Documents connected to the case of Bruce McArthur, unsealed by a judge Friday, paint a picture of the early stages of the investigation into the disappearances of three of his alleged murder victims.
The documents, which are heavily redacted, relate to Project Houston. It was initiated in 2012 to investigate three men, Skandaraj "Skanda" Navaratnam, Majeed Kayhan and Abdulbasir Faizi, who all disappeared from the Toronto area.
The task force was shut down 18 months later, with police citing no criminal evidence found related to the case.
They would later charge McArthur, 66, with the murders of those three men, as well as the murders of five others.
The documents are “information to obtain” (ITO) applications, which are filed by investigators seeking warrants. A group of media organizations, including CTV News Toronto, have been fighting for their release.
According to the documents, police believed as early as Nov. 13, 2012 that Navaratnam had been murdered. Authorities did not, however, have an exact time of murder.
“Person(s) unknown sometime between September 6th, in the year 2010, and November 9th, in the year 2012 in the City of Toronto, in the Toronto Region did commit the offence of murder of Skanda Navaratnam,” the documents read.
It is not clear what led police to that conclusion.
The documents also mention a suspect in the case.
“It is not in the interest of this investigation at this time to advise the suspect(s) that this case is being investigated as a Murder,” the documents say.
By Jan. 9, 2013, a few months into Project Houston, the documents reveal police were seeking warrants related to the disappearance of Kayhan, whose son reported him missing on Oct. 25, 2012. The documents note that authorities thought Kayhan had been kidnapped.
An ITO from the same month reveals Toronto police investigating Navaratnam’s murder had also begun looking into Faizi's disappearance. His family had originally reported him missing in Peel Region.
“Officers looking into this case have located a second male missing from the Toronto area similar to Skanda,” the files read.
By September 2013, the documents reveal, police were investigating Faizi’s disappearance as a “murder” as well.
During the course of the Project Houston investigation, according to the documents, police sought warrants for access to email accounts, phone numbers, internet service providers, bank accounts and medical records. The documents also reveal that police were tracking a car. Details of who the vehicle belonged to have been redacted.
Authorities also received a warrant for a “surreptitious entry” into an undisclosed location. Once there, police noted, “a number of computer towers were located within the premise. Members of the Technological Crimes Unit began cloning the devices.”
Iris Fischer, the lawyer representing media groups who fought for the unsealing of the documents, says the files reveal how police sought to investigate the disappearances.
“They show us that they were very interested in getting information from telecom companies, from internet companies. They were looking into calls that were made and emails that were sent,” Fischer says.
No arrests were made in the case.
“There is no indication why (Project Houston) stopped,” Fischer explained.
Years later, Toronto police would initiate Project Prism to investigate the disappearances of Andrew Kinsman and Selim Esen from Toronto’s Gay Village. This investigation eventually led police to the arrest of Bruce McArthur on January 18, 2018.
McArthur’s arrest followed years of suspicion in the Gay Village that a serial killer was at work, something Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders said there was no evidence of during a press conference just one month earlier.
In March, a source told CTV News that McArthur was interviewed by police years before his arrest as part of their investigation into Navaratnam’s disappearance. At the time, McArthur was not considered a suspect. The source said he was interviewed simply because he knew Navaratnam.
An earlier set of documents, unsealed by a judge in June, revealed that police were actively investigating McArthur as early as September 2017.
To date, McArthur is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Kinsman, 49, Esen, 44, Kayhan, 59, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, Dean Lisowick, 47, Navaratnam, 40, Faizi, 42, and Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, 32.
Parts of their dismembered remains were uncovered in planters and a compost pile on a Leaside property where McArthur was known to store his landscaping tools.
The search for evidence stretched across 100 other properties across the GTA, though none but Mallory Crescent and McArthur’s Thorncliffe Park apartment yielded any evidence.
Approximately 1,800 items were collected from the accused killer’s home.
The lead investigator on the case, Insp. Hank Idsinga, has said the evidence suggests there are no remaining alleged victims.
The charges against Bruce McArthur have not been tested in court.
McArthur is due to return to court in person on Oct. 5.
