On the 29th of May 2012, a foul-smelling package arrived at the headquarters of the Conservative Party in Ottawa, Canada. On top of the package, someone had drawn a red heart, and inside of it was a severed human foot and a note. In the days that followed, the police found the rest of the body, and informed the public that the killer had recorded the murder of his victim, and had then posted it online.
But a small group of internet sleuths couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt and responsibility for the senseless death of the killer’s victim. After all, they had been following the killer for more than a year, tracing his every post, every cryptic video, and they had known that this was coming. They had raised alarms, pleaded for intervention, and sent detailed reports to the authorities, but no one had been able to stop him.
And now he had exactly what he’d always wanted: Fame.
The Bold and the Beautiful
Our killer was born Eric Clinton Kirk Newman on the 24th of July 1982, to Anna Yourkin and Donald (or Don) Newman. They were still teens at the time – Anna was 16, and Donald was 17 – and they’d gotten married not long before he was born.
Initially, they lived in the basement of Anna’s parents’ home, and they would go on to have two more children – a son, who was just 10 months younger than Eric, and a daughter, who was 5 years younger. Don was from a relatively well-off family, and Eric would later describe them as being ‘put together’ and ‘respectable’.
According to Anna, Don was ‘your typical garden variety racist’, had been a loner all his life, and would later be diagnosed with schizophrenia. She describes him as having been delusional, paranoid, and an alcoholic, and that he had tried his best to isolate his family from the outside world. She claims that he believed that the public school system would ‘poison’ his children’s minds, and that he didn’t want them to be a part of ‘normal society’.
According to Anna, he was verbally abusive towards his children and was especially abusive and controlling towards her, and he did his best to keep her away from her family because he was convinced that they were trying to kill him. Eric, on the other hand, remembers his father as being a pretty chill guy, who used to play video games with him. His mother, on the other hand, had an obsession with cleanliness, and told them that they couldn’t play with other children because they were covered in germs.
The same went for their pets, and Eric would later explain that she’d once left their pet bunnies out on the porch in the middle of winter, and the next morning, he was devastated to learn that they’d frozen to death.
Eric and his siblings grew up pretty isolated, and according to Don, Anna had been the one who had insisted on homeschooling her two boys. But Anna (who’d dropped out of school when she fell pregnant) hadn’t put much effort into teaching her boys, though, and according to Eric, they were mostly left to their own devices until the notice came that a school official was planning on checking up on them. Then Anna would go out and buy them books and school supplies, and put on a show of teaching her kids their ABCs.
When Eric was 9 or 10, Don was arrested for stealing from his employer, and he lost his job. They’d just moved into a new house, and when they could no longer afford the monthly payments, they had to move in with Don’s parents in Toronto. According to Eric, his grandparents demanded to know why the kids weren’t attending school, and Anna eventually enrolled them in the public school system when Eric was 11. Not long after, Don and Anna were separated, and they’d eventually get a divorce when Eric was 13.
In the book ‘My Son, The Killer’, Anna explains that they all struggled to adapt to their new lives in Toronto, but Eric struggled the most. From a young age, he had a lot of effeminate behaviourisms, and his new peers wasted no time teasing him, bullying him, or physically and emotionally abusing him because of it.
“He was teased and called names for the way he dressed and how he wore his hair. He always wore nice jeans and t-shirts, and his favorite jacket, that he really liked. He used to slick back his hair which apparently was too much for his classmates to handle.”
“He wasn’t only teased at school, though. As Eric approached his adolescent years, he was ridiculed by members of our own family for the way he did his hair and for his personal style. They made him feel very uncomfortable and self-conscious and constantly chipped away at his self-esteem.”
Eric also suffered academically, which didn’t help his confidence much. His academic record notes that he had trouble reading and writing, his math skills were lacking, and he had trouble interacting socially with the other kids his age. According to his academic records, Eric had –
“…difficulty with decision-making, problem-solving, and thinking for himself. He seemed to hold himself apart from other kids due to negative self-evaluation and high sensitivity to criticism.”
“Mr Magnotta was evaluated as ‘under functioning by at least two academic years and had language dysfunction.’”
