Unexpected victim may have revealed Canada's 'Gay Village' serial killer

Contents:

• BCE MCARTHUR: GAY VILLAGE SERIAL KILLER GETS LIFE SENTENCE
• BCE MCARTHUR: TORONTO SERIAL KILLER STROYED GAY SAFE SPACE
• WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE TORONTO MAN CHARGED WH MURRG TWO GAY MEN
• CRACKG THE TORONTO GAY VILLAGE SERIAL KILLER CASE: HOW BCE MCARTHUR WAS FALLY CGHT
• LANDSPER PLEADS GUILTY MURRS THAT SHOOK TORONTO’S GAY COMMUNY
• UNEXPECTED VICTIM MAY HAVE REVEALED CANADA'S 'GAY VILLAGE' SERIAL KILLER
• SERIAL KILLER WHO STALKED AND TERRORIZED TORONTO’S GAY VILLAGE SENTENCED TO LIFE
• ANTI-GAY BIAS HRED TORONTO POLICE AS A SERIAL KILLER ROAMED
• MCARTHUR VTIGATN HAS SPURRED 'PROMISG' LEADS HOMICI LD S TORONTO'S GAY VILLAGE
• 30 YEARS LATER, MONTREAL'S GAY MUNY REFLECTS ON THE MURR OF JOE ROSE

BCE MCARTHUR: GAY VILLAGE SERIAL KILLER GETS LIFE SENTENCE

McArthur will not be eligible for parole before he is source, Toronto Police/BBCImage ptn, Clockwise om upper left: Selim Esen, Andrew Ksman, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Kishna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Soroh MahmudiMost of his victims had ti to Toronto's Gay Village neighbourhood, as did McArthur were Selim Esen, Andrew Ksman, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Kishna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, Skandaraj Navaratnam and Soroh Mahmudi. Image source, FacebookImage ptn, Bce McArthur was arrted on 18 JanuaryFor years, there were whispers Toronto's gay muny about a serial killer stalkg the muny. Now that one of their own has plead guilty to the murrs of eight missg men, they wonr why the police didn't act a small park the heart of Toronto's Gay Village, about 200 people assembled the snow to mourn the victims of an alleged serial wore armbands pated wh the words "love", "heal", "rise", "grieve".

BCE MCARTHUR: TORONTO SERIAL KILLER STROYED GAY SAFE SPACE

He knew he was gay om a young age, but tried to ignore , urt documents for an asslt charge would later grandfather and father of two me out his 40s after abptly leavg his fay Oshawa and movg to Toronto, where he beme a regular the Gay Zipperz, one of the bars equented by many of his alleged victims, he uld often be found stg at the bar, havg a drk or chattg up a fellow patron. In 2003 he was given a two-year ndnal sentence for assltg a male prostute wh a metal source, BBC SportImage ptn, An attene at the vigil wears an armband wh the word "love"As part of his sentence, he was required to stay away om male prostut, the Gay Village and rea om g amyl nre, also known as was close wh several of his landspg clients. Kishna Kumar Kanagaratnam, 37, January 2016Dean Lisowick, 47, April 2016Selim Esen, 44, April 2017Andrew Ksman, 49, June 2017Image ptn, Toronto's Gay VillageUnanswered qutnsPolice have not said how Bce McArthur beme a spect the killgs.

Image source, FacebookImage ptn, Friends hung posters of Andrew Ksman around the Village and CabbagetownThen June 2017, Ksman's disappearance sparked a muny-wi search and rekdled mours of a serial killer the gay after, police lnched a send task force, to look to both Ksman and Esen's as late as December that year, Toronto police were publicly sayg there was "no evince" of a serial nial has damaged an already agile relatnship between the Toronto LGBT muny and the ptn, Street art Toronto's Gay VillageUnanswered qutns still hnt Haran Vijayanathan, executive director of the Alliance for South Asian Aids Preventn, who has been speakg on behalf of many of the victims. Some argued that police were too slow to warn the muny of a possible serial killer, sayg liv uld have been make matters worse, Toronto police appeared to put some blame on the gay muny for the killgs when chief Mark Snrs told reporters that they might have ught McArthur sooner had rints of the gay village been more forthg. Their requt to participate 2018 was, April, a move that some have terpreted as an acknowledgment of their neglect of the gay muny, police announced that they were reopeng 25 ld s – all murrs associated wh Toronto’s gay date om 1997 all the way back to no one is suggtg is Santa to serial killerWhile vtigators are still velopg a profile of the alleged serial killer, they are certa of one thg.

