When he was free, sadistic serial killer Bruce McArthur was a chameleon who concealed his murderous life with an outwardly jovial personality as both a landscaper and a Santa Claus.
As he enters his new life as a federal inmate, the 67-year-old will find few places to hide for the rest of his life — or, at best the next 24 years.
That is, if he lives that long in the dangerous prison world.
He has hidden his sick motives for his despicable crimes, but he may have to reveal that in prison — if he ever hopes to keep his wafer-slim hopes of parole alive.
McArthur recently finished his first month at Millhaven prison, where he has been undergoing a complete assessment since Feb. 8 — the day he was sentenced for eight counts of first-degree murder for killing innocent men he lured with sex.
He strangled then systematically dismembered his victims before performing further indignities, said Justice John McMahon.
The assessment will analyze McArthur’s needs and risks for up to 90 days before Correctional Services of Canada creates a Correctional Plan for him, said CSC spokeswoman Lesley Kenyon.
Most likely, McArthur will be placed in solitary confinement — or administrative segregation as CSC calls it.
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Millhaven Institution in Bath, Ont.
And there he will remain until CSC determines it’s safe for him in regular population, but that may require a move outside Ontario where he’s not so notorious.
If McArthur “cascades” to regular population, he’ll have a better chance of receiving programming and enhance his minuscule chances of parole.
There, he’ll undergo group counselling to understand his “aberrant behaviour,” said Kenyon.
“We look at their pattern of behaviour linked to their crimes and try to change the cycle of their thinking. We teach them coping skills to break the cycle.”
Inmates and civilians equally loathe McArthur, says Lee Chapelle — a Toronto-based consultant who founded Canadian Prison Consulting, which provides public safety training for the Ministry of the Attorney General and counsels inmates on improving their chances of obtaining parole.
He served 20 years, 11 months and 13 days in prison — mostly for property crimes, doing what he called “life imprisonment on the instalment plan.”
He founded his firm upon his release in 2010.
McArthur is heading to solitary confinement due to the enormous publicity on his horrific crimes, says Chapelle.
“He’d be killed in the general population,” he said, who served time in Archambault (Que.), Millhaven, Collins Bay, Joyceville and Beaver Creek.
“His crimes are so heinous that regular bandits and burglars who have wives and children would be outraged that he murdered and dismembered desperate men.
“He’s a perfect case for why they cannot abolish solitary.”
Prisons are harsh, depressing and toxic environments, said Chapelle.
Lifers generally die in their 50s and 60s after having spent 30-plus years behind bars.
His grim description is borne out by the shocking murder and suicide states for federal inmates.
The homicide rate on the inside was about 14.3 per 100,000 between 2006 and 2016, according to CSC documents.
That’s compared to Canada’s federal homicide rate, about 1.7 per 100,000 — the prison rate is more than seven times higher.
And the prison suicide rate was a staggering 18.1% over the same decade.
spazzano@postmedia.com
PRISON FACTS
• One quarter of all federal inmates are lifers or dangerous offenders
• There are 22 inmates serving a life sentence (usually for murder) and an indeterminate sentence for being a Dangerous Offender (DO) — the most notorious being Paul Bernardo, who consented to dangerous offender status after being convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in 1995
• There are also 113 DOs serving determinate sentences
• Almost one-quarter (23.8% or 5,492) of all 23,405 federal inmates are serving either life or indeterminate sentences
• Of that total, 3,621 (66%) are in prison while 279 (5%) are on day parole, and 1,592 (29%) are on full parole
• A life sentence lasts the offender’s entire natural life, ending only at their death
• There are no such thing as consecutive life sentences in Canada
