Accused serial killer Bruce McArthur has been charged with an eighth count of first-degree murder, with Toronto police saying an international agency helped them identify the new victim.
Lead investigator Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga announced Monday at a news briefing that the latest victim’s name was Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, 37. Kanagaratnam was killed sometime between Sept. 3 and Dec. 14 2015, but Idsinga would not elaborate on what brought them to that conclusion.
Kanagaratnam arrived in Canada in 2010 from Sri Lanka. He had no direct family in Canada and was never reported as missing.
“Mr. Kanagaratnam is the male depicted in the previously released John Doe photograph,” Idsinga said.
“The identification was confirmed with the assistance from an international government agency,” he said without giving further details.
Kanagaratnam’s remains were recovered from garden planters at a home in central Toronto where McArthur kept his landscaping equipment. They had previously identified the remains of seven other victims in those planters.
Idsinga said they had no evidence that Kanagaratnam had any links to the city’s LGBTQ neighbourhood, unlike all seven other victims.
He added that the photos that police released in March and April helped them identify this victim.
Police initially released a digitally altered photograph of an unknown deceased man in early March. A month later, they released an image created by a forensic sketch artist and distributed that internationally. Within days, they announced they had made an ID.
None of the allegations against McArthur have been proven in court.