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00:00Toronto, Canada is considered one of the safest big cities in the world.
00:09The church well-leaved a village.
00:11It was a fun-loving, jovial place for folks to come in and celebrate.
00:16At Christmas, people from all over fill the streets of Toronto to celebrate.
00:21But in 2010, an unknown terror begins to prey on the city's gay community.
00:31A series of disappearances started happening at the center of the gay village.
00:36I'm like, what the hell is going on?
00:38There has to be a serial killer.
00:40What follows is one of the most shocking investigations in Toronto history.
00:46We had no idea what was going on.
00:49He just turned around and grabbed me by the throat.
00:53My greatest fear was being found dead.
00:57Someone was saying that they had killed and consumed brown-skinned man in Toronto's gay village.
01:19Hello, I'm Nancy Grace.
01:28Thank you for being with us here at the Christmas Killings.
01:41Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, especially in Canada's largest city of Toronto.
01:51It's Christmas time in the city.
01:57The climate usually delivers on the promise of a blanket of snow for Christmas.
02:04The CN Tower lights up in red and green.
02:07Even Santa himself appears in shopping malls to greet people from all around the world.
02:17It's a time of love, of generosity, of giving.
02:22And people in Toronto truly come out to help the less fortunate.
02:27Karen Frazier is one of them.
02:30She's a philanthropist who embodies the meaning of Christmas by running charities and helping others less fortunate than herself.
02:40For Christmas, we help homeless people, and so we often spend Christmas in a shelter or helping kids in a shelter.
02:50We have put 230,000 blankets and sleeping bags, mainly on the Toronto streets.
02:56So that made Christmas much, much better for us.
03:022005, Karen Frazier spreads Christmas cheer when she produces a Christmas podcast that features a department store Santa.
03:13How did you end up being Santa this year?
03:17Well, it was through a friend that I used to work with.
03:20I said, what are you doing the month of November and December?
03:23I said, well, I'm free.
03:25And he said, well, how would you like to be Santa?
03:27And I thought, well, that sounds interesting.
03:29What did they ask you at this Santa interview?
03:32Well, they prepare you for how you would answer questions that might be difficult.
03:37Like?
03:38Kids would ask like they would want their parents back together again for Christmas.
03:42Oh, and what does Santa say on that matter?
03:44Uh, well, I'm in the toy business and...
03:47Oh, in that toy business.
03:50Move along.
03:52Karen Frazier's guest on that podcast is a man named Bruce MacArthur.
03:58Bruce was a man who had made a lot of big life decisions, difficult ones.
04:04He moved from the country to the city.
04:07He never said to me that he was gay.
04:10It just was.
04:13Someone had outed him to his wife, and that's what ended his marriage.
04:18So that must have been very uncomfortable.
04:20But, you know, the two of them worked it out in quite a friendly way.
04:25No one realizes that being a gay man in Toronto would become so dangerous starting in late 2010.
04:36The city welcomes people of diverse sexual orientations.
04:40Haran Visunathan is one of them.
04:43I was living in Mississauga, which was just outside of Toronto.
04:47But I would come down to visit friends and go for coffee or dinner or go out in the evenings.
04:54Just to come down and just to be with people who were like me.
04:58Who looked like me in terms of my race.
05:01But also people who shared my sexual orientation.
05:04And it was just nice to celebrate and get together.
05:07There was a sense of security there because people knew you.
05:11But the feeling of community and acceptance in Toronto's gay village around 2010 started to shift a little bit.
05:23That was when a series of disappearances started happening.
05:27All of them happening at the center, the gay village.
05:30Four days after Christmas, December 29, 2010, Abdul-Bazir Faizi doesn't come home from work.
05:41Faizi's a 42-year-old Iranian-Canadian husband, a beloved father of two children.
05:48Abdul-Bazir Faizi worked at a printing factory.
05:52He had told his wife that he was going out to meet friends.
05:56What his wife doesn't know is her husband has hookups with men.
06:01So after work, he heads to the gay village.
06:07As you can imagine, his wife wouldn't have even known where to start looking for him.
06:12But she did file a missing persons report when he didn't come home.
06:16Not long after Faizi went missing, police found his car on January 4th, just a few days after New Year's.
06:28Faizi's car is parked about a seven-minute drive north of Church and Wellesley streets, the heart of the gay village.
06:37And it was locked. There was no sign of anything that had gone awry.
