The case of a Sri Lankan missing since 2010 took a new turn as the Toronto police confirmed on Friday that the human remains found in a landscaper’s flower pots confirmed as belonging to the 40-year-old Skandaraj Navaratnam.
Police charged alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur, 66, with a sixth first-degree murder on Friday after identifying the skeletal remains of the man missing from Toronto’s Gay Village for eight years. Police confirmed the analysis of dental records allowed police to identify Skandaraj Navaratnam as Bruce McArthur’s sixth alleged victim. A probe of a house where McArthur worked as a landscaper and stored his equipment led to the discovery of the body parts of six people buried in flower planters.
What is expected to be a lengthy and harrowing investigation, the probe has now spread their probe far beyond the city’s limits, also focussing on hundreds of missing persons in Toronto, even covering foreign countries where the alleged serial killer had spent his vacations. There are unsubstantial reports that there were eight pictures of males on McArther’s computer.
Police say they have not seen anything like this in the history of the city. Experts say that a serial killer usually begins murder spree around the 20s.
Skandaraj Navaratnam, known as Skanda, had met the alleged killer in 1999 and they began a relationship in the early 2000s, according to a friend who knew Skanda.
The landscaper was arrested in Toronto on January 18 on suspicion of killing Andrew Kinsman, 49, and Selim Esen, 44. Both men went missing from the city’s Gay Village last year. At a press conference in January police revealed that McArthur had been charged in the deaths of three more, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Marmudi and Dean Lisowick.
“Navaratnam was definitely dating the guy, and he started working for him as a landscaper,” said a person who spoke to Toronto Star daily. Navaratnam was last seen leaving a nightclub in September, 2010. Another friend of Navaratnam said he wasn’t aware of a relationship with McArthur, but did confirm to CBC News that the two knew each other. “Skanda introduced me back in 2008 or 2009 to McArthur as somebody he knew,” he said.
Navaratnam has been described as “incredibly social, gregarious, outgoing,” but he never spoke about his family. The friend said, occasionally he would relay concerns about immigration authorities, as he was a refugee from Sri Lanka, and what would happen if he went back to his family there.
The two friends eventually drifted apart, but he bumped into Navaratnam one last time at a nightclub in 2008. “We hugged, I talked to him about everything,” he told the Star. “He was still doing the landscaping, was still dating or was still with Bruce at the time, and that’s where we ended the conversation.” Another friend said he saw Navaratnam at a Starbucks the day before he went missing. “He was all excited because he had a dog. You know, things were looking up for him.”
Jody Becker, a friend of Navaratnam told Xtra, an LGBT magazine, in June 2013 that Navaratnam may have gone into hiding. Another person who knew him told the magazine: “When he disappeared, it was a shock to all of us. I think something probably scared him. Skanda was a political refugee from Sri Lanka. He was brought here because he got into some trouble with the Sri Lankan government. It was political. I think he was [an activist].”
“I know he couldn’t stay in Sri Lanka because he would have been killed,” he said. “It was not unusual for Navaratnam to disappear for short periods of time, but, three years is exceptionally long”.
Police are conducting extensive investigations on 30 properties where McArthur did landscape work and encouraged any homeowners who hired him to reach out to police.
A person with Middle Eastern background speaking to a TV reporter in Toronto’s gay village said he had seen McArthur several times. He said the alleged killer was fond of people from that background. Three of his five victims are of Middle Eastern origins.
When 66-year-old McArthur, who was under police surveillance, was arrested on January 18 they found a young man tied to a bed in his 19th floor apartment. Officers were forced to make a quick decision to enter his home as they observed the man entering the high-rise where McArthur lived, according to Toronto Star.
The accused man was married with a wife, children and a home in Oshawa, east of Toronto, according to reports. McArthur has hired one of the best legal firms in the country to represent him.
