Serial killer Bruce McArthur gets life for killing victims from Toronto's Gay Village

A serial killer who photographed his victims after murdering them and dressed some in fur coats and hats with cigars in their mouths has been jailed for life.

Bruce McArthur was told he would have no chance of parole for at least 25 years.

The 67-year-old former landscape gardener pleaded guilty to eight counts of murder after he sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered men he met in the Gay Village district of Toronto, Canada, over seven years.

Justice John McMahon called McArthur a sexual predator who killed for his own "warped sick gratification" and said the victims suffered slow and painful deaths.

He said the dismemberment of the bodies was pure evil, but added that the guilty plea spared the jury four months of graphic and gruesome evidence that would have been so harrowing that they would probably have needed counselling after the case.

Mr McMahon said: "All or most of the victims were vulnerable individuals who were lured to their death.

"The accused exploited his victims' vulnerabilities, whether they involved immigration concerns, mental health challenges, or people living a secretive double life."

Most were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent, living on the margins of Canadian society and their disappearances attracted little attention.

One victim hid the fact that he was gay from his Muslim family while another was a recent immigrant with a drug problem.

Police, who were watching McArthur, moved in when they saw him bring a man up to his home.

During the raid they found the man naked and handcuffed to the bed before arresting McArthur in January last year.

Detectives found McArthur had a USB drive that contained a directory with nine folders - eight for the men he killed and one for the man found at the time of his arrest who survived.

Police found dismembered remains in plant pots McArthur used as storage for his business.

He also took photos of some of his victims after they died, posing corpses in fur coats and putting cigars in their mouths.

McArthur pleaded guilty to killing Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.

The prosecution said that a frequent site of the killings was McArthur's bedroom and that he repeatedly strangled his victims either with his hands, rope or a metal bar.