06:42For police, Faizi's disappearance was a complete mystery.
06:51They didn't really know where to begin.
06:54At first, police also do not connect Faizi's disappearance to another one in the same area.
07:01So four months before Faizi's disappearance, another man had gone missing.
07:07Skanda Navaratnam was really well known in the gay village.
07:12He was incredibly outgoing. He was smart.
07:15And the last place that he was seen was leaving Zippers, which is one of the most famous bars in the gay village.
07:24With his friends who reported him missing.
07:28Navaratnam originally from Sri Lanka.
07:31He's working as a teaching assistant at University of Toronto.
07:35He has no family in Canada, but he has lots of friends.
07:38And they make sure missing person posters are visible throughout the gay village.
07:45I remember walking to the grocery store that existed on Church Street and then checking out the posters.
07:51Like, oh, there's a brown person. What's happening there?
07:56It was more the picture that I really remember.
07:59And his ethnicity came out in the picture.
08:01And then I read his name and I'm like, oh, a Tamil man.
08:04That's interesting.
08:06I remember having a brief conversation about the missing person's poster.
08:09And again, I wasn't living in the village at the time.
08:13However, I trusted the system.
08:15And because it was an official poster, my hope was something was being done about it.
08:20So after Faizi goes missing, that makes two people missing in the village.
08:26Skanda Navaratnam and Abdul Bazir Faizi.
08:29And for police, it's challenging.
08:31Because these posters are going up in the village.
08:34Two men have gone missing and they don't have any leads.
08:47Toronto police find no evidence of foul play.
08:51Months go by, but no meaningful tips are generated by the posters of the missing men.
08:57Two years later, another man goes missing.
09:07Majid Kahan lived in the village.
09:10He was also well known there.
09:13He was from Afghanistan originally.
09:16And his son ended up reporting him missing because he stopped getting phone calls from his dad.
09:23And that's when I moved into the village in 2012.
09:29And my roommate and I shared an apartment on Maitland Street.
09:33And we'd be going down walking the dog.
09:36You see the posters again and I'm like, why? What the hell is going on?
09:42And that fear started happening in 2012.
09:45Which is the village safe anymore for people of color?
09:47And I started working at the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention at the time as the interim executive director.
09:54We started getting questions because those three individuals were, you know, brown men.
09:59In particular, the brown men community were quite concerned.
10:02And of course, you know, we tried to inquire and we're following up with the police and we didn't get much information.
10:09So we would just say, you know what?
10:11If you're going out and you're meeting somebody for the first time and it's anonymous, then just make sure somebody knows.
10:18Let your roommate or a friend know that you're going out to meet somebody.
10:21People need to know where you're going.
10:23So at this point, these disappearances are being investigated separately.
10:30They are picking up on the fact that the men had each frequented places in the village, but they're not necessarily putting together these disappearances.
10:45That all changes a few weeks later.
10:47So in November 2012, Toronto police got a truly remarkable tip.
10:52Coming from the Swiss police.
10:57And what they said was that they had an informant who was spending some time on some cannibalism fetish sites.
11:10And had gotten a tip there that someone was saying that they had killed and consumed a brown skinned man.
11:22In Toronto's gay village.
11:23Toronto, Canada, 2011.
11:24Christmas right around the corner.
11:25People who live in Toronto love the holidays.
11:41Karen Frazier doing outreach at a homeless shelter downtown.
11:44Her friend, Bruce MacArthur, starting his annual gig as Santa, starring in a local mall.
11:51I have some of the same kids will come back every weekend to see me.
11:56That's fabulous.
11:57You're a big hit.
11:58Yeah.
11:59I never expected to enjoy it as much as I have.
12:02Yeah.
12:03It has been so much fun.
12:05Karen Frazier unaware at that point, men are going missing in the gay village.
12:12Meanwhile, Toronto police responding to a shocking tip that's come all the way from Switzerland.
12:18Someone online had admitted to consuming a brown skinned man from Toronto's gay village.
12:29The name of the online community was Zambian Meat.
12:33And the alias of the person claiming to have killed someone in Toronto was Chefmate 50.
12:42And as unbelievable as that tip might sound, it had come from someone who had a track record of previously finding someone who was a real cannibal in Slovakia.
12:54And so police pursued it.
13:01They end up sending someone to Switzerland to do further investigation.
13:06The tip also connects the three missing person cases in the gay village to become a joint investigation.
13:15They launch Project Houston.
