At the moment Bruce McArthur is a name history buffs won’t be all that familiar with, but as the years pass he may come to be remembered as one of North America’s most notorious serial killers.

It’s early days in the investigation, so technically we should call him an alleged serial killer, but it’s pretty obvious that we have a madman on our hands.

As investigators learn more, comparisons are already being made with the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer, Robert Pickton, and John Wayne Gacy.

So far McArthur is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, although that might be the tip of the iceberg. He is currently being charged with the murders of Selim Esen, 44, Andrew Kinsman, 49, Majeed Kayhan, 58, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, and Dean Lisowick, 47.

VICE have gone in-depth, so let’s head there for more:

McArthur is gay and several of his alleged victims as well as many of the men still missing had been known to frequent Toronto’s gay village.

Police believe there are more victims—though they have “no idea” how many more—and said Monday that they discovered remains belonging to three individuals in large planters at job sites McArthur worked on as a landscaper.

It is believed that McArthur had relationships with at least three of the five men, and has a history of violence dating back to 2003:

…one aspect of McArthur’s case that stands out is his 2003 assault conviction for beating a man with a metal pipe.

“In my research, almost 80 percent of serial killers I’ve studied had a prior conviction for assault or sexual violence,” [Sasha Reid, a PhD candidate in developmental psychology] said. Pickton was charged with attempted murder in 1998 after he stabbed and nearly killed a female sex worker who escaped his farm.

“Nobody wakes up one day and is a serial killer,” added Jooyoung Lee, an associate professor of sociology at the U of T who also researches serial killers. There’s a gradual process, he said, “where initially people engage in fantasy behaviours, where they begin to think about harming others and they begin to experiment and flirt with the idea that they might actually do it.”

Turns out the police in Toronto may have been a little tardy, ignoring what many saw as a pattern:

Lee told VICE what struck him about the McArthur case is how long members of the LGBT community have been raising a flag about missing men, while police were seemingly slow to address those concerns.

“Police for a number of months openly downplayed the fact that there was a serial killer,” he said.

He said serial killers are generally smart opportunists who know that if they killed someone from a marginalized [sic] group “it’s very unlikely to get the same kind of police and media attention that a missing white woman’s case would get.”

As for the Dahmer connection – well, it’s about to get very strange:

McArthur allegedly buried bodies in planters at properties he worked on around the city. She said that’s a behaviour serial killers are drawn to, for a variety of reasons.

“There’s a spiritual connection between them and the body,” she explained. “They might consume the body, they might take sexual pleasure out of consuming the body, eating it.”

In the later years of his crime spree, Dahmer was known to keep body parts of his victims in his home. Ted Bundy, who killed at least 30 women in the 1970s, was known to revisit the places his victims were buried, sometimes to have sex with their remains.

Just a casual Ted Bundy reference thrown into the mix.

One way he did buck the trend was that he only got into the game late:

“This guy is old for his category,” [Reid] said. “Most serial killers who are sexually driven start probably in their late teens, early 20s and then continue on throughout their 30s.” However, the investigation could still reveal that McArthur’s alleged crime spree started a long time ago. The allegations also suggest that McArthur may have “gone dormant” for a period of time.

Toronto police found a young man tied to alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur’s bed when they arrested him, according to media reports.

…cops had been surveilling McArthur, 66, when they saw a young man enter his Thorncliffe Park building. At that point, they decided they had to act, and kicked in his door. Once inside, they found a young man tied up on McArthur’s bed and set him free. He was not hurt.

…they found photographs of his victims on his computer. Homicide Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga told reporters police have “no idea” what the final victim tally will be.

“The City of Toronto has never seen anything like this.”

Wow, the world is full of some seriously sick people.

[source:vice]