In this season of Unver: The Village, reporter Jt Lg reveals the history of unsolved murr and missg-persons s Toronto’s Gay Village.
Contents:
- THE STORY BEHD UNSOLVED MURRS TORONTO'S GAY VILLAGE
- THE MURRS THAT HNTED TORONTO’S GAYBORHOOD FOR THE PAST DE—AND A CHAT WH THE JOURNALIST WHO COVERED THEM
- MEN KEPT GOG MISSG FROM TORONTO’S GAY VILLAGE — WHY DID POLICE DENY THERE WAS A SERIAL KILLER?
THE STORY BEHD UNSOLVED MURRS TORONTO'S GAY VILLAGE
* gay village toronto missing *
How did serial killer Bce McArthur get away wh murrg several gay, brown-skned men Toronto’s gay village? It happened before: the Toronto gay village killgs. Front BurnerIn this season of Unver: The Village, reporter Jt Lg reveals the history of unsolved murr and missg-persons s Toronto’s Gay Burner21:56The story behd unsolved murrs Toronto's gay villageWhen men started disappearg om Toronto's Gay Village, people the muny there worried a serial killer uld be rponsible.
The s that eventually led to McArthur's nvictn spurred reporter Jt Lg to dig eper to a seri of unsolved murr and missg-persons s Toronto's Gay Village. The tersectn of Church and Wellley, Toronto's Gay Village. Beme more aware of, and outraged about, ntued attacks (cludg fatal on) on transgenr women of lor, Canada was nsumed wh s own queer crisis: the disappearance of at least eight men who equented Toronto’s closely kn Gay Village area—six of them immigrants and refuge om the Middle East or South Asia.
It had long failed to nnect so many obv dots, to pursue a theory that many the Gay Village had known their guts for some time: That there was a serial killer afoot, one who preyed particularly on vulnerable, margalized men whose disappearanc would not e too much social uproar.
THE MURRS THAT HNTED TORONTO’S GAYBORHOOD FOR THE PAST DE—AND A CHAT WH THE JOURNALIST WHO COVERED THEM
For years, rints of the Village, an LGBTQ-iendly enclave Toronto, spected there was a serial killer their midst. From 2010 to 2017, several men the neighborhood vanished. Missg persons posters plastered the siwalks. A sense of unease pervad the Village, acrdg to “Catchg A Serial Killer: Bce McArthur,” a new special on Oxygen. Dpe the rash of disappearanc and the siari between the missg men — many were of Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern scent, all were gay, all vanished wh the same area — Toronto police refuted the ia of a serial killer even jt several weeks before the arrt of Bce McArthur, a 60-somethg landsper and ocsnal mall Santa who was eventually nvicted of murrg eight men. "We follow the evince, and the evince tells that's not the se right now. The evince today tells there's not a serial killer,” Police Chief Mark Snrs said December 2017, the Toronto Star reported at the time. The Toronto police was heavily cricized by the public for this cisn, wh many claimg racism and homophobia hampered the vtigatn, and others sayg uld’ve saved liv if thori hadn’t downplayed the ia there was a serial killer the area, as seen the special. In fact, June 2018, an pennt review began of how Toronto police review missg persons s, and whether police’s vtigatns uld have been “tated by systemic bias or discrimatn,” acrdg to a 2019 Toronto Star article. Sasha Reid, a Universy of Toronto PhD ndidate specializg statistil analysis of missg persons and sexually motivated killers, told CTV News 2018 that she had warned Toronto police a serial killer was preyg on men the Village a year earlier. While creatg her own missg persons database she noticed strikg siari between some of the vanished men. “At a certa pot, you know that there is a serial killer operatg. Studyg serial homici for over 10 years now, you learn not to ignore patterns,” Reid said. “I got terted maybe creatg a reverse profile. So I ed victim data to create a crimal profile for the police, and armed wh that data, I gave them a ll.” Authori thanked her for the data, but that was the end of the nversatn, said Reid. Universy of Toronto associate profsor of soclogy Jooyoung Lee also spoke about the possibily of a serial killer an terview wh 2017, sayg the disappearanc have “all the signs of what we typilly see” serial murrs. “Any time you have a llectn of missg persons s … that ually is a kd of warng sign. And sort of fs to the narrative of a lot of other [serial homici] s,” Lee said. “Jefey Dahmer, for example, ed to hunt for his victims gay bath ho and gay bars Milwkee.” Police acknowledged they were gettg many lls reportg spicns a serial killer was stalkg the area, the outlet noted, but did not label the missg persons s as a strg of serial killgs until