He was subsequently placed in a special education program in Grade 9 and appeared to improve academically; however, his social and math skills remained weak. According to one of his old classmates, Leslie Burke, Eric –
“…did not speak much, was shy and was preoccupied with his hair that he slicked back and would not allow anyone to touch. He became agitated if others were in his personal space and was so easily upset that other kids avoided him.”
Anna eventually married a man named Leo Belanger, and the couple had a son not long after. But according to Anna, she’d gone straight from one abusive relationship into the next. Leo was loud and aggressive, and regularly abused Anna and the kids. But he was even harder on Eric, and Eric made no attempt to hide the fact that he despised Leo. Years later, both Eric and his younger sister would claim that Leo had regularly molested Eric. According to Eric –
“He was, is, and always will be a complete waste of oxygen and by far the most useless idiot I have ever encountered.”
When Eric turned 16, he informed his mother that he was moving out and that he was going to go and live with his grandmother in Bethany so that he could get away from Leo. His grandmother, Phyllis, doted on her grandson and often said that he was her favourite. Eric would later explain that she basically raised him and that the two of them were close, even though she didn’t approve of his ‘girlish’ ways, and didn’t allow him to socialise with his friends after school.
Eric would later tell a forensic psychiatrist named Dr Joel Watts that he’d come across a book about Marilyn Monroe when he was in high school, and he became obsessed with her, watched all of her movies, and adopted some of her mannerisms. According to Dr Watts –
“When I asked why he identified with her so much, he said that he felt they had much in common, for example, she had been abused and ‘she is sexual.’”
“He often thought of having cosmetic surgery done because she had done so and [he] believed this would help him forget about the past and incite people to like him. He added, ‘When I think of Marilyn, it calms me down. I wanted people to understand and love me.’”
When Eric was 17, he started to suffer from depression and anxiety, and he’d later confide in Dr Watts that he often felt like he was ugly and unattractive, and he didn’t –
“…feel well mentally. I had poor concentration. I was feeling sick and hearing things.”
Eric went to see a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression. He received medication to help him manage, but not long after, he and a friend decided to drop out of school and move back to Toronto because they were ‘tired’ of living in a small town. Initially, Eric went to live with Don and his new wife, but Anna disapproved because Don allowed Eric to do as he pleased. This included allowing his underage son to drive around town drunk, and Anna called the cops on Eric, who was then arrested for driving without a license.
According to Anna –
“I was trying to prevent Eric from getting into serious trouble. I was terrified that he was going to get into a car accident. Eric was so young. I didn’t want him to start out on his own in life that way; I wanted Eric to make good choices. It made me furious that Don had been so irresponsible and stupid.”
Eric eventually moved into a group home with a bunch of other young adults and worked several jobs over the course of a few months. But he’d be fired after a few weeks for underperforming, falling asleep on the job, or just not showing up for his shifts, and he’d later explain that the stress of actually having to go in to work and be around people was often too much for him. He tried ending his life at least once by overdosing on his anti-depression medication, but his housemates realised that something was wrong, and rushed him to the hospital.
During this time, he was also arrested for defrauding a mentally ill woman whom he’d been dating at the time. According to Eric, he’d been encouraged by a friend of his to date her, and he and this friend would then use her credit card to buy themselves whatever they wanted. He ended up serving sixteen days in prison for using her credit cards to buy items worth $10,000. Eric blamed his crimes on the fact that he had schizophrenia, and the judge warned him that it would be in his best interest to continue using his medication, lest he get into even worse trouble.
Because he’d been diagnosed with both schizophrenia and depression, Eric qualified for the Ontario Disability Support Program, and when he was 19, he signed up to receive welfare checks and relied on food banks to keep himself fed. Not long after, he started working in the sex industry to make ends meet. He worked as a stripper and then as a male escort, and after a while, he started doing really well for himself.
Eric claims that this was partly due to the fact that he had boyish features, looked much younger than he was, and had ‘amazing stamina’. He also claims to have had five to six regular clients, and he made enough money that he was able to live quite comfortably, send money back to his grandmother and mother, and go on several trips to Las Vegas, the Bahamas, and Europe. According to Eric –
“I made a lot of money and had a lot of fun. Extremely generous clients allowed me to make six figures easily. One even bought me a condo. It was a great life.”