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE TORONTO MAN CHARGED WH MURRG TWO GAY MEN

His age, as well as his unthreateng appearance – round featur and a broad, cheery se – ma him seem approachable to children shoppg wh their parents, as well as to gay men seekg a dark sexual enunter wh someone they uld McArthur a photo posted on a social media acunt. Photograph: RtersAfter divorcg his wife, McArthur, who had been active on his church board Oshawa, east of Toronto, beme a regular the cy’s gay village. He was sentenced 2003 to two years probatn and told to stay away om the gay 2010, reports started to e through of men gog missg om the village.

CRACKG THE TORONTO GAY VILLAGE SERIAL KILLER CASE: HOW BCE MCARTHUR WAS FALLY CGHT

The first, Skandaraj Navaratnam, rts particularly heavily on the md of Haran Vijayanathan, executive director of the Alliance for South Asian Aids Preventn (ASAAP) men are Sri Lankan, Ta and gay.

LANDSPER PLEADS GUILTY MURRS THAT SHOOK TORONTO’S GAY COMMUNY

Jt as gay men om North Bay and Moose Jaw flocked to Toronto the 1970s to live ee and open liv, a new generatn of gay men om south Asia and the Middle East have been drawn to Canada the last 20 years for the same reasons. Gay men – particularly gay refuge or other relatively new Canadians – f to a populatn that clus prostut, aborigal women and then there is what Lee refers to as “missg whe woman syndrome”: the ia that police, media and the public are ls cled to pay attentn to crim that are perpetrated on margalized muni.

Vijayanathan, who is one of the most outspoken crics of how Toronto let s gay muny down, sists that police only took the vtigatns serly when Andrew Ksman, one of two whe victims, was reported he also pots to racism wh the gay muny – parg the massive lol search mounted after the reported disappearance of the other whe victim, Andrew Ksman, wh the slower and ls hive rponse to the disappearanc of the brown-skned victims. Vijayanathan also believ the fai of some of the missg immigrant men failed to report their some s, he says, the disappearanc were the first time fay members learned their relative was gay (or MSM, men who have sex wh men but don’t intify as gay). For example, Kishna Kumar Kanagaratnam was a Ta refugee who me to Canada 2016 and was never reported missg, and after Navaratnam’s refugee claim was nied he rarely left the nf of the gay village.

“Throughout our history, people have e to the cy as a refuge and a place to explore their sexualy – often whout the knowledge of their fay and iends, ” says Tom Hooper, a York Universy historian who has voted much of his studi to the gay experience Toronto the Hooper also pots the fger at police. Seven of those s rema btal stabbg ath of William Dunn Robson at his home November 1978 me shortly after the popular 1970s gay magaze the Body Polic to qutn the sluggish police rponse to the strg of murrs, and the official stance that they were unrelated: “Could they have been mted by one man?

UNEXPECTED VICTIM MAY HAVE REVEALED CANADA'S 'GAY VILLAGE' SERIAL KILLER

Crics dispute that theory by potg to a very different manner of executn and body disposal: the 1970s murrs were mostly stabbgs, and the victims were left where they were is disputable is that police never ught the killer, or killers – and ’s hardly a stretch to image that they didn’t feel much prsure to do so the homophobic atmosphere of the was a holiday tradn each Halloween durg the 1960s and 70s for Toronto rints to tnt gay men, pecially drag queens, as they entered bars on Yonge Street like the St Charl Tavern and the Parksi. They pelted eggs, which turned to rocks, which turned to beatgs on darkened si mostly looked the other way, rells the Rev Brent Hawk, a longtime lear of the cy’s gay rights movement who was once himself rtraed on a siwalk by two officers as a third punched him.

Photograph: Frank Lennon/Toronto Star/GettyThe nstant harassment by police reach the boilg pot 1981, when 200 police officers scend on four gay bathho.

SERIAL KILLER WHO STALKED AND TERRORIZED TORONTO’S GAY VILLAGE SENTENCED TO LIFE

Photograph: Ian Willms/Getty ImagBut even as Toronto’s more tablished gay muny gas strength, new arrivals ntue to lead margal, vulnerable Hank Idsga, 50, the lead vtigator on the most high-profile of murr s, is keenly aware of media cricism that police did not take the missg persons reports or speculatn of a serial killer serly bee the men were gay and mostly brown-skned. ”The cisn to open the ld s – Idsga timat the number of unrolved s of murred gay men at 20 or more – is a belated attempt to make somethg very wrong at least a b more right.

