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McArthur, 66, currently faces five first-degree murder charges and Det-Sgt. Hank Idsinga said this week he expects more charges to be laid.

At a third home near Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue where they worked together, MacKinnon said, McArthur was fired earlier this year and the property owner hired a new team of landscapers to redo his planters.

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If small skeletal remains were buried in those planters, MacKinnon, who hasn’t spoken to police, doesn’t think the landscapers would have noticed what they were removing among the soil.

“If it was anything small — like five or six inches — it just looks like aggregate,” he said. “You come across sticks and stones and pieces of broken concrete or brick.”

MacKinnon, who runs a small company named DragonFly Water Features, first met McArthur at a garden centre outside Milton, Ont. in 2011. He noticed McArthur making a large purchase and decided to “fish for business.” McArthur told him he needed someone to do a water feature and when MacKinnon pitched him on his company, McArthur decided they would work together.

He took McArthur to a remote stone yard just outside of Milton — there was only one building on the massive lot owned by MacKinnon’s friend — where McArthur was allowed to select the materials. After doing one job together, MacKinnon landed two more. When the projects were completed, MacKinnon would still run into McArthur at least twice a year when he visited the properties to perform maintenance on his stone work. McArthur visited each property bi-weekly, he said.