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

Contents:

• CRACKG THE TORONTO GAY VILLAGE SERIAL KILLER CASE: HOW BCE MCARTHUR WAS FALLY CGHT
• BCE MCARTHUR: GAY VILLAGE SERIAL KILLER GETS LIFE SENTENCE
• SERIAL KILLER WHO STALKED AND TERRORIZED TORONTO’S GAY VILLAGE SENTENCED TO LIFE
• IN 'LAST CALL', A SERIAL KILLER TARGETS MANHATTAN'S '90S GAY BARS. INSI THE TE STORY
• SERIAL KILLER DOCERI 'LAST CALL' RECKONS WH NYC'S HISTORY OF ANTI-GAY VLENCE
• BCE MCARTHUR: TORONTO SERIAL KILLER STROYED GAY SAFE SPACE
• UNEXPECTED VICTIM MAY HAVE REVEALED CANADA'S 'GAY VILLAGE' SERIAL KILLER

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

He worked for partment stor as a buyer's assistant his twenti an area which later beme known as a gay village. He moved to Toronto and regularly spent time the gay village while enterg to relatnships wh men. He plead guilty to murrg eight men between 2010 and 2017, who had all disappeared whout a trace om Toronto's Gay Village district.

The 67-year-old serial killer had plead guilty to the murrs of eight men om Toronto’s gay village between 2010 and 2017. NBC News lled him "Canada's 'Gay Village' serial killer, " sce the seven years before his arrt, he had murred at least eight men nnected one way or another to the Church and Wellley neighborhood, the cy's gay enclave.

BCE MCARTHUR: GAY VILLAGE SERIAL KILLER GETS LIFE SENTENCE

Ksman was well known the neighborhood for his gay rights activism and his time tendg bar at a popular Church and Wellley waterg hole, and his iends drew attentn to his disappearance by postg flyers wh his picture on them. At the time, they were livg Oshawa, a small cy east up the ast of Lake Ontar om Toronto, where there was no such thg as a gay scene. When Bce left Janice 1998 or 1999, unr amible circumstanc, he moved to Toronto to beg his new life as an out gay man.

McArthur also began explorg his newfound sexual eedom by equentg Toronto's gay district, the Church and Wellley neighborhood, but he soon began to show that he was not as jolly as the red velvet su would lead one to believe. He was actually exiled om the Gay Village 2003, after he ed a metal pipe to asslt a man there 2001. From 2010 to 2017, gay men had been disappearg alarmg numbers om Toronto’s lively gay village.

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

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. ”Toronto police had already been banned 2017 om the Gay Pri para, followg lobbyg om Toronto’s chapter of Black Liv Matter. 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.

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.

IN 'LAST CALL', A SERIAL KILLER TARGETS MANHATTAN'S '90S GAY BARS. INSI THE TE STORY

McArthur had been brought to the attentn of lol police 2002, when he was arrted for attackg a gay prostute wh a metal bar. 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. 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.

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.

SERIAL KILLER DOCERI 'LAST CALL' RECKONS WH NYC'S HISTORY OF ANTI-GAY VLENCE

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.

“For both gay men the 1970s and queer people of lour today, the police have been enforcers but not protectors. ”Homophobic atmosphereThe difficult relatnship between Toronto’s gay muny and police force cis wh reports of missg gay men gog back s.

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?

BCE MCARTHUR: TORONTO SERIAL KILLER STROYED GAY SAFE SPACE

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. If you were married and lived the suburbs – and you were gay – you had to hook up on your lunch break.

Photograph: Frank Lennon/Toronto Star/GettyThe nstant harassment by police reach the boilg pot 1981, when 200 police officers scend on four gay bathho. Like the Stonewall rts New York, the bathhoe raids igned a fury that led to the cy’s morn gay pri movement.

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. Idsga, who joed police servic 1989, acknowledg will take time to rega the tst of the gay muny. ” He pots out that he was recently sld by a reporter for g the exprsn “gay liftyle”, and promis: “I will avoid the term om now on.

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

”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.

”There has always been a small muny of gay men who thrill at risky sex, bondage, huiatn and even torture. 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.