13:17It's a special task force that is specifically to look at these three disappearances.
13:23They can no longer deny that there are some similarities here.
13:27And they decide that they have to really drill down and look at what's going on here.
13:32Navaratum, Faizi, and Kayan all go missing from a three-block radius.
13:39All three men are physically similar.
13:43And they come from similar backgrounds.
13:46All three middle-aged.
13:48The name of the project comes from Houston.
13:52We have a problem.
13:53Project Houston is an intensive investigation.
13:57But Toronto police don't go public with it.
14:00They're also not working directly with gay organizations in the city.
14:07Project Houston saw police investigators do a lot of the classic tactics when you're running an investigation.
14:14They did ground searches.
14:16They conducted dozens of interviews.
14:20They also focused in on that tip about Chef Mate 50.
14:24They poured tons of resources into that tip examining whether they could find this man who was claiming to be a cannibal.
14:31And it did ultimately lead them to an arrest.
14:36But it was nothing like they were expecting.
14:39Chef Mate 50 ends up being a man in his 60s from Peterborough, Ontario.
14:45James Brunton.
14:46They found a man in Chef Mate 50 who had fantasized a lot about cannibalism.
14:55Who'd written some pretty disgusting things on the internet.
15:00But ultimately a lot of it had been just fantasy.
15:07He had been a little league coach for a hockey team.
15:12And they found that he had been placing cameras in the locker rooms.
15:16And were able to arrest him on child pornography.
15:20He was ultimately convicted.
15:22But police were able to confirm that he had never in fact killed or eaten anybody.
15:30Toronto police go public about Project Houston after the arrest of James Brunton.
15:36They hope to learn more about the missing men.
15:39Right now we're just looking at the three men.
15:42And it's classified as a missing person investigation.
15:45This foul play suspect is still unclear.
15:47But right now what we need are leads.
15:49We need people to call in giving us information on their whereabouts.
15:54It's great to know that the Toronto Police Services did have a project to look for these men.
16:00Project Houston.
16:01And I'm grateful in that that project actually resulted in a child porn ring being shut down.
16:09However, it really didn't do anything for the three men that went missing.
16:19You know, the chatter in the community was one of fear.
16:26Of their own perceptions of what's happening.
16:30Like a serial killer.
16:32And there were some pretty racist things that were being said as well in the community.
16:37Oh, they're all brown people.
16:39They're new to the country.
16:40And they're probably living a closeted life.
16:42And they're probably just gone back to their wives or the families outside of Toronto or back to their home countries.
16:49And I didn't, unfortunately, take the time to learn about them.
16:53And that's something that I regret.
16:55That's one of those regrets is that I didn't do anything at that time.
16:59About time.
17:02In the end, Project Houston never solves the missing person cases.
17:06But police do uncover an important clue for future investigations.
17:12So as police are continuing their investigation into Project Houston,
17:16they find a link between Skanda Navaratnam and Abdul Bazir Faizi.
17:21Each of them had written down a username.
17:24Silver Fox.
17:29As it turned out, that was a username that was on silverdaddies.com.
17:33It's a meeting site for gay men.
17:36So when police looked further into that Silver Fox username,
17:41they found out that it was a man named Bruce,
17:45who was 61 and from Toronto.
17:48Police continue to look into that lead.
17:53And they ultimately land on Bruce MacArthur.
17:59Bruce MacArthur, the shopping mall Santa, agrees to meet with Toronto police for an interview.
18:13MacArthur, also gay, is a member of the Church Street community.
18:19What he told them was that, yes, he was Silver Fox.
18:22And he admitted to knowing Skanda Navaratnam and Abdul Bazir Faizi.
18:28He also provided an important new piece of information,
18:32which was that he knew Majid Kahan, the third missing man from the gay village.
18:39He said that he had employed him as a landscaper,
18:43although he didn't end up being the hardest worker.
18:48In that sense, police had Bruce MacArthur tied to all three of the missing men
18:53who were the subject of Project Houston.
18:56But MacArthur came across as quite helpful.
19:00He wanted to assist them.
19:02And he seemed like someone who didn't have anything to hide.
19:07They didn't make him a suspect or even a person of interest.
19:11After the conviction of James Brunton and five months after police speak to Bruce MacArthur, Project Houston is closed.
19:28They ultimately ran out of steam.
19:32They didn't have any other evidence.
19:34And they also didn't have any definitive proof that these three men were dead.