But working as an escort had its downsides as well. There are a lot of bad men out there, and some of his clients had no issue forcing Eric to act out their darkest fantasies. According to Dr Watts –
“A lot of his regular clients liked to videotape their sexual contacts for their own private use, and some would then go and post the videos online without [his] consent. He admitted that the videos depicting regular consensual sex did not bother him, but some videos were embarrassing, including one where he was tied up and whipped with a belt until he was bleeding and crying.”
Eric had always been very conscious about his appearance, but by the time he was in his mid-twenties, he became obsessed with how he looked. According to one of his ex-girlfriends, a transgender woman named Barbie –
“He was just really into himself. He would always beg me to take pictures of him with his digital camera.”
Eric underwent several cosmetic procedures to refine his appearance and make himself feel more “beautiful.” He continued to idolise Marilyn Monroe and claimed he sometimes believed he “had her soul inside him,” which, he said, made him feel more attractive. Over time, however, he also developed an obsession with Sharon Stone—particularly her character Catherine Trammel in his favourite film, Basic Instinct. He tried to model his appearance on hers and even adopted some of her mannerisms.
He still had a deep-seated need to be seen and loved, and in 2005, Eric legally changed his name to Luka Rocco Magnotta in an attempt to ‘become a celebrity’. He tried his hand at modelling and even appeared in a few pornographic films, but he wasn’t very successful at it. Then he started auditioning for a variety of reality shows. Again, he was told that he just didn’t have the “It” factor that the producers were looking for, despite his claims that some people had told him that he was ‘devastatingly good-looking’.
The one place where he felt that he could be appreciated for his ‘devastating good looks’ and be adored by his millions of ‘fans’ was the internet, and Luka went on to create dozens of fan pages and websites dedicated to himself. He also became fascinated by serial killers, and after Karla Homolka was released from prison in 2005, Luka started a rumour on various internet forums that he was dating her. According to Barbie –
“I heard stories about him online, about him dating Karla Homolka, but I knew that was all lies. I knew he made that up himself because he was very fascinated by her and Paul Bernardo. So he wanted to link his name to her, almost like an obsessed fan.”
Luka then contacted the Toronto Sun in 2007 and claimed that he was receiving a lot of hate online for his relationship with a convicted serial killer. In an exclusive television interview with Joe Warmington, he denied any relationship between him and Karla and claimed that these unfounded rumours were negatively affecting his modelling career. His tone of voice and facial expression were flat and emotionless when he claimed that -
“I’m about to have a nervous breakdown here. My reputation is completely ruined. I just want to set the record straight that me and her have absolutely no connection.”
Luka would later tell Dr Watts that he moved to New York in November 2010 to get away from disgruntled clients and his old agents, and that is where he claims to have met a man called “Manuel Lopez” or “Manny” through his work as an escort. Luka claims that Manny became one of his regular clients, and that Manny was often abusive during sex and would record their sexual acts.
According to Luka, one of Manny’s many fetishes included ‘crushing’. This can involve the person being ‘crushed’ themselves, or they are sexually aroused by watching something being crushed. This can include watching someone step on objects or food, or crushing insects, fish, amphibians, birds, or mammals to death.
Luka claims that Manny then convinced him to make a crush video to sell online. Luka owned a vacuum cleaner and a vacuum seal bag, and he’d recently adopted two kittens to keep him company. Manny suggested that they crush the kittens and then sell the video, and Luka claims that he reluctantly agreed. Manny pressed record while Luka placed the kittens in the bag and suffocated them. Later, Manny supposedly forced Luka to use the kittens’ bodies as sexual aids.
Luka claims that Manny then took the memory card that contained the video of them killing the kittens out of Luka’s digital camera and later posted them online. In January 2011, Luka ended up in the hospital in Miami after he tried to break things off between him and Manny. Luka claims that Manny had kidnapped him, taken him to Miami, fed him various drugs, and then allowed a group of men to sexually assault him. Afterwards, they abandoned an unconscious Luka on the beach, where the police then found him.
