Toronto serial killer sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years

OTTAWA -- Toronto serial killer Bruce McArthur has been sentenced to life in prison Friday and won't be able to apply for parole for 25 years, according to CTV.

At a two-day sentencing hearing, Ontario Superior Court Justice John McMahon noted the gruesome nature of McArthur's crimes but he cited McArthur's guilty plea and his age as reasons for his sentencing decision.

McArthur, 67, pleaded guilty last week to committing the crimes between 2010 and 2017. He killed eight men in Toronto between 2010 and 2017.

Most of the killed, as well as McArthur himself, had deep ties to Toronto's LGBTQ community. Most victims were immigrants and of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent. Some lived parts of their life in secret because of their sexual orientation.

McArthur sexually assaulted and forcibly confined many of his victims before murdering them. He killed most of the men in his bedroom, where he bound and then strangled them with rope.

McArthur posed their bodies for photographs, with many of the pictures featuring the same fur coat. He kept those images in folders on his computer labelled for each of his victims, accessing some of those photos long after the killings.

McArthur dismembered all his victims and buried most of their remains in large planter pots at a home in midtown Toronto where he stored his landscaping equipment. One man's remains were found in a garbage bin buried in a nearby ravine.

When McArthur was arrested in January 2018, police found a man tied to his bed and a folder on his computer labelled with the man's name that contained photos of him.