After finding human remains almost every day of the dig, Toronto police have completed a meticulous excavation behind a Leaside home linked to alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur.Earlier this month, a team of more than 20 investigators began combing through a steep, forested ravine behind the home on Mallory Cres., a location that’s become a key site in the largest forensic investigation in Toronto police history. That probe has only grown since July 5, when investigators uncovered human remains just hours into the first day of the search. Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga, the lead homicide detective on the case, said human remains were found virtually every day, though he stressed that could include something as small as, for example, a bone fragment or tooth. “We essentially recovered different parts every day that we were digging there,” Idsinga said in an interview Monday.Investigators determined where to dig — or dig deeper — through a combination of excavation and canine-assisted searches. The spots where the dogs provided indications there could be human remains were searched first by a team including police and a forensic anthropologist, who sifted through countless buckets of soil. Police regularly brought in the dogs, and watched which areas they responded to, then continued to excavate. The process was repeated until investigators determined the soil within the ravine, which they previously described as a large compost pile, had been sufficiently searched. Read more:Bruce McArthur showed ‘minimal’ potential for violence, 2003 report concludedPolice dig ends at property linked to Bruce McArthurAn inside look at the task, in the McArthur investigation, of excavating for human remains“At the end of the day, I’m pretty confident that we’ve done about as thorough a search as we can possibly do, and hopefully nothing else turns up there in the future,” Idsinga said. The excavation’s conclusion m ...
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