This story of his is supported by the police, hospital records, and his own mother, since Anna received a call around this time to let her know that Luka was in the hospital, and that a client of his named “Manny” had beaten him up severely. However, the hospital did various tests at the time, and reported that even though Luka had a sunburn the morning he’d been discovered, there weren’t any traces of either drugs or alcohol in his system.
Not long after, Luka decided to leave the US, and he moved back to Toronto. He then contacted a lawyer who was based in New York named Romeo Salta, and told him all about Manny, how he’d kidnapped him, sexually assaulted him, and then left him on a beach in Miami. Luka also told Mr Salta that Manny had forced him to suffocate two kittens to death, and that Manny had recorded the entire thing.
He also reportedly told Mr Salta that he was afraid of what Manny would do to him next, but that he was afraid of going to the police because of the video of him suffocating two cats. Mr Salta reportedly had no reason to doubt Luka’s version of events and advised him that it would be in his best interest to lay low and avoid Manny as much as possible. Luka agreed and then sent Mr Salta $100 as payment for his services.
Around the same time, a video titled “1 Boy 2 Kittens” had gone viral, and a few weeks later, Luka Magnotta became infamous.
Don’t F*ck With Cats
According to a documentary by The Fifth Estate titled “Hunting Luka Magnotta”, you can find a lot of dark things on the internet, but –
“There’s an internet subculture that firmly believes that you never, ever, mess with cats.”
It all started around October 2010 when someone began posting on different internet forums about a video titled “1 Boy 2 Kittens”, and asked the forum members where they could watch it. The video was eventually uploaded to a shock website called LiveLeak, and it wasn’t long before it made its way to Facebook.
The video showed a man with long, floppy hair in a hoodie loving on and stroking two kittens. His face was turned away from the camera, but he spent a few minutes kissing them, stroking them, and playing with them before he put the two kittens in a plastic bag. He attached a vacuum to the bag, turned it on, and then kept the camera focused on the two struggling kittens as they struggled and eventually passed away.
The video drew the attention of Ryan Boyle, a U.S. Army veteran, and he explained that he’d felt enraged after watching it. He created a Facebook group called “Find the Kitten Vacuumer… For Great Justice” on the 22nd of December 2010, and within a day, the group had over 4,000 members, all of whom were determined to watch the Vacuum Kitten Killer hang for what he’d done.
The video had also drawn the attention of several people who would later create a group called the ‘Animal Beta Project’. The group consists of several online sleuths who specifically target people who abuse animals, record their crimes, and then post the videos online. They claim to use OSINT or Open Source Intelligence to track down their targets, gather as much evidence against them as they can, and then report them to the relevant authorities. At least two of their members, a data analyst named Deanna Thompson, aka ‘Baudi Moovan’, and a man who goes by the name ‘John Green’, were some of the first people who had joined the For Great Justice Facebook group and joined their efforts to track the Vacuum Kitten Killer down.
According to Ryan –
“These were not people that were being paid money. They weren’t doing it for the fame. They weren’t doing it for recognition. We all had the same thing in mind – we wanted to catch this guy. And everyone was volunteering their own time, their own effort. Taking time away from their families to come in here, mostly anonymously, to help with this one thing.”
The members of the group spent HOURS analysing every second of the videos, and tried to see if they could determine where the Vacuum Kitten Killer was from based on the killer’s bedspread, the pack of cigarettes he’d been smoking, the light fixtures in the room, the electrical outlets, and the make and model of the vacuum he’d used to suffocate the kittens to death. This eventually led them to realise that the Vacuum Kitten Killer lived somewhere in North America.
Then another video was posted to the group itself – this time of the Vacuum Kitten Killer playing with the bodies of the two kittens. He also included several photos where he’d posed with the kittens before he’d killed them, but he’d blurred his face out.
It didn’t take the members of the group long to realise that the killer had posted the photos and video to the Facebook group himself, which meant that not only was he aware of their efforts to find him, but he was now taunting them. He was also using several fake dummy accounts to keep an eye on their movements and comment on their posts.
And then the members of the group received an email which read –
“The name of the kitten vacuumer you’re looking for is Luka Magnotta. He was born in Russia, lives in Los Angeles, and has lived in several different countries. The apartment in the video is located in West Hollywood. Hope this helps. I’m 100% serious.”
