Toronto police have now recovered the remains of at least six people and identified one of them in an investigation into what they have described as the work of a serial killer.

Bruce McArthur, 66, has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the disappearances of Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick.

Speaking Thursday at a home on Mallory Cres., where McArthur mowed the owners’ lawn in exchange for storing landscaping equipment in the garage, Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga said Kinsman’s remains are among those recovered there.

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The cause of death is yet to be determined, he said.

The identification of the other remains — all of which were recovered from planters on the Mallory property — continues.

Forensic investgators remove evidence from home at 53 Mallory Cr. on Feb. 8. Planters containing body parts linked to accused serial killer Bruce McArthur were previously removed from the property. (Bernard Weil / Toronto Star file photo)

Police say the latest discoveries mean they may have evidence of as many as 10 victims, as it is unclear if any of the remains that are not Kinsman’s belong to the other men he is charged with murdering.

“I do anticipate more charges being laid,” said Idsinga. He couldn’t specify a timetable for when and how many such charges would come forward.

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Idsinga said police are continuing to look at the cases of other missing people to see if there are any connections to McArthur.

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“Right now, we’re focusing on what we have, which is the remains, and the evidence we’ve uncovered, hoping to identify those victims and then we’ll start working back through some missing persons occurrences,” he said.

“We’re going to go back quite far; there are literally hundreds of them.”

Police have about 15 planters in total. On Thursday morning, men and women in white body suits walked out of the Leaside house carrying yellow bags with hazard labels and small cartons filled with brown paper bags. Idsinga would not provide details on what evidence was seized.

Police have been combing through the entire home since Jan. 18, when they arrived with a search warrant that forced Karen Fraser and Ron Smith to leave their home. The owners were briefly allowed back on Feb. 1 to collect personal items and clean their fridge of spoiled food.

Their garage has also been cleared in the process of the investigation.

Fraser said she was filled with dread after hearing police had recovered the remains of six different people from her property. “It’s too much, just too much,” she said.

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“Everyone keeps saying, ‘How do you feel?’ I can’t answer that.”

When the detective said at the press conference that Fraser and Smith are expected to be able to get back into their house as early as Thursday night, it was news to them. No one had told them, Fraser said.

They aim to get back inside their home by midday Friday.

“I would like to see procedure change when people get caught in a situation like this,” Fraser said. “The press got to know, but we didn’t. I don’t think that’s considerate.”

Despite her frustration, she praised the “thorough, kind, considerate” officers that have been stationed at her home. One of Fraser’s cats, a skittish rescue named Purrfect, has been hiding in the basement since police arrived three weeks ago. Fraser said officers have gone out of their way to update her whenever they spotted the cat.

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Since Jan. 18, yellow police tape has barred all access to the house, including the backyard where a green tent has been set up since last week. A constant and loud hum can be heard from the tent, a noise that has become eerily familiar in the quiet, suburban, neighbourhood, which lies near a valley.

Under the tent is a grassy area, which police have scanned with the Ontario Provincial Police’s ground penetrating radar, said Idsinga. With it, they’ve identified some spots of interest.

Police have been heating the ground for over a week now, but it’s still not completely thawed, said Idsinga. Some 10 yellow containers of diesel sat on the snow covered sidewalk outside the house, presumably used for this purpose. The excavation began on Thursday.

“We hope to dig down, until we can’t dig anymore, which may be a matter of inches,” said Idsinga. “And then we may have to leave it for another day or two, let it thaw some more and then continue digging.”

How long the dig continues depends on the weather and how far they have to dig. Idsinga guesses it could be up to a week and a half.

The excavation is being overseen by Dr. Kathy Gruspier, the first and only fulltime forensic anthropologist in Canada, who works for the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service. She was on site Thursday, meeting with members of the police investigation team.

Gruspier has worked on several high-profile cases, including a 36-year-old mystery in James Bay. There, she worked with the OPP to positively identify a human skull belonging to 32-year-old Peter Hester, who vanished near James Bay in August 1979.

