Cauldron Convos - a Somewhat Funny Paranormal Mysteries & Science Fiction Podcast · Kayla Cauldron

Tracing the Footsteps of The Serial Killer Santa | Bruce McArthur

·28 min·2 clips

MacArthur kept trophies from victims, including jewelry, notebooks, and hundreds of post-mortem photographs.

The episode opens with the grotesque image of a mall Santa hiding a darker life under the red suit. It keeps that image in view while moving into the disappearances that shook Toronto's LGBTQ village. Eight men vanished between 2010 and 2017. Bruce MacArthur is named as the 66-year-old self-employed landscaper and mall Santa tied to the case. He was arrested on January 18, 2018. The hosts sound genuinely startled that this happened so recently. They also make plain that the story flew under their radar because it was in Canada. The investigation became the largest ever handled by the Toronto Police Service. That scale matters because the episode does not let the police off the hook. It points directly at criticism of how the initial missing-persons reports were handled. Internal reviews followed. External reviews followed too. A dedicated missing persons unit was eventually formed. The story then backs up to the disappearance of Skandaraj, also called Skanda Navaratnam, in 2010. Police searched for leads and did not find much. A 2018 W5 investigation adds a strange detour involving a cannibal website post and the formation of Project Houston. The hosts briefly bring up Luca Magnata and then move on once that thread goes nowhere. By June 2013, Project Houston had linked other cases by geography and lifestyle. Basir Fazi and Majid Hamid Kayan come into focus. The pattern the episode keeps circling is grim and clear. Middle-aged immigrant men disappeared from the same area and the warning signs did not get the response they deserved. The final major turn is Andrew Kinsman, who vanished on June 26, 2017, one day after Pride Toronto, from Cabbagetown. Friends later found his apartment undisturbed. His 17-year-old cat had been left with no food or water. The episode stays funny in places, but it never loses the fact that this is a police failure wrapped around a horrifying case.

As heard by us

A grim Toronto case told with jokes, skepticism, and a hard look at police handling.

The episode treats Bruce MacArthur's case as a bleak Toronto story rooted in the Church and Wesley LGBTQ village, where a mall Santa and self-employed landscaper hid a darker life behind the red suit.

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Why you'd press play

A mall Santa, a missing-persons spiral, and a Toronto serial-killer case that police were criticized for mishandling.

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