Toronto landscaper charged with first-degree murder

Bruce McArthur, a 66-year-old landscaper in Toronto, was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of five men. According to the Toronto Star newspaper, police found the dismembered skeletal remains of three unidentified people in planters at a home. Police also identified 30 properties linked to McArthur through his landscaping business.

Links between occupation and serial murder are well established, according to Michael Arntfield, a criminologist and professor at Western University. Arntfield told the Toronto Star that serial killers typically “use the guise of their job” to access locations where they can find victims and in McArthur’s case, it seems he may have used his occupation to dispose of the victims.

“Instead of locating victims through the job, he locates his victims through other means, including online, and then he uses the pretext of his job to essentially conceal remains,” Arntfield said to the Toronto Star.

He said concealing remains in planter boxes “especially in plain sight” shows a level of brazenness.

Read the full story from the Toronto Star here.