On the morning of Wednesday, April 11, 2018, Bruce McArthur appeared by video in a College Park courtroom in Toronto. The Toronto Star reported that the room was moderately full. McArthur, 66, a self-employed landscaper, wore an orange jumpsuit and stood close to the camera. A seventh charge of first-degree murder was filed against him. It named Abdulbasir Faizi, who had been missing since December 2010.
Faizi was an immigrant from Afghanistan, the Star reported. He lived in Brampton with his wife, Kareema, and their two daughters. Court documents obtained by CBC News said the couple had married in 1999. He worked as an assistant machine operator at a printing company in Mississauga that has since closed. He was 42 when he disappeared. Some later reports gave his age as 44.
On December 28, 2010, he left work on Kitimat Road at about 7 p.m., the Mississauga News reported. According to the court documents CBC obtained, Kareema Faizi told police that her husband had said he was at work with co-workers and would be home later that night. Police wrote that he phoned to say he was on his way home. He never arrived. She reported him missing to Peel Regional Police on December 29.
She told police he had no enemies and was not involved in any criminal activity. He had been looking forward to a vacation and had shown no sign of depression. The family had no money troubles, she said, though a bad deal a couple of years earlier had forced him into bankruptcy.
His 2002 Nissan Sentra was found on January 4, 2011, near St. Clair Avenue and Mount Pleasant Road in Toronto. On January 12, the Mississauga News reported that the car had yielded no clues to where he was. Peel investigators and family members called the disappearance “out of character.” Cst. Adam Minion said, “There is a growing concern.” After the car was found, police took the family’s computer as evidence, CBC reported.
Kareema Faizi wrote in the court documents that she soon learned from police that her husband was “living a double-life and having numerous extra-marital affairs with men.” She wrote that investigators believed he had abandoned his family and did not want to be found. She emailed his friends in Canada and abroad. None knew of another life. His cellphone had been disconnected. She went to the Church and Wellesley area a number of times to look for him. The Globe and Mail reported that she filed for divorce in 2012, believing he had run away. CBC reported that she began the divorce proceedings to get custody of their daughters.
Skandaraj “Skanda” Navaratnam, 40, had been reported missing on September 16, 2010. Toronto police said he was last seen on September 6, leaving a bar in the Church and Wellesley area with an unknown man. His dog was left behind, which police called very unusual for him. The Star reported that a police investigation called Project Houston was set up in 2012 to look into his disappearance. It was later expanded to include Faizi and Majeed “Hamid” Kayhan, who was reported missing to Toronto police on October 25, 2012. His son made the report, and he had last been seen on October 14.
On June 6, 2013, Toronto police released photographs and flyers of the three men and handed out flyers in the Church and Wellesley area. The release said investigators had searched missing-persons databases for men of “similar ethnicity, similar lifestyle” who were associated with the area. Faizi and Kayhan fit. Police said they had found a number of similarities among the three men, and none had been seen since they were reported missing.
The Star reported that Project Houston ran for 18 months. The homicide squad was briefly involved when police came across information that Navaratnam had been killed. That information was later discounted. Project Houston closed in 2014 after police found “no evidence to suggest criminal activity,” the Star reported. The Globe and Mail reported that McArthur was interviewed as part of Project Houston.
In December 2015, five years after Faizi vanished, Peel police renewed their public appeal. The Brampton Guardian reported that detectives called their investigation “extensive” but had been unable to find him.
In December 2017, Maclean’s reported that five men had vanished from the Village area since 2010: Navaratnam, Faizi, Kayhan, Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman. Police described all five as “known to frequent the areas of Church Street and Wellesley Street,” the magazine reported. Writer Justin Ling described Faizi as “in the closet.” He wrote that Faizi’s car had been found steps from an outdoor cruising area. Police told Maclean’s they had no firm evidence that the cases were connected or that foul play was involved.
Police were also under criticism over two other recent cases. Tess Richey, 22, had been strangled after a night in the Village, and her mother found her body in an alley steps from where she was last seen. Police had at first treated her death as accidental, Maclean’s reported. Alloura Wells had vanished in July, and her decomposed body was found in a park just north of the Village the next month. Chief Mark Saunders announced a review of how police handle missing-persons cases. “I do think there are things we could have done better,” he said.
McArthur was arrested on January 18, 2018. He was charged with the first-degree murders of Kinsman and Esen.