According to John Green, they tried doing a general search for ‘Luka Magnotta’ on Google, and they were FLOODED with hits. As we know, Luka had created several fan pages for himself on Facebook, but he’d also created websites where he advertised his services as a male escort, or where he claimed to be an aspiring male model, and had uploaded dozens of photos of himself.
They read posts he’d written on several message boards where he claimed that he’d been involved with Karla Homolka, or that he was acquainted with several other serial killers. He claimed to have connections to the Russian mob and that he was often persecuted for his ‘white supremacist’ views.
According to Deanna –
“We found hundreds and hundreds of fan sites. And a lot of the comments said really flattering things about him.”
“There were story after story after story about Luka online.”
In the Netflix documentary “Don’t F**ck With Cats”, John Green explains that they were blown away by everything Luka had posted about himself online.
“There’s just hundreds and hundreds of search results. And I’m looking through them, and I’m going ‘what is this?’. And I’m reading about this person who lives this jet-setting lifestyle.”
“There’s photos of him with sports cars that makes it looks like he lives this glamorous lifestyle.”
Luka had posted photos of himself in all of the places he’d been to with his clients, photos of the trip he’d taken to the Bahamas with his mother, as well as photos where he’s surrounded by groups of friends – all of which were photoshopped.
But it didn’t take them long to realise that the majority of the things Luka had posted about himself online were fake. Not only that, but his hundreds and hundreds of fans? They didn’t exist. They were all dummy accounts that Luka had used to inflate his own ego and make him feel better about himself.
However, he strongly resembled the Vacuum Kitten Killer, so John Green, Deanna, and a few others created a separate, closed group that he didn’t have access to, and they started doing more research on Luka Magnotta in an attempt to find out who he was – and more importantly – WHERE he was.
They came across an audition Luka had done for a Canadian reality TV show called “COVERguy”, saw the interview he’d done with Joe Warmington for the Toronto Sun, and realised that Luka must be from Canada. Now they just had to figure out if he was still there.
Deanna and the other members of their group spent HOURS downloading all of Luka’s photos and analysing their EXIF data. The EXIF data told them exactly which camera had been used to take the photo, when it was taken, and – most importantly – it gave them the GPS location. The majority of Luka’s photos were screenshots or had been wiped of their EXIF data, but Deanna then came across a recent photo that he’d posted of himself in a shopping mall, and she used the photo’s EXIF data to determine that when that photo was taken, Luka Magnotta had been in Toronto. Or, to be more specific, that on the 25th of October 2010, he’d been in the Toronto Eaton Shopping Centre.
According to John Green, he then used another recent photo that Luka had posted of himself on the balcony of his apartment building, and used the landmarks in the photo to figure out that Luka Magnotta lived at 304 Mill Street, Etobicoke, Toronto, Canada.
John Green and the other members of the Animal Beta Project then collated all of the information they had on Luka Magnotta and contacted the Toronto Police Department and the Ontario SPCA towards the end of January 2011. Inspector Brad Dewar was assigned the case, and he and a team of officers from the Toronto Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police went to Luka’s apartment building to speak with him. But when they got there, they were informed that Luka no longer lived there, and that he’d supposedly moved to Russia. No one knew where he was now, not even his mom, who’d been told that he’d moved to Russia and was now happily married to a Russian woman.
Several months went by, and again, Luka started teasing the release of a video called “bathtime lol” on a Facebook group called Spartacus’ Bath Video. On the 2nd of December 2011, Luka posted the “bathtime” video on LiveLeak using a dummy account called “Leslie Ann Downey”. This time, he’d tied a cat to a broom handle with clear plastic tape and then drowned the poor thing in a bathtub. In the video, Luka is wearing a pair of sunglasses and a wig and has his back turned to the camera, but it’s obviously him.
That same day, he posted another link to the For Great Justice Facebook group. The video had been uploaded to LiveLeak on the 28th of November 2011, and again, Luka had spent weeks hyping the video up online.
In the video, Luka had recorded himself playing with another cat on a bed that was covered with a golden duvet set. In the video, Luka is wearing a red sweater, sunglasses, and a Santa hat, and when he moves away, the viewer can see that there’s also an albino Burmese Python on the bed. Luka then uses the Santa hat to push the kitten towards the python until the inevitable happens.
