the hell out of my apartment. Yeah, we're just doing a
00:18:28
horizontal naked hug. Yeah. Adult hug. Uh toes to feet. Mhm. Toes to face. Mhm. What? No. Okay. Anyway, so the thing
00:18:38
here is though, Captain, if unless the police have probable cause to search his apartment. I think happened. They
00:18:47
witnessed something that they said, "Look, either we don't need Bruce McArthur's consent or this guy that was
00:18:53
chained to the bed, he's a potential victim. He tells us something is not right is going down. Now we have
00:18:59
probable cause to search Bruce McArthur's apartment." The reason why I say that is because they must have found
00:19:05
something. They must have found something in that apartment that led them from from where they were before, where they
00:19:12
were just surveilling him, to now we have enough that we are going to arrest this guy, charge him with two counts of
00:19:19
first-degree murder, and yet we have no bodies. Yeah. They found something in that apartment.
00:19:24
And like like you hear in the trailer earlier is is the idea that if you don't have any bodies, it's really hard to
00:19:31
convict somebody. Mhm. But they feel like they have enough evidence of such. Now, following Bruce's arrest, we have
00:19:41
other people coming out and we have other sources, and in fact, um that that start coming out and telling
00:19:47
stories about Bruce Bruce McArthur. Now, one story is about an alleged sexual assault. This is from as early back as
00:19:56
2016. Mhm. So, a police source, this is {quote} {unquote} a police source, told to I think it was the Global News, but
00:20:06
regardless, it was one of the news outlets, this story involving Bruce McArthur, and it goes like this, that
00:20:12
the source said that McArthur had agreed to meet a man. Again, this is from sometime in 2016.
00:20:19
That he had became acquainted with through an online dating app. The two agreed to meet for consensual sex at a
00:20:26
secluded North York parking lot. Mhm. During the date, the source told McArthur, allegedly
00:20:33
I'm sorry, the source said McArthur allegedly started to choke him while the couple were in the back of McArthur's
00:20:40
red van. The man was able to fight McArthur off and told McArthur he was going to call police.
00:20:48
McArthur reportedly then drove to the 41 Division Police Station in Scarborough,
00:20:55
where he told officers that he was going to be called that they were going to be
00:20:59
called about a sexual assault. And McArthur's telling the officers, you know, this wasn't true. This is not
00:21:06
going to be a true statement that you're about to receive from this person. I mean, we This act was consensual.
00:21:12
Uh-huh. And while this is all going down, we have the man who was allegedly choked. He did call the police like he
00:21:20
said he would. Good for him. And he talks to he talked to officers at the 32 division in Toronto's north end. Mhm.
00:21:29
So, at some point, the source then said told the news that McArthur was placed under arrest and was taken to the 32
00:21:37
division where he was investigated for this situation. Mhm. The problem here though is
00:21:46
whatever goes down, whatever McArthur tells these officers, he's not arrested and he's not charged with anything. And
00:21:53
now that they have Bruce arrested and he's being charged with these murders of these missing men, we're going to have
00:22:00
other people that were attacked, other men that were attacked by Bruce come forward and share their accounts of and
00:22:08
and and how they survived attack from this vicious guy. Yes, let's listen to this man's story.
00:22:23
Mr. McArthur was he looked like Santa Claus. Like um even on his profile, his pic had a picture of
00:22:32
him as the mall Santa. He didn't strike me as someone who's going to kill me. He strike me as someone
00:22:41
who was trying to push my limits, but then it quickly turned to this guy's not respecting my limits.
00:22:50
You don't go into these things thinking it's going to be you. You hear about them happening to other
00:22:56
people, but it's just it still blows me away today that this occurred to me. This this
00:23:04
happened to me. I was just the lucky one. Like that's all. It could happen to anyone.
00:23:15
I first became aware of Bruce McArthur. Um It has to go back probably over a couple
00:23:23
years of just ad hoc kind of one-off messages on various apps. That day it was a beautiful sunny day, clear
00:23:35
clear clear sky. I um it was a daytime meeting. I was supposed to be there about
00:23:43
to meet him about 12:00 noon I believe. Um I was running a little bit behind, but I was in correspondence on the app
00:23:55
saying, "I'm running behind. Just hold on for 15 minutes and I was getting my stuff together.
