Bruce McArthur: serial killer suspect charged in Canada

Canadian police are searching for more victims after they charged a self-employed Toronto landscaper with five counts of first-degree murder.

“It’s an alleged serial killer,” Hank Idsinga of the Toronto police told reporters. “The city of Toronto has never seen anything like this. We do believe there are more [victims] and I have no idea how many more there are going to be.”

Bruce McArthur, 66, was arrested earlier this month and charged in connection to two missing men, Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman, who police believe have been killed.

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They charged him with a further three counts of murder after discovering the dismembered remains of at least three more victims in large planters on clients’ properties McArthur had worked on. Police say the bodies are those of Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Marmudi and Dean Lisowick.

Three of the victims were familiar faces in Toronto’s Gay Village neighbourhood. The city’s LGBT community had “raised concerns for months about a series of disappearances around the Village”, says the BBC, but police played down the claims in December, suggesting their was “no evidence to support that theory.”

The New York Times says police have “identified and started searching about 30 properties” where McArthur worked, and have collected “more than a dozen planters to examine.”