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“Yeah that is the Bruce we grew up with,” he told him. He knew because he’d seen him less than a year earlier, in May 2017, at an anniversary party for McArthur’s sister and her husband at the Legion in Coboconk, Ont.

“It was total shock,” he said.

The shocks have continued ever since.

Police have now charged McArthur with three more counts of murder. They believe there may be more to come. At a press conference in January they acknowledged what Toronto’s gay community had long feared — that they now believe a serial killer had been preying on gay men tied to the Church St. Village since at least 2012.

McArthur is now charged with five counts of first-degree murder, in the deaths Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Andrew Kinsman, Dean Lisowick and Soroush Mahmudi.

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Investigators believe McArthur used his landscaping business to conceal human remains and have spent weeks digging up properties in Toronto, searching for evidence of bodies in planters and garages and other locations they think McArthur might have used to hide evidence of his alleged crimes.

But the investigation may eventually spread much further than that. Most serial murderers begin killing in their mid to late 30s, according to experts. McArthur spent at least some of his 30s and 40s working as a travelling salesman, pitching socks and underwear across Ontario. He has ties to Oshawa, the Kawartha Lakes area and other locations across the province.

“If I was advising the police, I’d advise them to look back at anybody — males that are missing, unsolved crimes — that go back 20 or 30 years,” said John Bradford, a forensic psychiatrist and expert on serial murders.