00:24:02
Um and then I went to the meet the designated meeting place and that's uh when I got in his uh truck. When I got
00:24:13
in the truck, I had a conversation with Mr. McArthur about a serial killer being at large. But when
00:24:22
I said there was a serial killer, he didn't respond. It was just like the conversation uh kind of went into
00:24:30
what he does for living. Which possibly could have been related, I guess in hindsight.
00:24:40
He did mention he had a roommate. He said it was just a roommate. Um that he was at work.
00:24:47
And uh that it would be a problem. And so I took that at face value. Um and I went uh to
00:25:00
put on the things that he um asked me to put on. And uh he makes me a drink. I was aware that um
00:25:14
there was GHB that was there. GHB is a drug that uh causes euphoria, um puts you at ease, and makes you
00:25:28
comfortable, and a little bit um um heightens the sexual encounter. Um that's why I would take it. Um if you do
00:25:41
there's a fine line with GHB cuz it is the date rape drug. If you go over if you know what you're doing, you can
00:25:48
certainly uh knock someone unconscious very easily. He he was going to mix the GHB up for
00:25:58
me. But I gave him instructions if he was not to do more than 5 mils because that would make me go to
00:26:09
sleep. Uh that day it was agreed that I would uh submit to his experience that had been
00:26:19
indicated on his profiles. His his big things as I know them were um he liked to find
00:26:30
submissives, find their um buttons that he could push, find what their edge was was, yes,
00:26:40
and then push them over it. The fear that I started to feel uncomfortable that day for the first time
00:26:47
was I couldn't breathe. Uh that's I have memories of of not being able to catch my breath
00:26:54
throughout the beginning um early on. And that um that made me uncomfortable and and put the
00:27:06
rest first red flag up that I that I wanted to go home because he wasn't I felt respecting my
00:27:13
limits. And the shortness of breath was from specific acts he was he was doing to me.
00:27:21
Um he was basically uh raping my throat. Um he was uh uh cutting off my airway. Um
00:27:39
and I was physically to the point where I was just giving panic and I was panicked.
00:27:46
But in that type of play there's some expectation of trying to find that area where it's it's close to the edge.
00:27:56
Um but at that point it was that's the only memory I have from it is that it just this overall I couldn't
00:28:04
breathe I couldn't breathe I couldn't breathe. How was he cutting off your airway?
00:28:10
Like you said like with it with a um his penis. Um with uh his hands. Um with his body weight sitting on my
00:28:23
chest. When you play with someone in that this the proper environment it's built on
00:28:30
safe sane and consensual and there's safe words and he wasn't giving into the indicators
00:28:38
that I was not being able to catch my breath. Um and at this point I'd started to sweat quite
00:28:49
a bit which for me would be an indicator that I was drugged strong more um I had a larger dose than what I would
00:29:00
have noticed normally. When I started to feel uncomfortable I think at that point
00:29:09
that may have been the point where it was too late for me to to um know what was happening to degree
00:29:21
because I think I at that point I may have fall gone unconscious. Support for today's show comes from
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I know there um has been evidence that has been suggested by the police that um I was unconscious
00:33:06
and in that evidence there is definite signs that I was in a position bound and ready to be killed.
00:33:21
I don't know how long I was unconscious. So but there was at that point I could hear the roommate
00:33:31
was home. And the roommate was like like I didn't hear him come in the front door and that sort of noise. So
00:33:45
the roommate was well in the apartment for a period of time by the time I was aware of him.
00:33:52
And I did say to um Bruce I said, "Oh, your roommate's home." Like like and I was starting to use this as
00:34:01
my way to like end end this. And uh he's he said the words not until I come first. I have to go home. He said I have
00:34:13
one more task to perform. And then I gathered my stuff and I don't remember getting home that day.
00:34:26
I don't remember how I left. When the police detective brought to my attention the fact that
00:34:35
they had photographs of me because she she was asking if I saw cameras if I if I and I didn't remember
00:34:43
any cameras. Um but then when it was winding down and I knew at this point there were photos
00:34:56
of me. Um I asked her if um like how do you like how do you know? Like I still wasn't ready to believe that I was
00:35:12
that victim. And uh she said to me um that I was I was bound. I was in pretty much
00:35:28
for lack of a better term cuz he he can't disclose everything. Um a a kill position for him.
00:35:38
And I why it stopped I don't have all the information the police have. All I can go on is what I I
00:35:50
think and it's the roommate coming home interrupting hit whatever his process is
00:35:57
or his ritual. And uh thank god for me. It hadn't dawned on me till we got further along in the
00:36:11
conversation how much danger I was in that day and how close I was to not coming back.
