Bruce McArthur [Source: BBC]

Canadian serial killer Bruce McArthur was in the middle of another possible murder when he was arrested by police last January, a court has heard.

Gruesome details of the 67-year-old’s killings have been revealed in court on the first day of his sentencing.

McArthur pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder last week.

Monday’s evidence was so disturbing that a prosecutor took the unusual step of warning the packed court that it could affect their mental health.

Pictures from McArthur’s computer revealed that he posed many of his dead victims naked apart from a fur coat or hats, the court heard.

At least one had his eyes taped open and others had unlit cigars hanging from their lips.

McArthur shaved some of his victims’ heads and beards after strangling them, and kept bags of hair in Ziploc bags at a shed near a Toronto cemetery.

The big break on the case came when McArthur killed Andrew Kinsman last summer.

Kinsman had an entry in his diary marked “Bruce” on 26 June 2017, the day he disappeared.

Video surveillance footage showed him getting into a car that was traced back to McArthur in autumn of that year.

Over the next several months, police kept McArthur under surveillance and covertly searched his apartment with a warrant.

In court, friends and family of Kinsman expressed rage and sorrow while reading their victim impact statements.

“We searched for Andrew for six months. I knew he was gone, but still we looked.” his sister Patricia Kinsman told the court, fighting back tears of anger.

“His life was snuffed out by this man. We don’t say his name.”

Kinsman’s friend Adrian Betts said he was angry with himself, for not seeing McArthur for what he was. McArthur had known Kinsman and Skandaraj Navaratnam for years before he killed them.

“I thought I was a good judge of character but I didn’t see the wolf in the fold,” Betts said through tears in court.