In late January, the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention issued an open letter. Its executive director, Haran Vijayanathan, asked Toronto police to review whether the racial or sexual backgrounds of the missing men had affected the resources put into finding them, and to make the findings public. The group’s bulletin said racialized and LGBTQ+ people face “a different standard of justice.” Police spokesperson Meaghan Gray said investigators had worked “diligently” throughout Project Houston and remained open to links with McArthur. Jooyoung Lee, a sociologist at the University of Toronto, told CBC that victims from middle-class and upper-middle-class neighbourhoods often draw more public attention than those from marginalized communities.
CBC also spoke to Faizi’s nephew, Bobac Faizi, who said Faizi’s nightlife had stayed hidden from his family. A childhood friend told CBC that Faizi had raised the possibility, years earlier in Iran, that he was gay. The family did not learn of it until after he went missing. In March, a headline on a CBC story about the divorce papers said Faizi “led double life.” A longtime friend told CBC he had known nothing of it. He described Faizi as a family man who had been working overtime to pay for his children’s Christmas wish lists. He said he did not think Faizi would have abandoned his children.
In March, the Toronto police board voted unanimously to commission an external review of how the force handles missing-persons cases. Mayor John Tory had requested it. The Star reported that the review would not address police dealings with McArthur. The Star also reported that police had questioned McArthur in 2016 about an alleged assault on another man and let him go. Sources told the Star he had also been questioned around the time Project Houston began.
On April 4, Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga, the lead homicide investigator, told the Star he had no evidence linking McArthur to any cold case. But given the number of killings police alleged, he said, they would look closely at unsolved murders of gay men from the Village in the 1970s.
On April 11, Idsinga told a news conference that the remains of Faizi, Esen and Dean Lisowick had been identified. The remains of Kinsman, Soroush Mahmudi and Navaratnam had been identified earlier. Police had recovered remains of at least seven people from planters at a home on Mallory Crescent in midtown Toronto, where McArthur worked and stored equipment. Idsinga said at least one set had not been identified. He said police believed Faizi might have known McArthur before his death. Court documents filed that day said police allege McArthur killed Faizi “on or about” December 29, 2010. The Star reported that Faizi’s car had been found a short drive from where McArthur worked as a landscaper. With the new charge, police alleged McArthur had killed all three men investigated under Project Houston.
Kareema Faizi told the Globe and Mail by phone that police had contacted her again and taken DNA from her daughters. “Every day I’m crying when I am home,” she said. The Star reported that Faizi’s family had known of his death for about two weeks. On March 29, his brother Farid Faizi changed his Facebook cover photo to a candle and the Quranic verse Muslims read when someone dies.
Idsinga said police had 75 properties to search and were targeting early May to begin, CBC reported. Police were also reviewing 15 homicide cases from 1975 to 1997. The Star reported that more than 500 tips had come in on a photograph police released in March of an unidentified dead man, and police were still checking 22 possible identities.
McArthur was due back in court on April 25.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Abdulbasir “Basir” Faizi |
| Age | 42 (44 in some reports) |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Assistant machine operator, printing company, Mississauga |
| Date of death | On or about December 29, 2010 (date alleged by police) |
| Location | Remains recovered from planters at a home on Mallory Crescent, midtown Toronto; last known location the Church and Wellesley Streets area |
| Accused | Bruce McArthur, 66, self-employed landscaper |
| Charge | First-degree murder (filed April 11, 2018) |
Sources
- Mississauga News, January 12, 2011
- Toronto Police Service, 51 Division, news release of June 6, 2013 (as posted on Facebook)
- Brampton Guardian, December 15, 2015
- Maclean’s, December 15, 2017
- CBC News, January 28, 2018
- CBC News, March 16, 2018
- Toronto Star, April 4, 2018
- Toronto Star, April 11, 2018
- The Globe and Mail, April 11, 2018
- CBC News, April 11, 2018
February 2019 Update: Bruce McArthur pleaded guilty to 8 counts of murder, for:
- Andrew Kinsman
- Selim Esen
- Dean Lisowick
- Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam
- Soroush Mahmudi
- Majeed “Hamid” Kayhan
- Abdulbasir Faizi
- Skandaraj “Skanda” Navaratnam
He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Please see our post on What is a “Life Sentence” in Canada for an explanation on the complexity of murder sentences in Canada.
Murder Village Map