Toronto police might have identified a suspected serial killer in the city's gay village earlier if people who had crossed his path had been more forthcoming with investigators in the past, Chief Mark Saunders says."We knew something was up.
We did not have the evidence," Chief Saunders said in an interview with The Globe and Mail, noting that Bruce McArthur, who was recently charged with the deaths of six men, was a well-known member of the community. "If anyone knew before us, it's people who knew him very, very well. And so that did not come out."
The chief defended his service's handling of a two-year investigation called Project Houston launched in 2012, into the disappearances of three men of similar ages and physical appearance who had ties to the village. Members of the LGBTQ community have criticized the service for not recognizing a potential serial killer sooner. Chief Saunders said he is confident his officers did all they could based on the information they had at the time.
"I've heard a lot of sources say certain things, and had those sources said those things when we had Project Houston, I think there is a very strong potential that the outcome could have been different," Chief Saunders said.
He later added: "We knew that people were missing and we knew we didn't have the right answers. But nobody was coming to us with anything."