The excavation is being overseen by Dr. Kathy Gruspier, the first and only full-time forensic anthropologist in Canada. (Bernard Weil/Toronto Star )

Gruspier was also able to reconstruct the face of an unidentified man, whose remains were located in Algonquin Park in April 1980. In 1995, a portion of the man’s jawbone was located, and Gruspier was able to positively match it to the man’s skull, which had been recovered earlier. The evidence allowed police to recreate the man’s face using 3D-clay reconstruction.

Gruspier is also leading a review into Ontario’s 239 cases involving unidentified remains , and has worked on several high-profile murder cases, including those of Christine Jessop, Holly Jones, Cecilia Zhang and Alicia Ross.

She specializes in instrumentation and works to identify the weapon used to murder the victim.

At the moment, Kinsman’s remains are with the forensic pathologist’s office, said Idsinga. “As soon as they’re done with all their examination, the remains should be returned,” added Idsinga. Police officers have been speaking with the Kinsman family regularly and have been made aware of the latest discoveries.

Candace Shaw, a friend of Kinsman’s, said she always thought answers would be comforting. Instead, she finds herself becoming more upset as news emerges. “To hear that they’d identified his remains as being one of six dismembered bodies in planters in some people’s yard?” she said.

“I’ve spent the afternoon feeling like I’m going to cry or throw up.”

To Kinsman’s housemate, Meaghan Marion, the discovery of his remains at the Mallory home marks the end of a long road. “His friends, family, and our communities have lived with imponderable questions,” she wrote in a text message to the Star on Thursday. Marian made the first call to police about Kinsman’s disappearance.

Police have been able to determine the exact day Kinsman died, said Idsinga. “Some of the others we have down to within weeks.”

“You can identify dismembered remains by how they’re linked to each other and with a relative’s DNA or a reference sample,” said Christopher Milroy, director of forensic pathology at the Ottawa Hospital, who is not involved in the McArthur case. A reference sample is a DNA profile found in criminal databases or medical laboratories.

“Finger prints are the most fragile in decomposed bodies, followed by DNA, but, if they got tissue and bones, they should be able to get something through that, while dental will last for good,” Milroy said.

Idsinga said police have the DNA profiles of two people from Project Houston, a 2013 investigation into three missing persons at the time, including Kayhan, Skandaraj Navaratnam and Abdulbasir Faizi.

Idsinga couldn’t say who of these three the DNA profiles belonged to.

Investigators have expanded their search to more than 30 properties tied to McArthur’s landscaping business.

Idsinga said police are “interested” in excavating the grounds of another location, but declined to say which one. It depends, he said, on what is found during the excavation at the Mallory property.

McArthur’s apartment in Thorncliffe is still being examined by “multiple teams of forensic officers,” said Idsinga. “It’s been a couple of weeks already, and I would suspect it’s probably going to be at least another couple of weeks until we’re done with that.

“The (investigation) is getting bigger and we are getting more resources the further we go along, so it’s going to be a very, very extensive investigation.”

Police are dealing with other police forces and some agencies overseas, which police also dealt with during Project Houston, he added.

Idsinga wouldn’t give the names of the agencies.

He said there is also an “extensive digital investigation” underway. Police are examining computers, cell phones and online apps related to the investigation and they are preparing warrants to serve on different providers.

“When we study past serial killers, they didn’t have the access to technology (McArthur) had today,” said David Perry, a private investigator who worked in homicide during his 28-year Toronto policing career. “McArthur could be (a serial killer) who is relatively new in this game of social media and dating sites.”

Speaking hypothetically, Perry said, in a case such as this, police investigators will “tear down his social media” to “go back as far as they can.” They will cross-reference any person the suspect interacted with online alongside outstanding missing persons and homicides,

“They have to make sure that all those people are accounted for and safe,” said Perry. “Like every other serial killer, they commit other offences. And the police want to make sure they’re not missing anything.”

The process is “hard to measure,” said Perry. “I’ve never seen anything like it . . . It’s mind-boggling, quite staggering.”

On Thursday, Idsinga confirmed that police would be looking at McArthur’s past, including the places he has been.

“And if we can link any outstanding homicides or missing persons to him then we’ll pursue that.”

With files from Jesse McLean, Victoria Gibson, Miriam Katawazi and Jenna Moon