19:40They were missing.
19:41They were missing.
19:42And they closed the case.
19:47When Houston closed in 2014, most of the posters of Skanda, Abdul Bazir and Majid came down in most institutions.
19:58After Project Houston closes, there's no closure in the village.
20:06There's just sort of like a lingering unease about where these men had gone and not having any answers.
20:14And it stayed around for years until other disappearances start being discovered.
20:27This is The Christmas Killings.
20:37Thank you for being with us.
20:39In 2011, Toronto, Canada seems like one of the safest cities in the world.
20:45A city that at Christmas time welcomes people from all around the world, including all cultures, ethnicities, and sexual orientations.
20:56But it's evil lurking in Toronto's gay neighborhood.
21:01Three men disappear.
21:04Karen Frazier continues her Christmas charity work on Toronto's streets, unaware of the disappearances.
21:12Her Santa Claus friend, Bruce MacArthur, also works as a gardener, helping her raise money for her causes.
21:21Bruce MacArthur was a genius at creating container arrangements of foliage or flowers.
21:34Really amazingly talented.
21:37He donated porch arrangement for Christmas, and we auctioned it off, and it raised a lot of money.
21:44Bruce MacArthur also takes care of Karen Frazier's garden.
21:49In return, she allows him to store his landscaping equipment in her garage.
21:54He loved his work, and he knew he was really good at it.
21:58He tended people's gardens.
22:00He took care of them.
22:02He designed them.
22:03He planted them.
22:04Bruce helped any time we needed something for a display, for a charity, to thank someone who'd done something really nice for the charity.
22:13Bruce never hesitated.
22:16Karen Frazier's charity work regularly brings her to Toronto's gay village.
22:21But unfortunately, she is still unaware of disappearances happening right under her nose.
22:29Ron and I were oblivious to it.
22:32We had satellite TV, and we saw a lot more American news.
22:37We didn't see Canadian.
22:39Between 2015 and 2016, three more men disappear.
22:46Sarush Mahmoodi, a 50-year-old Iranian-Canadian, lives in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough with his wife and stepson.
22:55They report him missing August 22, 2015.
23:00Two more men are not reported missing.
23:06Krishna Kumar Kanagaratam is a 37-year-old man from Sri Lanka.
23:12He makes a dangerous journey to Canada as he runs from persecution in his home country.
23:18His refugee claim is denied by Canada early 2016.
23:23His family in Sri Lanka stops hearing from him in January.
23:28They assume he's gone into hiding.
23:32Three months later, 42-year-old Dean Lisowick checks into a Toronto homeless shelter for the last time.
23:40With a familiar and friendly face in the village, Lisowick often seen panhandling on the corner of Church and Wellesley.
23:49Locals take notice when they stop seeing him, but police are never notified.
23:55When Salim Asim disappears the following Easter, another poster goes up.
24:01He's from Turkey and moves to Toronto to marry his boyfriend.
24:05Their relationship did not last, but they were still in touch at the time of Salim's disappearance.
24:12And his ex was actually the one who ended up reporting Salim missing to police.
24:20And again, the community still had that level of fear as Salim's poster went up.
24:27Two months later, the level of fear in Toronto's gay community skyrockets.
24:33In June of 2017, right as Toronto's Pride Festival is going on, the preeminent event in the LGBTQ community, Andrew Kinsman goes missing.
24:47He is a pillar of the gay community in the city.
24:53Andrew was someone that I knew. He worked for the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation.
24:58He was heavily involved in community at that time, so we were at meetings together.
25:04He was someone who looked very intimidating.
25:06He's this six-foot-two, broad, white guy with his beard and his combat boots on.
25:13But a gentle giant is what he was, and everyone will describe him as that.
25:17Once he gets to know you, he's the most gentlest person that you will ever meet.
25:24Andrew Kinsman is not an immigrant.
25:27He's well known for his work in the community.
25:30And unlike the missing men before him, the response to his disappearance is quick and loud.
25:38He goes missing after Pride, and his friends had reported him missing.
25:42And then there was a huge campaign by the community, his friends and family coming together to do searches for him and raise the awareness of this man going missing within our community.
25:54I'm very concerned. It's been a week. This is not characteristic of Andrew's behavior at all.
25:59He's a generous, kind person, and he would not leave all of us hanging with us. He would let us know.
26:07And they're also putting significant pressure on police.