00:36:24
Um and that is also um something that haunts me, gives me nightmares. This occurred in the summer
00:36:35
uh about halfway through the summer, and the police contacted me the day after his arrest.
00:36:42
The fact that they found me the next day um leads me to believe that they were all they were on top of it and they were
00:36:50
they knew who I was um because to go from his arrest did and um finding me took like less than 12
00:37:00
hours. I was with my partner and my I was in the bedroom and I had brought an article out without a picture
00:37:10
of Bruce and said, "Oh, they caught the serial killer." And then a few minutes maybe 15 20 minutes later, he comes down
00:37:18
to the bedroom with his tablet with full picture saying, "This is the man that did it."
00:37:25
And I went "Oh my god." And then I told my partner that um I'd been with it and I'd
00:37:34
been with him. When my partner brought in the picture and I said, "Oh my god, I've been with
00:37:40
him." That is not unusual for us to have a we have an open relationship and it works
00:37:47
quite well for us. The only thing that particular day, the rule that I broke was
00:37:55
I didn't tell him where I was going. And that's something that's very hard for me to today because
00:38:04
I would have uh had it gone through I would have just disappeared and I would think of my partner being here um
00:38:13
first of all um wondering where I wasn't home cuz I was always home when he got home
00:38:19
and then getting probably pissed off that I hadn't left a note or called and then going to
00:38:26
panic and then and then the worst case, which uh to put him through that would have been
00:38:33
hell. I am having some night terrors. Um I'm I'm seeing I'm afraid of the dark. I've never been afraid of the dark.
00:38:43
The fact that it happened in the daytime is quite um ironic, but now I see things in the
00:38:50
dark. I see shadows. Um Um my counselor told me it's to be expected. I've been through something traumatic.
00:39:04
And uh Um I don't want to live in fear. Um I don't want to become an asexual person
00:39:21
because I'm afraid of going forward and uh I he if he kills those personality traits in me,
00:39:34
he's won for me. Like he's got another base to take me yet further. And I'm not going to be that far over
00:39:42
it. I've been a victim once of his. I'm not going to be a victim twice. So that's a lot to unravel. Yeah.
00:39:56
Powerful stuff from that uh victim that decided to come forward and tell the media what had happened. Some
00:40:02
interesting things inside that story, Captain. He says that the police had found a photo of him on Bruce McArthur's
00:40:11
computer. Yeah. To which he states that he never saw any cameras. He does not remember his photo being taken. So So
00:40:19
remember he says he believes he blacked out or was choked out at some point. was also drugged. Mhm. So
00:40:27
Well, I don't know if drugged is the right term because he knew he was going to take these drugs.
00:40:35
Yeah. Yeah. A heavier dose than what he claims he had asked for. And so at some point we can assume that these photos
00:40:43
that were taken of this gentleman were after he was either blacked out or choked out by
00:40:48
Bruce McArthur. Right. He doesn't remember seeing cameras. He doesn't remember seeing any cameras set
00:40:54
up or having his photo taken. And the police contact him within about 20 within about 12 hours of them
00:41:02
arresting Bruce McArthur. The thing here that we learn from this captain, this very detailed account of
00:41:10
this attack on this poor man, is that this gives us a lot of insights into Bruce McArthur and what kind of monster
00:41:17
this guy is. And furthermore, his MO. Because you know, I was wondering when we first when we first took on this case
00:41:25
and we hear that there was a potential romantic relationship between the potential offender and some of the
00:41:32
victims. You wondered if it was like a um I don't know, maybe a something similar
00:41:38
to a Jeffrey Dahmer situation where when asked, you know, Dahmer had certainly had many crazy levels of perversions
00:41:46
that was going on within him and his apartment. Right. However, when it boils down to it, sometimes Dahmer's saying,
00:41:53
you know, I I killed because I didn't want to be alone because I didn't want this person to leave. I didn't want them
00:41:59
to ever leave me. And the only way that I could guarantee that was for me to make them my victim, keep them there
00:42:06
with me, and then ultimately consume them. Right. Now, what I mean by that is when I hear
00:42:12
of some types of romantic relationships between Bruce McArthur and these victims, you wonder is
00:42:20
was this some kind of in the heat of the moment attack where it's a bad breakup or he gets jealous
00:42:27
and he attacks these people? No, what we see here is that we have a guy that has some some high perversion
00:42:35
levels and these are sexual oriented killings that are going on. Some of them could be when you're talking about and
00:42:42
