At a news conference on Thursday, January 18, 2018, Homicide Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga of the Toronto police announced that a man had been arrested that morning and charged with first-degree murder. He was Bruce McArthur, a 66-year-old self-employed landscaper from Thorncliffe Park. The two men named in the charges were Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman. Idsinga said police believed McArthur was responsible for the deaths of other men who had not yet been identified. Neither Esen’s body nor Kinsman’s had been found, he said, but police had a “pretty good idea” what killed them.
Esen had been missing for nine months. He was 44.
He was a Turkish citizen, the Turkish consulate confirmed to the Toronto Star. His friend Richard Harrop, a retired teacher, said Esen had lived in Istanbul and gone to university in Ankara. He had studied philosophy and wanted to teach. Harrop said Esen once told him he had worked in a tailor shop, and offered to sew the hem of a robe Harrop had bought in Morocco.
Harrop met Esen in the summer, about three years before the arrest, at Barbara Hall Park near Church and Wellesley streets. Esen asked what he was reading. Esen told him he had come to Canada to be with a partner he had met in Turkey, and that he was going home that day because it hadn’t worked out. The two ran into each other in Toronto the following year and became friends. They walked and met for coffee. They spent Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2016 together. Xtra reported that Esen had no family in Canada.
Harrop said Esen struggled with addiction. He sometimes met Esen for coffee before appointments so that Esen would be up and keep them. The Toronto Sun wrote that Esen had moved to Canada for a relationship that was also “often abusive.” Xtra, relaying Harrop’s account, said Esen was winning his battle with addiction and staying away from his on-and-off boyfriend.
In March 2017, Esen finished a week-long peer counselling course at St. Stephen’s Community House, a social service agency in Kensington Market. He sent Harrop a copy of his certificate. Harrop said Esen felt he was “getting a handle on his problem” and wanted to get his life in order so he could face his family in Turkey. That month Harrop was in hospital after ankle surgery, and the two texted about Esen coming to visit. “Then the texts stopped,” Harrop wrote.
Police said Esen was last seen at about 6:30 p.m. on April 14, 2017, near Bloor Street East and Ted Rogers Way, east of Church Street. A police notice described him as 5’10” with medium-length dark brown hair and a beard. It said he frequented the Church and Wellesley area and Kensington Market. Investigators also said he often carried a suitcase on wheels. He was reported missing on April 30.
CTV’s W5 reported that his disappearance did not make headlines until another man, Andrew Kinsman, vanished two months later. Kinsman, 49, was a building superintendent and HIV/AIDS volunteer, well known in the Village. He was last seen on June 26 near his Winchester Street home. By July a Facebook meme linking 11 missing men was circulating. Torontoist reported that five of them had been found alive and another had died, almost certainly by suicide, according to police.
In late July, police announced a task force at 51 Division, called Project Prism, to look into Esen’s and Kinsman’s disappearances. Det. Sgt. Michael Richmond said the main link between the cases was that both men were “very active on social media.” Torontoist reported this meant dating apps such as Grindr and Scruff. Police also said both men were members of the Church-Wellesley community.
On August 1, Harrop spoke to reporters at a town hall at The 519 community centre. Of Esen’s certificate, he said, “He was very proud of that.” He told Xtra that Esen had no smartphone, so any dating sites he used would have to have desktop versions. At the same meeting, Supt. Tony Riviere said police had no evidence “to substantiate any criminality.”
On December 8, Chief Mark Saunders held a news conference to update three cases. One was Esen’s and Kinsman’s. The others were Tess Richey, 22, whose mother had found her body on November 29 doors away from where she went missing, and Alloura Wells, a transgender woman reported missing in November whose remains had been found in August. Police said the longer the two men were missing, the more concerned they were about foul play. Richmond said there was “no evidence that a serial killer is responsible” for any of the missing men and none linking Esen and Kinsman to each other. Police had also issued a warning that week about using online dating apps. Richmond said there was no evidence the apps played a role in the disappearances, although all five men under investigation, including the three from the earlier Project Houston, had been active on social media. Saunders ordered a review of how police handled the missing-persons cases.
On January 18, Saunders was asked about those statements. He said that what he had said in December “was accurate at that time,” according to the CBC. In the days after the arrest, Nicki Ward, director of the Church-Wellesley Neighbourhood Association, asked, “Why weren’t we listened to earlier?”
Police said McArthur had been active on several dating apps, as both missing men were. McArthur and Kinsman had had a sexual relationship “for some time.” Idsinga said police did not know whether McArthur had any relationship with Esen or “just met him that day.” He declined to say how McArthur met either man.
On January 22, the Star published a tribute Harrop had written on Facebook. He called Esen “a gentle friend,” and wrote that he was “extremely trusting and did not judge people.” The Turkish consulate was in touch with Esen’s family and with police.
On January 29, police charged McArthur with three more murders. “It’s a serial killer,” Idsinga said. He confirmed that McArthur had first been identified as a suspect in Kinsman’s disappearance in September, and that officers arrested him after finding evidence that also linked him to Esen’s death. Remains had been found in large planters at a Mallory Crescent property in Leaside where McArthur stored equipment. On February 23, he was charged with a sixth murder. Toronto police spokeswoman Meaghan Gray said earlier that month that McArthur had some sort of relationship with each of the men, some of them sexual. By mid-March police had recovered seven sets of remains from the planters and identified three: Kinsman, Navaratnam and Mahmudi. The Star reported on January 31 that members of the LGBTQ community were asking whether bias had affected how long the arrest took. Gray called allegations of racial bias “absolutely not true.”
The record varies on details. Esen’s last-seen date is April 14 in most police and press accounts, April 15 in one police notice and in a July 2017 Torontoist report, and April 16 in one CBC report. He was 43 in July 2017 notices and 44 afterwards. His weight appears as 150 and 165 pounds. The New York Times spelled his surname “Essen.” Xtra placed him near his apartment building when he was last seen. CNN, citing police, reported that he had no fixed address.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Selim Esen |
| Age | 44 (43 in some July 2017 notices) |
| Gender | Male |
| Date of death | After April 14, 2017, the date he was last seen (some reports give April 15 or 16) |
| Location | Last seen near Bloor Street East and Ted Rogers Way, Toronto |
| Accused | Bruce McArthur (Thomas Donald Bruce McArthur), 66, landscaper, Thorncliffe Park |
| Charge | First-degree murder, laid January 18, 2018 |
| Defence counsel | Edward Royle |
Sources
- Torontoist, July 30, 2017
- Global News, August 1, 2017
- Xtra, August 9, 2017
- InsideToronto (City Centre Mirror), November 19, 2017
- Global News, December 8, 2017
- CBC News, December 8, 2017
- CBC News, January 18, 2018, and CBC reports of January 18, 19 and 20, 2018 (via Canada in Context)
- Toronto Star, January 22, 2018
- CBC News, January 29, 2018
- Toronto Sun, January 30, 2018
- Toronto Star, January 31, 2018
- New York Times, February 12, 2018
- CTV W5, “The Missing,” February 17, 2018 (ProQuest transcript)
- CNN, February 23, 2018
- Toronto Star, March 16, 2018
- Missing person notice, Toronto Police Service (undated; reproduced by Missing People Canada)
- Photograph: Toronto Police Service (as credited in the Toronto Star, January 22, 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