McArthur’s pture. Why? Well, Toronto thori have long mataed there was no actual evince potg toward a serial killer, which is they never told the public one may exist. "We've always had that feelg," Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsga told CBC News 2018. "Until I have that evince, I n't say . And that's what we dig for […] It's easy to say hdsight now 'well, you should have known somethg is up.' Well, we did know that somethg was up, we jt didn't know what was and we didn't have any evince of what was gog on.” There wasn’t even any evince, Idsga emphasized to the Toronto Star that same year, a crime had been mted. After all, there were no bodi found. The men were simply gone. Two other people who had vanished around that time ame weren’t victims of foul play at all — one died by suici and the other eventually turned up jt fe. “You never know what the end rult is gog to be. Jt bee somebody’s missg don’t mean they’ve been murred. First you have to tablish that there’s been a crimal offense and then ci what his role is that offense beg vtigated. Was he a spect, was he a wns, was he a victim?” Idsga said. Police Chief Snrs mataed that fense, tellg CP24 2018, "As soon as that evince was received that had the abily to make an arrt we exercised what we had to do […] “The evince was prented to at that particular moment was very accurate. In the urtroom the storyl will play out and will articulate exactly what happened, what we knew and what we did wh and based on that did we do the right thg or the wrong thg. I’m fortable wh the vtigatn.” However, he then sparked fury wh ments ma that same year when he told reporters, “We knew that people were missg and we knew we didn’t have the right answers, but nobody was g to wh anythg,” acrdg to a 2018 The Guardian article. Some took his remark as blamg the muny for not stoppg McArthur’s attacks, stead of acknowledgg police error. Outrage was further stoked when was eventually revealed McArthur, who had already been nvicted of asslt wh a weapon 2001 after attackg a sex worker wh a pipe, had been acced of stranglg a man durg a sexual enunter 2016, acrdg to the Toronto Star. McArthur had turned himself to the police after the victim lled 911 and he was then released whout charg, the outlet reported. McArthur had been spoken to by thori already the se when he was acced of vlence 2016 — 2013, police had found a nnectn between him and the first three men to go missg: Skandaraj "Skanda" Navaratnam, Abdulbasir "Basir" Faizi, and Majeed "Hamid" Kayhan, CBC News reported 2019. McArthur was then terviewed as a wns, where he admted to havg had a sexual relatnship wh Kayhan and a social relatnship wh Navaratnam, but nied knowg Faizi. Sgt. Pl Gthier, who was the officer who let McArthur go, was later h wh disciplary charg of subordatn and neglect of duty relatn to his handlg of the accatn, CTV News reported 2019. He has sce pled not guilty and is awag the oute of the se. In June 2018, amid the anger and tratn wh the Toronto Police, an pennt review led by retired judge Gloria Epste to the way the partment handled missg persons s began. The review end November 2020 after speakg wh over 1,200 people, and the full report as well as Epste’s remendatns will be released some time early 2021, Toronto Cy News reported at the time. McArthur was sentenced to life prison 2019 for the murrs of Selim Esen, Soroh Mahmudi, Dean Lisowick, Abdulbasir Faizi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Andrew Ksman, Kishna Kanagaratnam, and Majeed Kayhan. For more on this se, watch Oxygen’s new special, “Catchg A Killer: Bce McArthur.” * gay village toronto missing *
Montreal-based Jt Lg, a longtime gay eelance journalist for outlets cludg Vice, The Guardian, and Canada’s Globe and Mail and Natnal Post, stayed on the story for much of the past five years, ntug to n down leads and make nnectns among the murrs even when the police were not.
MEN KEPT GOG MISSG FROM TORONTO’S GAY VILLAGE — WHY DID POLICE DENY THERE WAS A SERIAL KILLER?
In Toronto the summer of 2013, there was a ubiquo feelg that a serial killer was targetg the [Gay] Village, and that moment, the police were actually takg serly, g out and sayg that they had three lked s. Dpe the rash of disappearanc and the siari between the missg men — many were of Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern scent, all were gay, all vanished wh the same area — Toronto police refuted the ia of a serial killer even jt several weeks before the arrt of Bce McArthur, a 60-somethg landsper and ocsnal mall Santa who was eventually nvicted of murrg eight men.