the police won't come out and say this, you know, they won't tell us how these these poor people have
00:42:48
died and been killed. But we can assume from the the stories that we're hearing from these different
00:42:56
victims that had survived and come forward, we can assume that these are strangulations,
00:43:03
asphyxiation, these are are things along those lines. This is how these men were
00:43:08
killed. Yeah, I think it's almost like, you know, uh, he would take his perversions a little
00:43:15
too far where like he's he's getting uh, a willing partner to have a sexual experience with
00:43:24
and then he's taking whatever fantasies in his head because it's just like this survivor said, he said,
00:43:30
"Well, I put on what he told me to put on." And so it's on some level they're acting out this fantasy, but then Bruce
00:43:37
is taking it too far and I think as he's taking it too far, it's either that he it's either that Bruce is losing
00:43:44
control or the fact that these uh, individuals felt attacked that maybe he felt like, "Okay,
00:43:52
well, they felt like that's an attack, so now I have to kill them to cover up that
00:43:56
attack." If that makes any sense. I see where you're going with that, but what I think
00:44:01
we have here is I think we have a a man that wanted to kill, that that has a sexual perversion
00:44:09
towards killing. That's part of the sex act for him is the actual murder, the actual death of the his victim.
00:44:17
Okay. And the reason why I feel that way is I I see an evolution, let's say, in this this individual, where this
00:44:27
first attack that we hear about that occurred in 2001, this is more of like a caveman style attack, where okay, I want
00:44:34
a victim, I have some some sexual perversions that I need to act out, and the only way I know to to do this, to go
00:44:41
about this, is I'm going to club this dude, and once he's knocked out, I'm going to be
00:44:47
able to do what I want to him. He has He has elevated his his his killing game, let's say, Right. by
00:44:58
by at some point he learned, you know what's easier? Rather than having to trick someone and attack them, why don't
00:45:05
I Why don't they not find out about the trick until they're already handcuffed, until they're already tied up? Or
00:45:13
drugged. And drugged, yes. So now what I can do is I can get on these different dating apps, or I can meet people and I
00:45:20
can say, "Look, I'm into I'm into bondage, I'm into these types of games, are you willing to play?" And the vibe
00:45:29
that I get from some of these surviving victims that we hear is that it sounds like
00:45:36
maybe that wasn't their thing so much as it was his thing, but they were willing
00:45:41
to play along. You know, they were willing to play along to the point where at some point they're they're going,
00:45:47
"Crap, this is no longer fun anymore. We are not We are no longer having a good time. This guy tricked me. This guy did
00:45:56
This guy put me in this situation, and now I've been tricked, and I'm I'm helpless, or I'm defenseless. Yeah.
00:46:03
And yeah, so he you know, he's he's raping the these victims, but that's where I believe um or at
00:46:13
least my gut feeling is saying because he took that too far that the murder is to cover up from that. I don't know if
00:46:20
the murder is actually um part of the sexual experience. You know, I'm not ex- expert at, but this is
00:46:27
what my gut is telling me. Well, there's another unique thing that we see Bruce McArthur do twice is on two occasions
00:46:34
he's involved in attacking an individual, and the individual defends themselves to the point of telling him
00:46:41
that they're going to contact the police, and Bruce McArthur he does he gets the upper hand by going to
00:46:47
police first. Yeah. And that's a that's a unique strategy there, and people go, "Well, why the hell would he do that?"
00:46:55
Well, because he's hiding a lot of stuff. This guy would much rather drive right to the police department, walk in
00:47:03
with his hands up, and go, "Look, I'm guilty of this, and you're going to find out about it very soon." The reason why
00:47:09
he does this, he doesn't want them digging into his personal life too much. Yeah, it's one thing to say that you
00:47:15
assaulted somebody, or even sexually assaulted somebody, and you can fess up to those crimes, and
00:47:21
take accept the punishment that you get from those crimes, easier crime to defend as well. And also especially in
00:47:30
this community, I mean, this is a community that uh I think a lot of times law enforcement kind of stays out of.
00:47:37
Um you know, where there if there was a attack in the heterosexual community uh of this nature, they would take them a
00:47:44
little more serious. Now, I know that's very generalizing everything, but we see
00:47:49
this time and time again. Well, specifically regarding this case, we have the two incidences where I
00:47:56
personally believe the victims didn't didn't come forward or they weren't fully cooperative with law enforcement.