A former Mr Leatherman Toronto, Cribb told Global TV a wi-rangg terview that he felt fortable submtg to McArthur’s wish bee he looked so even brought up the mour of a serial killer attackg gay men Toronto, but says McArthur didn’t McArthur, Cribb has a tough appearance: sleeve tattoos, a black beard and a thick nose rg. Photograph: Bernard Weil/Toronto Star via Getty ImagBut as well as gettg to the head of McArthur, means tryg to heal a rift wh the gay muny that stretch back Sunday’s otherwise jubiliant Pri para will end wh a ntgent of anizers drsed black, to pay rpect to the victims of the killer and to all LGBTQ people who don’t feel safe their own some the gay muny argue that this is a time for healg – and that police participatn is ccial if the gay muny is gog to move forward – Black Liv Matter is not so eager to five, sistg that banng uniformed officers is a need prott agast broar police neglect and abe.

He also exprs sympathy for the many LGBTQ members on Toronto’s police force who ually enjoy marchg uniform the says he has wnsed the growg matury of the partment over the s – wh an emphasis placed on sensivy trag and recg gay officers, cludg an openly lbian puty chief. Unlike the recent disappearance of men om downtown Toronto’s “Gay Village, ” a neighbourhood marked wh rabow street signs, the men were attacked along Wdsor’s dimly l wateront.

ANTI-GAY BIAS HRED TORONTO POLICE AS A SERIAL KILLER ROAMED

In the volatile, exuberant and fearls climate of the gay and women’s liberatn movements, homosexuals put the police on notice: they served to be served and protected. When me to gay people, Toronto’s force assigned more staff to harass men who cised for sex than to solve the disappearanc and murrs of gay men.

MCARTHUR VTIGATN HAS SPURRED 'PROMISG' LEADS HOMICI LD S TORONTO'S GAY VILLAGE

The Body Polic reporter Rob Hardy terviewed police tectiv and spectors who said they pend on members of Toronto’s gay muni (approximately 200, 000 the 1970s) to help solve the s. Here a member of the gay muny, wearg a sign statg ‘Fascism is alive and well and breedg Toronto’, pass a police officer as he leav a police missn hearg on the raids Febary 1981.

30 YEARS LATER, MONTREAL'S GAY MUNY REFLECTS ON THE MURR OF JOE ROSE

In the early 1980s, police dragged relatns wh Toronto’s gay muny to a low pot after they lnched “Operatn Soap, ” a terrorizg asslt on four bathho. If McArthur began to prey on homosexuals his 20s, the typil age at which serial killers start to m homicis, was he rponsible for the unsolved murrs of men the 1970s, when he worked downtown Toronto? Over the next three years, three more men lked to the cy’s gay neighborhood vanished, cludg Soroh Mahmudi, 50, Kishna Kumar Kanagaratnam, 37, and Dean Lisowick, 47.

29, 2019OTTAWA — A Toronto landsper plead guilty to eight murrs on Tuday a se that trmatized the gay muny Canada’s largt landsper, Bce McArthur, 67, was arrted a year ago and ially charged wh killg six men, dismemberg them and hidg the piec planters on the property of a client who allowed him to store tools there. David Dickson of the homici squad told McArthur’s se opened a rift between Toronto’s police force and many members of the cy’s gay about eight years, activists say, the police were unterted vigoroly pursug missg persons s volvg gay men or members of mory groups and around a strip of Church Street led wh bs terg to gays, and dismissed fears that a serial killer was at of the victims were of South Asian or Middle Eastern scent. A retired judge is now examg how the Toronto police handle missg persons reports, although she is not reviewg the actns of the police the McArthur ill will has brought relatns between Toronto’s gay muny and the police to a low not seen sce 1981, when the force staged raids of four bathho and arrted more than 300 men, then the largt mass arrt the cy’s of the people charged then were subjected to tnts by police officers about their sexualy.

Large protts followed the raids, and the cint has e to be seen as a pivotal moment Canada’s gay rights McArthur plead guilty to the first-gree murrs of Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, Andrew Ksman, Majeed Kayhan, Soroh Mahmudi, Kishna Kumar Kanagaratnam, Dean Lisowick and Selim of his victims vanished between 2010 and McArthur’s sentencg was schled for Feb.

”A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 4 of the New York edn wh the headle: Toronto Man Pleads Guilty To 8 Murrs In Gay District. "There's a part of me that says Bce wanted to get ught bee he broke that pattern of preyg on the vulnerable, " said Haran Vijayanathan, a muny activist and the executive director of the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Preventn set up a special task force to look to the disappearanc of men the "Gay Village" area of Toronto shortly after Ksman went missg. Tryg to terme why, his Mlim fay accsed his puter and was shocked to disver he had been secretly gog to bathho the Gay Village and was on gay datg apps for olr and large men wh nam such as "SilverDaddi" and "Bear411" — s police later lked to McArthur as they then went to police, officers suggted he had probably jt left, the relative said.