26:12And the police are prompted to take this disappearance very seriously and the disappearance of Saleem Assen that had happened just a few months before Andrew Kinsman.
26:26And from that pressure came the formation of a new special project that Toronto Police called Project Prism.
26:34One of the things that Toronto Police find in Andrew Kinsman's apartment when they're conducting a search are two shoe boxes that have been stuffed with cash, about $130,000.
26:56And you can imagine that that's quite a strong sign that he hadn't left by choice.
27:03Inside Andrew Kinsman's apartment, police ultimately home in on a really important detail.
27:10They see a calendar on Kinsman's fridge and they note that on the day that he disappeared, he had an appointment.
27:24At around two o'clock, he was supposed to meet a man named Bruce.
27:31Investigators check all security cameras in the area of Andrew Kinsman's apartment on the afternoon of June 26.
27:39So what they saw in that surveillance footage was a man who fit the description of Andrew Kinsman, tall and wearing clothes that Andrew had been wearing that day, getting into the van, a red Dodge Caravan.
27:58Police couldn't tell exactly what year it had been made, but they take a still image of the van to a dealership.
28:09They learn that it was a Dodge Caravan from 2004.
28:14They take that information and they see how many 2004 Dodge Caravans are licensed in the province.
28:24And they learn that there are 6,000, which is a long list.
28:29But when one of the detectives on the case searches the name that had been on Kinsman's calendar, Bruce,
28:37Bruce, and they end up finding five owners.
28:42Of those five Bruce's, there is only one that has a criminal history.
28:48And it's Bruce MacArthur.
28:53Back in 2016, there had been an incident that had been reported to police by a man who said that a man named Bruce had assaulted him in a red van.
29:03He'd gotten away, but he really truly believed he was fighting for his life.
29:10Bruce had, that same night, walked into a police station saying that he wanted to explain his side of the story.
29:18He was arrested for assault.
29:22Sister, if you would like to provide us with your account of what occurred earlier this evening.
29:25Well, we talked about going for dinner, and he said he needed to take a shower, so I said to meet him at the Tim Horton's at Finch and the Arthur's.
29:35He had explained, yes, we were hooking up.
29:39Yes, this happened.
29:40But I thought that he wanted it rough.
29:43And I thought, okay, he likes it rough.
29:45So I put my hand to his throat.
29:49And just for a few seconds, because before that, he was very strong.
29:57He just completely turned around and grabbed me by the throat.
30:02We had had sex, you know, numerous times. I never had a problem.
30:06Sure.
30:07Yeah.
30:09Okay.
30:10Okay.
30:11And as a result of that information, Bruce MacArthur was let go again.
30:16The time that I have is, uh, 10.28.
30:21I can't believe the interview here.
30:24August 2017, police begin tracking Bruce MacArthur.
30:29He's their prime suspect, but they do not release his name to the public.
30:33They see him coming and going in his red van, going to landscaping gigs, meeting with friends.
30:40What used to happen on some days, if I wasn't busy, I would go out and help unload the van or load it up, depending on what stage they were at.
30:49I met quite a few of the men who either worked with Bruce or were his guests.
30:54I wasn't clear on who was an employee and who was a guest visiting who just wanted to see what Bruce did for a living.
31:01You know, he traveled a lot in the Middle East, and maybe being a landscaper is sort of an unusual job in their country, so they were just coming along to watch, I thought.
31:11And then, all of a sudden, police notice that he's got a new van.
31:17And the red van that was such an important piece of evidence for them was missing.
31:25Frankly, they don't really have any other leads.
31:27So they end up having this meeting where one of the lead investigators says,
31:34we need to go out and find that van.
31:38Right now.
31:39Toronto, Canada 2017, police launched a desperate search for the van in which they believe Bruce McArthur murdered Andrew Kinsman.
31:58For weeks, they visit dealerships, body shops, and wrecking yards across the Greater Toronto Area.
32:07And finally, around Canadian Thanksgiving, police get a break.
32:13They get lucky.
32:15They talk to the owner of an auto wrecking company who says, yeah, we have this van.
32:21They are very fortunate that it hasn't been crushed, that it hasn't been stripped of any of its parts.
32:34They have finally on their hands an incredible piece of evidence, which is the red Dodge Caravan that had been driven by Bruce McArthur.
32:46So police had lost this van once. They did not want to lose it again.
32:51And so they towed it from the wrecking yard and they followed behind all the way down the highway,
32:57taking it to the Center for Forensic Sciences.