00:48:04
And that's not to blame them for anything. They don't know what else Bruce McArthur is out there doing.
00:48:09
Right. Um but what I mean by that is law enforcement in in its own way has their hands tied behind their backs
00:48:17
if they have victims that won't cooperate with the investigation or testify against this individual. Now,
00:48:25
the thing here is too that we have the computer that was found. Ultimately, to kind of to kind of sum up this story
00:48:33
for you, Bruce McArthur, once they decide that he's probably linked to the disappearance of the several of these
00:48:40
guys, they they start finding body parts. They find body parts of individuals that have been dismembered
00:48:48
and they are in planters, these large planters. Remember we said Bruce is a landscaper. He's an independent
00:48:55
contractor or self-employed, whatever you want to call it, and he works for many different people. Well, some of
00:49:01
these properties that he's worked for, he's distributing these body parts amongst these planters at different
00:49:08
people's properties. Now, they were able to to do many searches. This has been a a concerted
00:49:15
effort, a big-time effort to try to locate these missing men. And what they've ultimately found, I believe I
00:49:22
believe, I could be wrong, Captain, I believe Bruce McArthur to this date, March 13th, has been charged with seven
00:49:30
counts of homicide. Yeah, and law enforcement believe there's more. I think one of the houses that he did work
00:49:37
at, um they found some at least DNA, and it was it was three different victims. All all scattered through like, you
00:49:47
know, flower like you said, flower pots and flower beds and and things like that. I mean,
00:49:52
I mean this guy is beyond sick. Well, from my understanding is this. That they recovered
00:50:00
body parts or they recovered better to say the remains of seven individuals. My understanding is that
00:50:09
they have identified six of these seven, that we still have one male victim that
00:50:14
remains unidentified to this day. Yeah, they actually uh took uh a picture and and and gave this
00:50:22
to to uh the people of Canada to try to help out with. Well, that's That is a good topic to discuss because
00:50:31
we don't know that that is in fact the case. So, what we do know regarding this photograph, there was a photograph like
00:50:38
the captain said released to the public in hopes that people could identify the man in the photo.
00:50:44
Yeah. Police have stated that the man in the photo is is believed to be deceased.
00:50:50
Right. Now, where I call into question that is we don't have anybody saying that the photo belongs to the
00:50:58
unidentified remains that we have found. So, where we have a situation where we recovered the remains of seven
00:51:06
individuals and we now have a photo of a man that we're trying to identify. Yeah.
00:51:13
The reason why I say that we don't know that the photo is of the unidentified remains is because police have stated
00:51:20
that photo was taken from McArthur's computer. And that they took that photo and they
00:51:25
had to clean it up a little bit. They photoshopped it to take out {quote} artifacts that would have been seen
00:51:31
inside that photo and the police really didn't want to release this to the public. However, it
00:51:37
was like a last resort. We have to identify this man. And so, the the big question here with Bruce McArthur is
00:51:45
ultimately how many people do they think that he has killed? How many how big could this number go? And the reason
00:51:52
being is you have an individual that we he remained under the radar for so long.
00:51:58
He had victims that were missing. He's he's a He's Well, and if he's putting the remains in
00:52:04
flower pots, then you got to hope that somewhere you can find a list of clients and you're talking about years
00:52:12
of working as as a landscaper that you have to then go back and check all those properties.
00:52:17
He's a sophisticated organized killer is what he would be classified as when people would be investigating this as
00:52:25
far as the FBI's concerned. Yeah, aka piece of [ __ ] The thing So, how far back can we trace this
00:52:33
thing? How high could these numbers go? I'm hoping my suspicion is that the photo is not of the unidentified
00:52:41
remains, that they're not one in the same. Mhm. My suspicion is we're probably looking at eight
00:52:48
murdered victims here. We we will only we will only find this out as the court proceedings continue.
