'This is still very raw': One year since arrest of accused serial killer Bruce McArthur

On Friday morning, snow covered the ground outside the Toronto home ofKaren Fraser and Ron Smith asthesounds of bag pipes from a lonepiper wafted through the cold air,a tribute to the eight men whose remains were found aroundtheirproperty.

On Jan. 18 last year, police announced they had arrested landscaper Bruce McArthur forthe murders of men who went missing from Toronto's gay village. At that time, police also knocked on the homeowners' door.

'Remember thegood men lost'

On Friday, it was Fraser'sidea to enlist a bagpiper, a way tomark the anniversary in a simple way.

"We're just here to remember. To remember the good men lost," said Rev.Deana Dudley of the Metropolitan Community Church. "It's been a year, and it's still fresh in people's minds. For some folks, this is still very raw. I expect we'll still be feeling a little raw on the tenthanniversary."

Also at the Mallory Cresc. propertyto pay his respects wasToronto Police Insp. Hank Idsinga, the lead investigator onthe case.

Last year, Idsinga become the face of this investigation,a casethat would draw international attention.

It alsosparked some anger from the LGBTcommunity who felt that police initially may not have put sufficient resources into finding the culprit.

"There's a lot of work that's been done, there's still a lot of work to do," Idsinga said Friday. "On a personal level,I've developed some new and very good relationships with members of the community ... hopefully we can resolve any of the further issues down the road."

It was atpolice headquarters last year on Jan. 18 thatIdsinga would tell reporters that, just a day earlier, there had been significant progress in Project Prism a police task force struck to probe the disappearances of Andrew Kinsman, 49, and SelimEsen, 44, in 2017.

That morning, he announced police had arrested 66-year-old Bruce McArthurof Toronto; he was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Kinsman and Esen.

CBC Toronto would later learnthat on that same morning, police, who had been observing McArthur, saw a man enter his residence. The officers, who believed the man to be in imminent danger, forcibly entered McArthur's apartment. Inside, police found a man in restraints, sources told CBC.

Deaths of other men

Along with announcing the two murder charges, Idsinga would also reveal that investigators believedMcArthur was responsible for the deaths of other men who had not been identified.

In other words, McArthur was an alleged serial killer.

Since his arrest, hehas been charged with the murder of six other men: Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, Abdulbasir Faizi, 44, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, 37, Dean Lisowick, 47, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, and Majeed Kayhan, 58. Ofthe eight victims, seven had ties to the LGBT community in Toronto.

His trial date has beenset for Jan. 6, 2020.The trial isexpected to take three to four months.

That McArthur willbe tried nearly two years after his arrest may seem like an unusually long delay.But investigators havecollected mounds of evidence, including human remains,DNA, and computer files.

From McArthur's apartment alone, police said they collectedmore than 1,800 pieces of evidence, along with 18,000 photographs, in what they described as the"largest forensic examination" in the force'shistory.

"All of that information has to be coordinated and reviewed and then put together in a forum with everything else for the defence lawyers ... it can be daunting," said B.C. criminal lawyer Marilyn Sandford, part of the legal team to represent serial killer Robert Pickton. "It can be time consuming."

As the case has made its way through the legalsystem, McArthur has made several court appearances, includingsome throughvideo link from the Toronto South Detention Centre inEtobicoke, Ont.

Thinner, head shaved

In court, McArthur rarely shows emotion. He appears thinner withhis headshaved andno longer sports a goatee. It's a much different look than the one portrayed in his Facebook pictures that were splashed throughout the media,showing asmiling man,posing in front of Niagara Falls.

While many details have not yet been released, including the cause of death of the victims,muchabout the investigationhas been revealed through court documents.

By mid-August 2017, six weeks after Kinsman was reported missing, court documents showed McArthurwas identified as a person of interest in the case. About a month later,detectives had applied for tracking warrants for two vehicles registered to him.

In November2017,police wereusing GPS devices to track his daily movements. On Dec. 5, 2018, police applied for a warrant to covertly enter McArthur'sapartment to clone and analyze multiple hard drives located in his bedroom.Buttheyhad to cut their task short when it was learned McArthur was on his way back.

Investigation questions

As new information came to light, questions were raised about how the investigation had been handled.For example, CBC Toronto learned that police hadinterviewed McArthuryears before he was arrested. That knowledge prompted theToronto police professional standards unit tolaunchan internal investigation into the matter.

Meanwhile, the force has been criticized for dismissing the LGBT community's concerns about a possible serial killer , and for itsapproach to missing persons cases, particularly those involving people from marginalized communities.

"I think this really threw a spotlight onto a lot of the issues the community has faced with policing. It blew the doors wide-open," said WillGriffiths, a resident of Toronto's Gay Village.

The Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention had also called for a reviewinto whetherrace or theperceived sexuality of the missing men affected the resources and quality of the investigation into their disappearances.

In the wake of those criticisms,an independent review waslaunched into how Toronto police handles missing persons cases.

Missing persons unit launched

Torontopolice launched its firstmissing persons unitin July, 2018. It hasreviewed thousands of missing persons casesfrom across the city

Idsinga acknowledged that it's "still a work in progress."

Haran Vijayanathan, executive director ofthe Alliance for South Asian AIDSPrevention, who is on the missing person's independent review committee, said some good has come out of such a tragedy.

"The police chief has a missing persons unit now, which is great," he said.

International attention stemming from the McArthur case is "putting pressure on politicians and police officers and community organizations" to take a closer look at "what safety means for marginalized communities," he said.

With files from Melissa Mancini, Jacqueline Hansen, and IoannaRoumeliotis