A man who worked as a shopping centre Santa Claus murdered eight men and hid their dismembered bodies inside plant pots that he would then rearrange from time to time. Bruce McArthur, 70, preyed on men in Canada's gay village and got away with a string of horrific crimes over seven years.
McArthur, who is Canada's worst-ever serial killer, would photograph his victims before and after they were murdered and kept a picture album as a grim trophy. When police finally caught up with McArthur, they found potential victim number nine in his bed, with his before-murder picture already taken.
Now a woman who unwittingly helped McArthur dispose of his victims after he buried the corpses of seven men in her back garden has told of her horror.
All but one of McArthur's victims was found buried in plant pots on the property of Karen Fraser and her husband Ron Smith.
Speaking to the Mirror, she has shared her despair and horror at the grisly discoveries made at her home - after the couple had agreed McArthur could store tools for his landscaping business in return for him cutting their grass.
For seven years, men had been going missing in Toronto, Canada, and for most of that time, few people paid attention. While some people tried to raise the alarm, it fell on deaf ears and allowing McArthur to roam free.
He was jailed in 2019 after pleading guilty to eight charges of first-degree murder when he appeared at a downtown courtroom in the city.
His crimes, and their impact on the community in Canada, are now the subject of a six-part documentary series on BBC Three, Santa Claus: The Serial Killer, which aired last night and is fronted by BAFTA winning investigative journalist Mobeen Azhar.
Speaking to The Mirror, Mobeen, 42, said: "I didn't know if I'd be able to follow the story, but Bruce pleaded guilty at trial and that meant the evidence wasn't poredd over as it normally would be in court.
"For the families, and me, there were a lot of unanswered questions so I felt spurred to go over there and cover it."
For many years, McArthur had hidden his true sexuality - although he knew he was gay, he was constantly told it was unacceptable and when he was 23, he conformed and married a woman.
They had a son and a daughter, and Bruce threw himself into the church to try to deny his attraction to men - but when he became a salesman for underwear and socks, travelling gave him the opportunity to start having affairs with men.
When his marriage ended, Bruce moved to Toronto, where the gay community was now loud and proud and he started a new life as an openly gay man and was a regular in the bars.
McArthur would meet partners through dating apps, boldly asking for submissive men for his dominating role plays - and some of the men became his victims.
How did it happen?
Since same-sex sexuality had been decriminalised in Canada in 1969, Toronto’s Gay Village had become a thriving area packed with gay-orientated bars, shops and cafes - but there were whispers of a danger lurking in the neighbourhood.
Many men could live out their true desires, but married men who had tried to suppress their homosexuality, or those in a culture where it was forbidden, would also frequent the area.
Despite the horrific rumours, many still visited the neighbourhood for secret dates and the victims didn't realise when they arranged to meet the killer, that they were going to their deaths.
As well as those living a clandestine life, the killer was targeting people with addictions, immigrants or those with no stable home, and their deaths went unnoticed or brushed off by police.
McArthur was originally arrested by detectives in January 2018 following a renewed investigation into the unsolved deaths, which have generated significant public interest.
Initially he had targeted men who he thought wouldn't be missed, either because they were outcasts or because they were still in the closet so their relatives wouldn't know they had disappeared in the gay area of the city.
Sri Lanka-born Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, 37, went missing in 2010, but because he had no immediate family in Canada it wasn't reported.
Skandaraj 'Skanda' Navaratnam, 40, also from Sri Lanka, was last seen leaving a gay bar the same year, and also in 2010, Abdulbasir Faizit, 44, from Afghanistan, was last spotted leaving his work as a machine operator.
In 2012, another man from Afghanistan called Majeed Kayhan, 58, was reported missing, then Married Soroush Mahmudi, 50, vanished in 2015, and homeless man Dean Lisowick, 43, was believed to have been killed in April 2016.
Turkish native Selim Esen, 44, with no fixed abode, disappeared in 2017.