00:52:55
And you know, we're here recording these episodes on the 13th. I believe Bruce McArthur is scheduled to be back in
00:53:03
court either on the 14th or the 15th. Yeah, I think like we said based off what information they had and
00:53:12
they were running surveillance on this guy for a while, so they were collecting evidence as they're doing that. And then
00:53:18
you basically catch him him in the act. And then on top of that, you have all these other survivors coming out and
00:53:25
they're giving you information and evidence. And on then you have this computer evidence and what else other
00:53:31
evidence that they find that we're not going to know about until the trial. I mean, this guy
00:53:36
it seems like a pretty open and shut case. Yeah, I think we're looking at a very
00:53:42
strong guilty conviction here. Um I You know, the police have taken some scrutiny because the gay community
00:53:51
around Toronto has said that Bruce McArthur has been interviewed years ago regarding some of these
00:53:58
disappearances and the gay community have said that it's one of the best, {quote} {unquote}, best kept secrets.
00:54:05
Now, I don't know about that and and you know what, here's the thing, he is so tied to a couple of these victims, it's
00:54:12
very likely that he was in fact interviewed. Yeah. I don't know where police slipped up. I'm It's hard for me
00:54:19
to say that they did. Um what I see here on the outside looking in is I do see some victims that were leading living
00:54:29
somewhat secretive lives, which makes any investigation a little bit harder. difficult.
00:54:37
Yeah. If you're If you're having um relationships with different men and you're married that
00:54:44
you know, to a woman that you might not want that information out and so then there's probably times that um
00:54:50
victims could have came forward to give them more information or when they were questioned they could have been
00:54:56
uh um more truthful from the beginning and maybe that would have stopped this, but
00:55:00
uh but this guy was a cold, calculated killer, so I I you know, I don't want to throw them under the bus, uh law
00:55:07
enforcement. I agree and from from the outside looking in, Captain, I I I applaud their efforts from late last
00:55:14
year up until the present. Before that, I don't know much about the investigation to make a determination or
00:55:21
shame anybody either way. Well, and I don't and again, I don't know this for certain, but I think the gay
00:55:30
community has a right to say, "Look, you know, as far as our community goes, they're at more risk." Now, some would
00:55:37
uh say that you're putting yourself at more risk. I mean, you're putting yourself at more risk if you're going
00:55:43
home with individuals that you don't know, if you're letting individuals tie you up, or if you're letting individuals
00:55:49
handcuff you, if you're letting individuals drug you. This puts you at higher risk.
00:55:56
But but I do side with the idea that um a lot of times uh homosexual communities
00:56:03
are not protected as much as heterosexual communities. Well, the the only people I believe deserve any shame
00:56:10
in this story as it unfolds is, you know, when doing the research for this case, came across
00:56:17
several websites, and I won't name them by name cuz I I didn't actually look at them long enough to care to know their
00:56:23
name, but Right. I'll just refer to this grouping of websites as the haters, and it was
00:56:29
you don't have to use your imagination too much to to get where I'm coming from, but it was a lot of victim
00:56:35
blaming, a lot of people saying, "See what they get for this, that, and the other thing." Um you know, serves them
00:56:41
right, sort of thing. Look, we are on what? Episode 190, 191, something like that.
00:56:47
that. We've We've talked about victims from every walk of life. Nobody Nobody, regardless of who they are,
00:56:56
any regular citizen that's not walking around harming anybody or or infringing on anybody else's rights
00:57:03
Right. deserves to be victimized in any form or fashion, whe- whether it be theft, rape, murder, nothing like that.
00:57:11
The things that happened to these individuals are horrible. They're unspeakable acts that were committed by
00:57:17
a monster. This episode of True Crime Garage is brought to you by Unsane. It's a new
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with certified organic ingredients. Go to Juice Beauty.com/garage and for exclusive savings on your first
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order, use our promo code garage20 at checkout. First off, I want to thank all the
00:58:26
listeners for suggesting this case as early as the middle of last year. Thank you for being aware. Thank you for
00:58:33
bringing it to our attention. We do listen to you. That's right. to you. This weekend is St. Patrick's
00:58:39
Day. Everybody enjoy the basketball games. Everybody enjoy some time with friends and family. Uh toast a drink.
00:58:46
Yeah, and but look, we talked a lot about these dating apps and any listener out there that is using one to meet
00:58:53
people, that's a great thing, right? Build a relationship, whatever. But when you're going to meet somebody
00:58:58
from these apps, make sure you send a friend um some information of the person or send a
00:59:05
picture of the person. So, then if your friend goes missing or or if you went missing, that your friends would have
00:59:12
information to give to law enforcement. Take precautions. That Don't be stupid. That's right.
00:59:18
Right. All right. And until next time, everybody. Be good. Be kind. Don't litter.
00:59:25
Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.
00:59:41
Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.
00:59:58
Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.