33:02When the forensic evidence comes back, it's incredibly important.
33:08They are able to determine that there are bits of Andrew Kinsman's blood inside the van.
33:14But it's not so simple because the amount of blood was not significant and police knew that in the hands of the right criminal defense lawyer,
33:31they would be able to explain away why Andrew Kinsman's blood was in the van.
33:36They need more physical evidence to prove that he had, in fact, murdered him.
33:45And so police, they apply to a judge to do something quite invasive.
33:50Police get permission through a warrant to be able to go into Bruce McArthur's apartment secretly, covertly, and search and see if they can find any physical proof.
34:05It's December and Bruce is still working, but there's a blanket of snow on the ground and his schedule is suddenly unpredictable.
34:19They're following him and they believe that he will be out for some time.
34:25And so the decision is made to go into the apartment.
34:32He was taking a client out for her birthday.
34:35He picked up a lot of his wealthy clients, quite elderly women, a lot of them.
34:40He said, I'm their beast of burden. They just keep handing presents to me.
34:45He drove them around town. He gave them wonderful Christmas presents.
34:53They're searching his bedroom.
34:59And they are focusing in on his computer.
35:03And they start doing something called cloning, which is essentially making a copy of his hard drive.
35:09And taking its contents to be able to search through them later.
35:17And so they're about 45% of the way through getting the contents of his computer when they find out that he's actually on his way back.
35:27Having him discover that they were actually in there might be fatal to their investigation.
35:36So they have to cover their tracks.
35:40And they have to immediately get out of the apartment.
35:44Police only have about half the computer's contents, but that's enough to get started.
35:58Soon enough, they find pictures of Andrew Kinsman and of Skanda Navaratnam.
36:04But they're pictures from much happier times, from when they were alive.
36:14And it's not necessarily a smoking gun.
36:17So they continue scouring through the contents of this computer for weeks.
36:22They're working through Christmas.
36:23So they start taking a different approach and are looking for images through a different kind of software that allows them to find deleted images.
36:38And that breaks the investigation wide open.
36:44What they end up finding is devastating.
36:48They find a photo of Saleem Essin.
36:52He is in Bruce MacArthur's apartment on his bed.
36:59He is deceased.
37:04This is the first time that Toronto police have direct evidence that Saleem Essin is dead and that Bruce MacArthur is involved.
37:14As they continue their investigation, they find more photos.
37:22The next one they find is of Andrew Kinsman.
37:25The dead victims are dressed in a fur coat and they're posed in humiliating positions.
37:33The photos have never been publicly released for fear of re-traumatizing the victims' families.
37:39They are a chilling discovery for police who recognize them as a serial killer's trophies.
37:47They know that they have to arrest him as soon as possible.
37:52So they have a frantic meeting where they talk about the logistics of how they're gonna arrest him and ensure that they secure all of the evidence possible.
38:06They decide they'll need a couple of days.
38:08And in the meantime, what is absolutely critical is that they do not allow Bruce MacArthur to be alone with anybody.
38:18They have to have him under constant surveillance.
38:20On the morning of January 18th, just one day before police plan to arrest Bruce MacArthur, a complication.
38:30Their surveillance team picks up on Bruce MacArthur getting in his van with another man.
38:37Police learn their prime suspect in a series of murders targeting gay men is on the move.
38:58His name? Bruce MacArthur. Police have MacArthur under surveillance, but now they fear he's driving another potential victim to his apartment.
39:10They realize they need to immediately arrest him.
39:19There is potentially a life that's on the line.
39:22And so all of a sudden, they are rushing, they are speeding over to his apartment, and they are fighting against time to get there before he can do anything rash.
39:32By the time police reach the building, Bruce MacArthur and his companion have already gone upstairs.
39:39Police head up to his apartment, and they're ready to just push in that door.
39:46But first they knock, and MacArthur ends up answering the door.
39:53And investigators tell him that he is under arrest for the murder of Andrew Kinsman and Saleem Essin.
40:00He doesn't seem surprised.
40:05And then when detectives go into his bedroom, they make quite a discovery.
40:12They find a man who was handcuffed.
40:18He was naked.
40:20And he also had a black hood that had been placed on his head.
40:25But he was alive.
40:27The man on the bed very well could have been victim number nine.
40:38Right after MacArthur is arrested, police fan out to all the properties that are connected to him through his landscaping.
