‘Serial killer tradie hid seven bodies in our backyard’
Karen Fraser and Ron Smith thought their gardener was a “charming man” – but he was hiding a dark secret. WARNING: Graphic content.
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Karen Fraser, 75, had no idea her gardener Bruce McArthur was hiding a dark secret – in her garden. She tells her story in her own words.
It was a cool morning, and our gardener Bruce McArthur was pottering about.
“Would you like some tea?” I called out to the backyard of our Toronto home.
“That’d be great, thanks!” he smiled, so I left a steaming cup on the porch.
Bruce was the brother of my friend Sandra, who I’d known for years. She had emailed me a few weeks earlier and asking if Bruce could store his tools in one half of our double garage.
Bruce, a father and grandfather, had a landscaping business, but was tired of lugging his lawnmower up the elevator into his high-rise apartment.
My partner Ron Smith, 71, and I were used to helping people, often volunteering, so I didn’t think twice. And he’d agreed to mow our lawn in exchange which was a bonus.
Bruce, in his mid 50s, was a charming, unassuming man with white hair and a matching beard, he was always friendly and polite. He even worked as a Santa Claus in a shopping centre at Christmas.
We all became comfortable with each other and Ron and I even went round to Bruce’s apartment for Christmas lunch one year.
Sometimes, he would have a helper in the garden.
Bruce has got a new assistant, I’d think, watching as another unfamiliar face bobbed past my window, heading for the garage.
One day, I spotted one of his new workers struggling to wield a shovel, as Bruce looked on, annoyed.
How’s your new protégé working out? I asked Bruce in an email.
He never replied, but the middle-aged man must have got the boot because I never saw him again.
Bruce did an impeccable job, so I reasoned he wanted his staff to do the same. His great work meant I had no need to go in the garage, and I never touched his expensive tools.
One day, I looked out the window and gasped. This looks spectacular! I thought, heading outside to see Bruce. He’d planted every colour of pansy imaginable – our garden was a beautiful tapestry of colour.
We’ve got a great deal! I’d often think, looking at our stunning yard.
Then, one dark morning in January 2018, nearly 11 years after we’d first met Bruce, I heard ferocious pounding on the door. My heart was in my throat, as I crept up to the front door.
But when I opened it, no-one was around.
“Are you Karen Fraser?” a voice boomed.
“Yes,” I answered, puzzled.
Just then, a policeman stepped out of the shadows.
“You need to leave your house now,” he said. “Bruce McArthur has been arrested for a serious crime.”
“The gardener?” I asked weakly.
As we stepped outside, dozens of officers swarmed in and around the house.
What was going on?
They scoured through my clothes drawers, and ripped towels out of the linen closet.
Stunned, we were taken to a police station. Ron was led into a room first before I was whisked away into another. Then, a policeman fanned photographs across the table in front of me.
“Do you recognise any of these men?” he asked.
Scanning the pictures, I felt a chill run down my spine.
One, Majeed Kayhan, was the man I’d seen struggle with the shovel …
I later learnt that police investigating the disappearances of several men, with links to the local gay community, had raided Bruce’s home.
There, they’d rescued a man found tied to his bed and they had arrested Bruce over the murders of eight men.
What’s more, they believed he’d buried his victims in our backyard.
Is my home a graveyard? I wondered, bewildered.
“Bruce is a good man,” I told officers, in complete shock. “Surely he is innocent?”
Ron and I were free to go, but the police had more than enough evidence to prove our quiet gardener was secretly a serial killer.
“Karen, don’t waste your sympathy on that man,” the head of homicide told me. “This is the worst crime I’ve seen in 30 years.”
Nodding meekly, my head spun. I couldn’t comprehend how the Bruce we knew could be so evil.
After digging, police found seven mutilated bodies in our yard buried in our large flower pots.
It would be another six months before the eighth body was found in a ravine behind our yard.
All this time, when Ron and I thought we’d been watering flowers, we had been watering corpses.
The day of Bruce McArthur’s arrest, Ron and I travelled home from the station in silence.
The sun was fading, and the contents of our garage were strewn on the front lawn, while police officers milled in and out of the house.
Forensic detectives were hunched over, digging up the poor men Bruce had killed.
“Where do we go now?” I asked Ron.
Luckily, friends let us stay with them for the 22 days our home was a crime scene.
Ron and I were forced to wear hazmat suits to go in our house to feed our cats.
It was surreal.
The whole time, my heart broke for the men whose lives had been stolen.
During the wait for the court date, I attended a touching church vigil to remember the victims.
In January 2019, Thomas Donald Bruce McArthur appeared at court in Toronto, Canada. He pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder.
At the hearing, I sat with the victims’ families.
The court was told he’d killed Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, Majeed Kayhan, 58, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, 37, Dean Lisowick, 43, Selim Esen, 44, and Andrew Kinsman, 49, between 2010 and 2017.
McArthur lured the men, many of whom were vulnerable immigrants, to his apartment where he’d murdered them and stowed their bodies under his bed before taking them to my backyard.
I put my coat on that bed, I thought, my stomach churning as I recalled our Christmas Day with him. Could there have been bodies there?
The murders had been sexually-motivated. McArthur had taken photos of his victims after death, and he kept bags of their hair as a trophy.
With access to our yard – while we’d been at our summer house – he’d used his tools to dismember the bodies and then bury them.
During their raid, police found a USB stick with a directory of the eight victims’ details, and an empty folder for a ninth – the man he was holding captive when arrested.
McArthur spoke only to say, “Yes, your honour”, or “No, your honour.”
Who was this man in front of me? I wondered.
In February 2019, McArthur, then 67, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years – when he would be in his 90s.
At first, I felt angry and betrayed. Now, I feel nothing. The man I thought I knew, didn’t exist. The real McArthur is a twisted killer.
When it was all over, Ron and I decided there was no way we would move out.
‘I won’t let him drive us away from our home,’ I said, determined.
The city of Toronto helped us re-landscape the backyard, planting eight trees to commemorate the lost men.
We even had a “renewal ceremony” to help the local community move on from the atrocious crimes which took place in our yard.
Now, more than three years after our tradie’s was jailed, we’re trying to move on with our lives, too.
I’m just glad that evil McArthur was stopped and caged before he could strike again.
This story originally appeared in that’s life! magazine and has been reproduced here with permission.
Originally published as ‘Serial killer tradie hid seven bodies in our backyard’
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