Bruce McArthur

Thomas Donald Bruce McArthur, or Bruce McArthur, was born on October 8, 1951, in Lindsay, Ontario, and was raised on a farm in Argyle, near Woodville in the Kawartha Lakes region.

In addition to raising McArthur and his sister, his parents fostered troubled children from Toronto, often with six to ten in their care at any given time, and had a good reputation in the area according to a family friend.

A young McArthur attended a one-room schoolhouse outside Woodville.

A classmate recalled him trying to be the teacher's pet and informing on mischief by the other boys, with whom he did not fit in.

He was also known for winning singing contests.

McArthur's mother was Irish Catholic and his father a Scottish Presbyterian; both were devout, causing arguments in which McArthur supported his mother.

This led to derision from his strict father, who McArthur later felt may have sensed his homosexuality.

McArthur had trouble accepting his sexual orientation, which would have been seen as abnormal in rural Ontario at that time.

A few blocks north from McArthur's workplace, a gay village was forming on Yonge Street between College and Wellesley streets, same-sex adult sexual behaviour having been decriminalized in 1969.

McArthur was bussed to nearby Fenelon Falls Secondary School for his secondary education, where he met and began dating Janice Campbell, both graduating in 1970.

McArthur later graduated from a program in general business and married Campbell when he was aged 23.

In the mid-1970s, McArthur's father was diagnosed with a brain tumour and was sent to a nursing home.

McArthur became disappointed when his mother took interest in another man and grew much closer to his father at this time.

McArthur began working for the Eaton's department store chain as a buyer's assistant around 1973, in a downtown Toronto building later demolished for construction of the Eaton Centre.

McArthur left Eaton's in 1978 and began working as a travelling salesman for McGregor Socks, soliciting department stores to carry his merchandise.

He later worked as a merchandising representative for Stanfield's, a garment company.

His mother died of cancer in 1978 and his father died in 1981.

In 1979, McArthur and his wife moved into a house on Ormond Drive in Oshawa; by 1981 they had a daughter, Melanie, and a son, Todd.

In 1986, the family bought a home on Cartref Avenue in Oshawa.

McArthur became very active in his church, keeping himself busy to avoid examining his homosexual feelings.

McArthur began having sexual affairs with men in the early 1990s.

More than a year later he came out to his wife but they continued living together.

Sometime after 1993, McArthur's employment in the clothing trade came to an end and the couple faced financial difficulty, in part due to legal issues connected to their then-teenaged son, Todd, who was obsessively making obscene phone calls to women he did not know.

The couple mortgaged their home in 1997 and declared bankruptcy in 1999.

McArthur separated from his wife in 1997 and moved to Toronto, as there was no gay community in Oshawa at that time.

He frequented the bars of Church and Wellesley, Toronto's gay village, and moved into an apartment on Don Mills Road while pursuing a four-year relationship with another man.

When they broke up and his divorce was being finalized, McArthur saw a psychiatrist and was prescribed Prozac for several months.

At about this time he was attempting to gain work as a landscaper.

Just after noon on October 31, 2001, a few weeks after his 50th birthday, McArthur followed actor and model Mark Henderson into his apartment building after being invited into Henderson's apartment to see his Halloween costume.

McArthur struck Henderson several times from behind with an iron pipe that he often carried.

Henderson fought back before losing consciousness.

He called 9-1-1 when he awoke and was taken to St. Michael's Hospital.

He had suffered injuries to his head and body and needed several stitches on the back of his head and his fingers, as well as six weeks of physiotherapy.

McArthur, who turned himself in after the attack, said he did not remember the incident or why he might have done it.

Between 2010 and 2017, a total of eight men disappeared from the neighbourhood of Church and Wellesley, the LGBTQ village of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The investigation into the disappearances, taken up by two successive police task forces, eventually led to Bruce McArthur, a 66-year-old self-employed Toronto landscaper, whom they then arrested on January 18, 2018.

On January 29, 2019, McArthur pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder in Ontario Superior Court and was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for twenty-five years.

He is the most prolific known serial killer to have been active in Toronto, and the oldest known serial killer in Canada.

The criminal investigation of McArthur became the largest ever conducted by the Toronto Police Service (TPS) and also called on the resources of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and other police and forensic services.

Criticisms of the TPS's handling of the initial missing persons investigations have led to several internal reviews, an external review called by the civilian Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB) and the formation of a dedicated missing persons unit.