40:46And very soon, they focus in on 53 Mallory Crescent, where he had kept his landscaping equipment.
40:55It was a very cold day. It was a cold winter, actually.
40:59I was getting up when there was a pounding on the door, and I was surprised they didn't break the glass on such a cold day.
41:10So I pulled the door open, and there were two guys in navy blue.
41:16I thought maybe they were police, but it didn't really look like a uniform.
41:21The man kept saying, are you Karen Fraser?
41:24Yes.
41:26Well, you have to leave your house now.
41:28A terrible crime has been committed, and Bruce MacArthur is being arrested.
41:34It's like my brain split in two.
41:37It seemed almost impossible.
41:39I guess part of my brain had decided that I must... I didn't hear that right.
41:43So he repeated it.
41:45So I said, okay, and then we left.
41:47And we didn't know that we wouldn't be back for 23 days.
41:50Of course, we defended Bruce MacArthur for several days because he'd only been arrested.
42:00And he'd been a friend for 15 years.
42:04You don't kick a friend under the bus.
42:08When police search Karen Fraser's property, they bring in cadaver dogs.
42:13The dogs show immediate interest in Karen's flower pots.
42:20When I went in to be questioned, it was the police at 51 Division.
42:24We sat there for hours.
42:26When the police fanned out photographs on the table in front of me
42:31and said, do you know any of these men?
42:35And I said, the man on the left, that's Skanda.
42:39I met Skanda once for 10 minutes, like eight years before.
42:46And I remembered his name and I remembered everything about him.
42:48That's the kind of guy he was.
42:51He was delightful, smart, charming.
42:58I did remember Hamid as well.
43:01Well, I call him Hamid because I feel like I know these men now.
43:05He, he was an employee and Hamid had the most fabulous smile.
43:12You know, the crinkly-eyed smile.
43:15Very attractive man.
43:17Looked very pleasant.
43:21And I said to the officer, may I ask what the crime is?
43:27No one had said.
43:28They said, yes, he's been arrested for the murder of two men.
43:37The contents of the flower pots are frozen solid, but x-rays are taken and analyzed.
43:44About three days later, one of the detectives who we were getting to know quite well at that point just said,
43:54stop wasting your sympathy on that guy.
43:58I don't think we've ever had more evidence on a killer than we've got on that guy.
44:05Oh.
44:08Okay.
44:11We stopped defending him.
44:13Eventually, the frozen skeletal remains of seven innocent men will be discovered in those flower pots.
44:23The eighth victim's remains are found elsewhere there on Karen Frazier's property.
44:28It is the worst serial murder case in Toronto history.
44:35When I found out what was in the planters, the evidence of his terrible crimes in my backyard, it certainly confirmed he's a monster.
44:47When the news broke around how these individuals were found and where they were found, cut up and planted in pots, people were just disgusted.
45:04People were angry.
45:06People were just sad, you know, that someone could be so cruel and inhumane.
45:10In speaking with the families, they were angry at MacArthur.
45:15They just didn't understand why he did what he did.
45:19But they were more angry at the system for letting this happen to their families.
45:25Like, how did the system let this happen to my child?
45:30Or my brother.
45:35And then when you hear family members say things like, I wonder if he felt anything?
45:45What do you say to that?
45:46And so it was those kinds of questions and fear that really rested within community and within definitely the families, which was the tragic part.
46:01What do you say to that?
46:04Bruce MacArthur waives his right to a preliminary hearing on January 18, 2019.
46:11He pleads guilty to eight counts, first degree murder.
46:17MacArthur gets an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole.
46:23This is Canada's longest sentence.
46:25Bruce MacArthur shows no remorse in court and he has never said another word publicly.
46:34As for Karen Frazier, despite the evil MacArthur showed the world, she remains positive.
46:41She and her husband continue their Christmas volunteer work.
46:46Oddly, it hasn't changed us at all.
46:49It just confirmed most people are wonderful.
46:57We have people from across the country who sent us cards.
47:01Some of them shared scary times that they have been through that they felt that they could really empathize with us.
47:09It just confirmed that you have to keep going.
47:19It's a shocking end to Toronto's biggest serial murder investigation.
47:29A group of men who are among the city's most vulnerable meet tragic fates at the hand of a monster.
47:39I'm Nancy Grace.
47:41Thank you for being with us here on The Christmas Killings.
47:49To be continued...
47:50To be continued...
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