They moved inch by inch, meticulously scouring the floors, walls and ceilings, examining the furniture, searching inside dresser drawers, careful not to miss what may be key evidence inside the apartment of an alleged serial killer.Virtually every day for the past four months, Toronto police forensic investigators have been at work inside Bruce McArthur’s two-bedroom 19th-floor apartment at 95 Thorncliffe Park Dr., documenting its contents and searching for evidence such as hair, blood, fingerprints, fibres and more.Finally this week — after seizing a trove of 1,800 exhibits and taking more than 18,000 photographs — investigators finished the exacting task, completing a central part of what has become the largest forensic examination in Toronto police history. “It’s certainly the largest I’ve ever seen,” Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga said in an interview Tuesday. Search warrant in hand, police descended on the concrete highrise apartment on Jan. 19, one day after McArthur was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman. In the months since, McArthur has been charged with murdering six more men: Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam.As the investigation has grown in scale — police have begun searches involving cadaver dogs at 75 properties linked to McArthur — a team of 10 was assigned to McArthur’s apartment, with two officers stationed outside the door 24 hours a day, seven days a week.In part because of the sudden spike in resource-intensive probes including the McArthur investigation, Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders wrote in a recent report to the board that a variance to the police budget is needed. Saunders cites “recent high-profile cases” as being among the factors that have led to an estimated $3.8-million shortfall.In the past six months, the Toronto police hom ...
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