But then McArthur changed his approach and targeted Andrew Kinsman, 49, who disappeared the day after Toronto’s Gay Pride parade on 26 June 2017.
He was a well-known activist, a former bartender and a familiar face - and friends noticed he was gone within 24 hours, and as well as reporting it they put up posters.
Suddenly, the police took notice and set up a task force to look into the mysterious murders, and soon they focused on McArthur.
The killer - who worked as a gardener and was also a Santa in the local shopping mall - was caught when police arrested him at home, where they found a potential ninth victim tied to the bed.
Police found an abduction kit in his home which included syringes, duct tape, zip ties and gloves, local media reported.
Mobeen continued: "There were different reasons for each person he targeted, some of them were sex workers who he thought wouldn't be missed, some of them weren't out, some of them couldn't speak English and had huge instability or were drug users, there were a cocktail of reasons.
"Andrew Kinsman was the eighth person he murdered, I think he'd developed such confidence - he'd killed seven men over seven years, then he meets and murders Kinsman.
"I think he was confident he could continue getting away with it. Previously he was known to the police, he wasn't an unknown, but he was able to manipulate the men he attacked and in many cases killed, but he was also able to manipulate the police and the courts.
"McArthur, on his laptop, which was seized by the police, they found folders that were numbered one to nine and in each of those folders, the first eight, there were pictures of the men he'd murdered before and after.
"In the pictures where he had murdered them he put them in a fur coat with duct tape over their eyes and with a cigar in their mouth, and folder number nine was marked 'John' and when they raided his home John was in his bed. He was alive in his bed. If the police were ten minutes later John would have been dead.
"He wasn't about to come over, he was in the bed when they raided his house."
McArthur, who advertised his services as a dominant gay man, was first brought to the attention of police in 2002, when he was arrested for an assault on a gay prostitute.
After the disappearance of Andrew Kinsman, 49, and Selim Esen, 44, in the summer of 2017, police began investigating McArthur as a suspect in early 2018, placing him on 24 hour police surveillance on January 17.
Just one day after their surveillance started, McArthur was seen entering his high-storey apartment with another man.
He was arrested before police began the search of the Leaside property, where remains were found on an almost daily basis.
A two-week search of a property in the city's Leaside area, where dad-of-two McArthur was employed as a gardener, led police to human remains buried in potted plants - including small fragments of bone and teeth.
Karen's horror
The potted plants were in the garden of one his clients, Karen Fraser, 76, and during the search, they found remains from seven different men.
Mobeen continued: "Karen and her partner, Ron, are the loveliest people, they employed him as their landscape gardener and he kept some equipment at their house and it was in their garden and plant pots where the body parts were found.
"He used to sit and eat lunch with the plant pots around him, I know from the court document that he would rearrange the body parts around him.
"There was a litany of bizarre rituals that this man was involved in, Karen and Ron I don't think will ever get over this stuff.
"I think he hid them there because he had access to tools and other people's gardens, there's a distance there.
"He lived in an apartment and he didn't have a garden, he didn't want to dump them in a swamp or a field. Burying them in plant pots he has a reason to be there, one of the most horrible things is one of these men had worked in these gardens with them because he was one of his assistants. He ended up in one of the gardens he worked in.
"He would sit amongst the plant plots, no one would have known but him that they had body parts of men in them, I don't think we'll ever know why he was rearranging the body parts.
"It's completely insane."
Karen, a business owner, said: "About 15 years before the arrest of Bruce McArthur I had a call from his sister. She lives on a farm at the beginning of the narrow road that leads to our cottage.
"My family has known the family she married into for decades. She told me that her brother just bought a gardening business from his partner and he needed space to store his equipment. Could he use part of our garage?
"I offered the space if he would cut the lawn. A simple arrangement that would help both of us. As this was early winter she said he would arrive in the spring. On a nice morning in April, I heard the garage door open.
"I went outside and introduced myself to Bruce McArthur.