But the name of the dummy account that Luka had used to post the videos was also a message to the members of the group. Leslie Ann Downey was one of the 5 victims of the Moors Murders. She’d been just ten years old when Myra Hindley and Ian Brady had kidnapped her, tortured her, sexually assaulted her, and then drowned her in a bathtub. And just like Luka, they’d recorded everything they’d done to her.
According to Deanna –
“This was the second indication that Luka has a fascination with serial killers.”
Once again, the videos went viral and eventually made their way to the UK, where The Sun published an article about it on the 3rd of December 2011 titled “Catch the Sicko Who Fed a Kitten to a Python”.
Not long after the article was published, a “John Kilbride” contacted one of The Sun’s correspondents in the UK, Alex West, and told him that Luka was currently in the UK. He then provided Alex with an address and room number, and Alex agreed to go and meet Luka.
Alex secretly recorded their interview, and when he asked Luka what he was doing in the UK, Luka drily responded that he was ‘in hiding’ because he’d received several death threats online from animal activists who claimed that he was the Vacuum Kitten Killer. When Alex pointed out that it was clearly Luka in those videos, Luka responded with –
“People are really good with Photoshop these days, aren’t they?” and “People have framed me. Isn’t that obvious?”
When he was asked why these animal activists would want to ‘frame’ him, Luka responded that he wasn’t planning on discussing their reasons with a journalist, and then brought an end to the interview. However, “John Kilbride” sent Alex an email shortly after in which he said that he was leaving soon, but that they’d hear from him again. In the email, “John Kilbride” wrote that –
“This time, however, the victims won’t be small animals…You see, killing is different from smoking…with smoking you can actually quit. Once you kill, and taste, it’s impossible to stop. The urge is just too strong not to continue.”
“The fun part of all of this is watching millions of people get very angry and frustrated because they can’t catch me.”
“Next time you hear from me it will be in a movie I am producing, that will have some humans in it, not just pussys.”
“Getting away with all this, now thats genius.”
Signed, yours truly, John Kilbride”
Now, we know that it was Luka who’d contacted Alex, because the name “John Kilbride” was another message – he was another one of the victims of the Moors murders. He’d been 12 years old when he was kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Ian Brady then slit John’s throat with a serrated blade, strangled him, and then buried his body in a shallow grave. Afterwards, Ian took a photo of Myra Hindley as she crouched down next to John’s grave, holding a black and white puppy.
What’s more, the line about how killing is different from smoking was a direct quote from Luka’s favourite movie, Basic Instinct.
Alex West reported all of this to the Metropolitan police, but Luka had already left the country, and there was nothing they could do. The Facebook group For Great Justice then told their contacts at the Ontario SPCA and the Toronto police about the email, and warned them that Luka was going to commit a murder.
According to Ryan Boyle –
“I think our biggest frustration was getting people to believe us. No one really cared. We had a lot of trouble getting help from anybody. So, the way we felt about it was, well, we just needed to build the case stronger. We wanted to make a case that was so rock solid that it was impossible to ignore.”
The group once again compiled all of the information they’d gathered so far, took screenshots of key elements of the videos Luka had published, and compared them with photos he’d published of himself. They included photos of the cats he’d posted while they were still alive, photos of him posing on top of the wolf bedspread from the first video, photos of him on the golden bedspread, and screenshots of the furniture that appeared both in the videos and in his photos. All of this – in their opinion – was proof that Luka Magnotta had created those videos, but their contacts at the Ontario SPCA and the Toronto Police informed them that unless they could provide them with a verifiable address for Luka, the police’s hands were tied.
Frustrated, the Animal Beta Project released a video asking for the public’s help in tracking Luka down. In the video, an AI voice explains that Luka goes by the aliases “Luka Magnotta”, “Kirk Newman” and “Vladimir Romanov”, but that his real name was Eric Kirk Newman, and that -
“This video has been created to help find the person responsible for killing these cats. Together we can find the person responsible for committing these crimes.”
In the video, they included footage from the three videos that Luka had created, several photos of Luka, and all of the information they had on him – including the fact that he was an escort, used to live in Toronto, and that there was a reward of $5,000 being offered for any information that would lead to his arrest.
