Soroush Mahmudi, 50, Scarborough, Aug 15 2015

Police believe McArthur killed Soroush Mahmudi, a diminutive professional painter, “on or about” Aug. 15, 2015, according to court documents — the last day the 50-year-old was seen alive by his home near Markham Rd. and Blakemanor Blvd. in Scarborough. He, too, was reported missing by his family.

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The extended search may be connected to the most recently announced victims. Both of the first men McArthur was charged with killing disappeared from the village. But new charges, announced Monday, cast a wider net. Those include the murder of Soroush Mahmudi – a manufacturing plant worker who once lived in Barrie with his wife, but had moved to Scarborough.


Police believe McArthur killed Mahmudi “on or about” Aug. 15, 2015, according to court documents — the last day the 50-year-old was seen alive by his home near Markham Rd. and Blakemanor Blvd.


Barrie neighbour Patsy Thorne remembered Mahmudi as kind and thoughtful. Their two units had decks side-by-side, and she recalled Mahmudi checking with her before installing a satellite dish, to make sure that it didn't block her view.


Once, when a police car was outside their unit, Mahmudi inquired to make sure Thorne was okay.


“I guess he hadn't seen me for a day or two, and he came knocking on my door,” she told the Star. The couple moved out suddenly, Thorne added, and she believes they moved to Toronto to be closer to family.

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"He liked playing pool. A bunch of us would always go out after work for beer and wings," Morrison told CBC Toronto. "I think everyone who came across him liked him."


Morrison said Mahmudi came to Canada as a refugee from Iran when he was about 20. As far as Morrison knows he didn't have any family in Canada until he met his wife here.


Morrison said Mahmudi left the factory in 2008, and worked as a taxi driver in Barrie for a while before moving to Toronto to be closer to his wife's family.


"When he left Barrie he just kind of disappeared," said Morrison. "He didn't really keep in contact with anyone."


Mahmudi was last seen in August 2015, near his apartment building on Markham Road in Scarborough. Police say his family reported him missing.

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matou said:

I could be totally wrong but I don't think Soroush was gay. And not because he had a wife and kids. He looks fit, muscular and he is brown. I think BM and Saroush may have been working somewhere on a job together and BM got him alone somewhere.

As I said, I could be wrong. If this is true, that means more potential victims.

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MelmothTheLost said:

It's also possible that he was starting to experiment. He wouldn't be the first middle aged man who had a life unknown to his wife and children, or who started to explore feelings hitherto suppressed for cultural or religious reasons.

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ClaireNC said:

Exactly.^^ He is from Iran, where Islamic law criminalizes same-sex relations. It’s a capital offense in many cases, meaning punishable by death.

Plus there are a lot of gay men that are fit, muscular and “brown”. It’s kind of offensive to assume otherwise.

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Soroush Mahmudi once told his wife, Fareena, that if anything ever happened to her, he’d travel the lengths of the country to get answers.


When police announced Friday that they’d found Mahmudi’s dismembered remains — a month after charging a man for his murder, and over two years after he vanished — her mind went reeling back to that moment, from the apartment they once shared. The Scarborough home still echoes with memories of 50-year-old Mahmudi, with much left untouched since his August 2015 disappearance.

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When asked if she knew anything about her husband visiting the Gay Village, Marezook said she didn’t. She had kept up hope since he disappeared that he would come back. She didn’t know where he would have gone. It’s unclear how Mahmudi and McArthur met.

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Police announced Friday that Soroush Mahmudi’s remains were found in the investigation into alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur, who was charged with Mahmudi’s murder a month ago. His wife is left to wonder how anyone could kill “this beautiful guy” with a “good heart.”

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And though his remains have now been found, and a murder charge has been laid in his death, she let a desperate wish float off her tongue in the quiet apartment. “I want him to come back,” she said, her voice shaking.

“I’ll never forget him.”

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