"I know that he organised the plants he would need for the clients he would be seeing that day. He had a charming old table where he created arrangements.
"He murdered most of the men in his apartment and put them in plant pots in my garden.
"I could describe how I felt by using the words that you expect. Words like devastated, upset, shocked, betrayed, horrified. All are true and at first, I used them when asked how I felt but I knew that they didn't come close to describing my feelings."
McArthur was charged with the murder of Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, Andrew Kinsman, 49, Selim Esen, 44, and Abdulbasir Faizi, 44, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, 37, Dean Lisowick, 47, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, and Majeed Kayhan, 58.
Police have also re-opened 15 cold cases dating back to 1975.
The alleged killer is said to have found his victims on dating apps and by trawling the streets of Toronto's gay village, and while investigating the story Mobeen tracked down a man named Joshua Cleaver would could easily have been another victim of McArthur.
Joshua, 34, from Vancouver, said: "I posted a couple ads on Craigslist while I was at Steamworks. One was for 'NSA' sex the other was an escort ad.
"I think he responded to the escort ad, but at first I thought he was responding to the 'NSA' one so when he didn't ask any details about money it didn't seem weird.
"Right before I was about to go to his place I realised and quickly double-checked he knew I was an escort and he responded with something very short like 'yes that's fine just come'. No details about how much, etc, and that did seem a little weird.
"He was super friendly, and mentioned he had a few places and a partner I think. He showed me his landscaping award he had on the wall just above an old-looking computer.
"[Later] he asked if I wanted to go for breakfast and we went to a little place just around the corner or somewhere really close to him I think.
"After breakfast, I went back up to get one of my suitcases and he said I could leave the big ones there if I wanted so I didn't have to carry them around.
"Maybe looking back some details seem weird but I think one of the scariest things about him is just how friendly and nice he was.
"He was super friendly and nice, but for some reason, my legs were literally shaking, and I felt really nervous, but I had no clue why and to this day I'm still not sure why I was so afraid.
"I think that's probably one of the weirdest parts about all of this, that something was telling or screaming at me to get the hell out of there despite being seemingly fine."
Joshua went on to forget his experience with McArthur, but then one day he saw a news story about his arrest.
He continued: "I had completely forgotten all about him probably a few mins after I had left there and had never thought about him again.
"I actually didn't even recognise him at first. It wasn't until the second day it was on the news, and they showed a different photo of him and it was one of the same photos he had sent me over Craigslist."
McArthur, a divorcee with two grown children, was a popular figure in the local community and even worked as a jolly Santa in shopping centres at Christmas time.
He married his childhood sweetheart and went on to become a salesman before coming out as a gay man in 1988.
Following his divorce from his wife, McArthur reportedly began seeking submissive gay men to have sex with.
Mobeen added: "There are questions to be asked - all of us need to be doing more to look out for each other and be more compassionate.
"It's far too easy to say yes this is all to do with the police, but questions need to be asked about immigrant communities not talking about sex and sexuality, all this contributes to a situation in which men can be taken advantage of, exploited, and murdered.
"There are a multitude of conversations that are quite difficult and uncomfortable that I want people to have after they watch the series.
"I'm second generation Pakistani, I'm the youngest of four, I had underestimated the impact of things like people not being open about their sexuality.
"I've had a husband for a long time, my family are broadly supportive, but I'm in minority amongst my peers - other Asian men I know who are gay the majority of them are not out, or if they are it's still something their families won't talk about.
"There's a huge problem with talking about sex and sexuality and anything that veers away from the status quo, and unless you actually confront that and say that's not acceptable nothing's going to change."
In February 2019, McArthur was given eight concurrent life sentences and told he would not be eligible for parole for 25 years.
He showed no reaction when he was told he’d be in prison until he is 91.
Justice McMahon called his crimes 'pure evil' and condemned the way Bruce had exploited his victims' vulnerabilities.
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