The members of the For Greater Justice group continued to stalk Luka Magnotta online, and some of them even went so far as to post threatening messages to him on his many fan pages. In retaliation, several dummy accounts started posting the names and private information of several members of the For Greater Justice Facebook group on the page, and the members of the group came to the chilling realisation that Luka Magnotta was now stalking them in turn. According to Deanna, she woke up one morning and found that she’d been tagged in a video Luka had posted where he was walking through a casino in Las Vegas, where she worked.
According to John Green –
“He’s mentioned us. He has mentioned my name several times (in his online posts). He would name certain pictures that he would send us with our profile names. So it was this back and forth between us, but we knew that we knew more about him than he would ever know about us.”
Then someone contacted the members of the group and let them know that they suspected that Luka was in Montreal. John Green and Deanna went through their archive of Luka’s photos and started analysing his most recent posts, and there they came across a photo of Luka posing somewhere in the middle of a built-up area. In the background were several street lights topped with ornamental, iron-cast lanterns, and the pair realised that they were unique enough that they could use them to determine if Luka truly was in Montreal.
So, John Green and Deanna divided the city into sections, and the two of them started doing a virtual walking tour on Google Maps Street View to see if they could locate those lanterns. And they did. They were able to find the exact spot where the photo had been taken, confirming their suspicion that Luka Magnotta was indeed in Montreal.
Once again, they reached out to their contacts at the Toronto police and the Ontario SPCA, and told them that Luka Magnotta was in Montreal. The Toronto Police and the Ontario SPCA then contacted their colleagues in Montreal and explained the situation to them. The police in Montreal somehow managed to find an address for Luka and showed up at his door in March 2012, ready to question him. However, the landlord informed them that Luka was no longer living there.
He’d told them that he planned on moving back to Toronto at the end of February.
In April 2012, a video started doing the rounds on Facebook, urging people to join a Facebook group dedicated to finding Luka Magnotta. It also contained several photos of Luka, and an AI voice just like the one that the Animal Beta Project had used in their video, warned the viewer that Luka was a serial killer, and that he was ‘a dangerous psychopath’. It’s been theorised that Luka himself had created this video, since it included several photos of him that hadn’t been posted anywhere else.
He’d also contacted his mother and had sent her the links to the cat videos, asking her if she’d seen them. Almost as if he were proud of them.
Then, on the 25th of May 2012, Luka Magnotta emailed another video to the owner of a gore website called BestGore.com. Only this time, his victim was human.
1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick
Once again, Luka had started hyping up his new ‘movie’ weeks before the murder took place. He then posted an ad on Craigslist on the 20th of May 2012, and claimed that he was looking to adopt a puppy.
In the post, he explained that his family had owned a pet shop for ten years, and that he had a lot of experience with dogs. He then promised that he’d provide a loving and caring home for the dog, and asked for pictures of the dog so that he could decide which one he’d like to adopt. He eventually decided to adopt a small black and white puppy, just like the one Myra Hindley had owned.
On the morning of the 24th of May 2012, he then posted another ad on Craigslist and explained that he was planning on making a movie, and needed a man between the ages of 18 and 35 to star in this movie that he was making for his own private use. Again, he asked for a picture so that he could vet his applicants beforehand.
A 34-year-old Chinese national named Jun Lin, aka Justin Lin, responded to Luka’s post. He was studying Computer Science at Concordia University in Montreal and had been in Canada for almost a year. He was working at a convenience store for money and had recently broken up with his boyfriend. Jun was reportedly also on a mission to ‘broaden his sexual horizons’, and by that point, he’d already met up with several men whom he’d met online.
Jun met up with Luka on the afternoon of Thursday, the 24th of May 2012, and the two of them returned to Luka’s apartment building at 5720 Decarie Boulevard around 10:17 that evening. In the CCTV footage of the apartment building’s lobby, Luka can be seen wearing a brown chin-length wig, a white t-shirt, black sweatpants, and grey sneakers. Jun is wearing a yellow t-shirt, tan cargo shorts, and a black and white baseball cap. The two went up to Luka’s apartment on the second floor, where they presumably shared dinner, and Luka handed Jun a glass of spiked wine.
