Serial and Mass Murder in Canada

Murder is not common in Canada. In 2018, there were only 651 murders nationwide. Compared to a whopping 16,214 in America, the likelihood of being a murder victim in Canada is very low. However, uncommon as it is, there have been 20 serial killers and 52 incidents of mass murder in Canada.

One such serial killer is Bruce McArthur, a homosexual man in his sixties described by most who knew him as kind, friendly, and caring. McArthur came out in the nineties, seperating from his wife and moving to the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood in Toronto, dubbed Toronto’s Gay Village for its historical tolerance of the LGBTQ community. He owned a small landscaping business and also worked as a mall Santa. In 2001, McArthur was charged with the level 2 assault of a male sex worker, but avoided prison and later managed to have the incident removed from his record. Beginning in 2010, men began to disappear from the Village. Police were looking into the disappearance of Skandaraj Navaratnam, but did not suspect murder until 2012. In 2013, the police linked his disappearance with two other missing persons cases. The victims were all middle aged, immigrants, and gay men of South Asian descent. McArthur was found to have a connection to two of the missing men, but was released after questioning; there was no evidence against him.

In 2017, another person went missing, this time a white man who had much deeper connections in the community. Friends raised public awareness about his disappearance and the public inaccurately connected many other disappearances, suspecting a serial killer. Police looked for links between the previous three missing men, Andrew Kinsman, and Selim Esen; the newest missing persons. However, there was no evidence yet that suggested a serial killer.

While investigating Kinsman’s disappearance, police found a link between him and McArthur. This discovery led to the finding of McArthur’s van, which had traces of blood in it that belonged to Kinsman and Esen. After McArthur’s arrest, police were sure that there were more victims. They searched the properties that he had done landscaping work for as well as his own apartment and found evidence of six other victims. Their skeletal remains had been recovered inside of planters. Police looked for any connection between McArthur and other cold cases linked to the village but found no evidence of his involvement.

McArthur was motivated by power. He seemed to have a “type” as most of his victims were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent, and his dating apps made it clear that he was looking for men he could assert his dominance over. Several men who had been sexually involved with McArthur described his violent tendencies. It is hard to place whether McArthur was a hedonistic lust killer or a power/control killer. Hedonistic killers who murder for lust are sexually motivated and find gratification in harming their victims. Often these murderers will mutilate or dismember their victims and can be necrophiliacs or cannibals It is clear that he was sexually motivated and took pleasure in dominating others, however, with little physical evidence it is unclear what was done to the victims before or after death. Power/control killers attempt to compensate for their feelings of inadequacy by dominating their victims. The primary motive for this type of killer is not sexual, the killers wish to exercise complete control over their victims. Often this includes torture and dismemberment. It is probably more likely that McArthur was a power/control killer because sadism is less common.

Since these murders, there has been a lot of resentment among certain communities. Many feel that the police only took the case seriously once a white person went missing. In response to these incidents, Haran Vijayanathan set up a safety program that tries to ensure that disappearances of vulnerable people get reported to the police within 48 hours.

In December 1989, Mark Lepine brought a rifle into the École Polytechnique de Montréal, killing 14 women and then himself. In the weeks prior to the incident he had bought a gun and wrote a suicide note; he had planned for his death. Lepine entered a classroom on the second floor and ordered the men to leave the room. He shot the remaining 9 women, killing 6 and injuring 3. He then moved on and killed 8 more women throughout the building, harming 4 men and 10 other women along the way. After his rampage, he turned his weapon on himself.

Lepine was motivated by revenge. The suicide note found in his pocket claimed that feminists had ruined his life and had a “hit list” of 19 women he wished to kill. He fits the category of a mission oriented killer. He was a misogynist and targeted women because he deemed them less worthy than men. He wanted to “send death to the feminists.”

Luckily in Canada, serial murder— and murder of any kind— is highly unlikely. However, there will always be people who wish to harm others. While stopping these people forever is highly unlikely, there are measures we can take to deter them or stop them as soon as we can. Gun and weapon control plays a huge role in controlling homicide rates. Weapons make a killers job much more convenient. As well, trying to reduce the vulnerability of people who live high-risk lifestyles is also a way to deter killers. Often these people will not be reported missing, and this makes them an easy target for people who wish to kill. Homeless shelters can do this, providing a safer place for vulnerable people to stay, and making it more likely that someone would notice if they were to go missing. While there are many things we can do to reduce homicide rates, if someone is determined enough, these countermeasures would not stop them, but they will increase the likelihood of the murderer being caught.