At around midnight, Jun sent his ex-boyfriend/roommate a text message. His ex eventually responded, but Jun never saw those messages.
At some point during the evening, Luka tied a partially naked Jun’s arms and legs to the bed, covered his eyes, asked if he was comfortable, and then slit his throat. He started recording himself touching and stroking Jun’s body before he repeatedly stabbed him in the chest with a screwdriver that he’d painted silver. He then starts dismembering Jun’s body on camera. Approximately 8 minutes into the video, Luka leaves and returns with his black and white puppy and feeds it pieces of Jun’s body.
Luka would eventually end up killing the puppy as well.
At 2:06 on the morning of the 25th of May 2012, the CCTV footage shows Luka heading back downstairs on his own, and this time he’s wearing light grey sweatpants and Justin’s yellow t-shirt. When he returns 7 minutes later, he’s carrying a white plastic shopping bag. Upon re-entering the lobby, he takes a moment to look at himself in a mirror, fix his wig, and check out his own ass.
At 2:47 am, Luka enters the basement area of the apartment building and dumps what looks like a pillowcase with something inside into one of two 200L covered oil drums that acted as a dumpster. He returns a few minutes later and empties his trash can. It seems to have been filled with torn-up papers. He returns at least twice more to throw away even more items.
At 21:02 that same day, Luka enters the apartment building wearing a white t-shirt, grey sweatpants, and Justin’s baseball cap. 50 minutes later, he’s throwing away an armload of clothes, as well as a small bundle wrapped up in newspaper, which he then covers up with some of the clothes. At 5:47 am on the 26th of May 2012, he threw away his electronic devices, which included a cell phone, his laptop, a digital camera, and some earphones. Again, he’s wearing Justin’s baseball cap. Not long after, Luka leaves the building for the final time.
On Friday, the 25th of May 2012, the owner of BestGore.com posted the video online. It was titled ‘1 Lunatic, 1 Icepick’, a reference to a video called ‘3 Guys 1 Hammer’, in which 3 teenage boys brutally bludgeoned a man to death.
In the video ‘1 Lunatic, 1 Icepick’, Luka is wearing a hoodie and jeans, and can be seen straddling a man, who is alive and writhing against the bonds. Then the video shifts, and now the viewer can see Justin’s lifeless and half-naked body. The video was edited to include photos of Justin’s face, his dismembered body parts, and the now-dead puppy, and is approximately 10 ½ minutes long.
Of course, the members of For Great Justice were keeping an eye on all of Luka’s self-promotion pages, so when the video that Luka had been hyping up for weeks was uploaded under the username “Mr Trammel”, they immediately reported it to their contacts at the Toronto Police. Other people around the world had also seen it and reported it almost as soon as it was published, and in the US, a Montana-based lawyer named Roger Renville would spend the next three days trying to draw US and Canadian law enforcement’s attention to the video. Of course, by that point, they were already too late to save Justin Lin.
At around 9:30 on the morning of the 29th of May 2012, Mike Nadeau, who worked as a janitor at 5720 Decarie Boulevard, grew suspicious of a suitcase that had been left standing next to the garbage bins in the alley behind the building. He’d later explain that the blue suitcase had been standing there since the morning of the 25th of May, and he’d initially taken a closer look at the suitcase because someone had put a lock on it. But when he got closer, he saw that it was covered with flies, smelled foul, and that maggots were coming out of it.
“I figured someone’s dog died, or their cat died or something, and they didn’t know what to do with it. But I got curious, so I decided to open it.”
Inside the suitcase was a human torso, and Mike immediately called the police. The forensic team took custody of the suitcase, pitched a tent, and emptied out the garbage bins to look for the other body parts. Instead, they came across a wealth of evidence – bloody blankets, sheets and clothing, shoes, cleaning supplies, blue latex gloves, a crumpled poster from the movie ‘Casablanca’, a screwdriver that had been painted with a metallic silver paint, a bloodied steak knife, an angle grinder, a yellow t-shirt, the body of a black-and-white puppy, two legs, and two arms – sans hands and feet.
They also found cheques, notes, receipts, invoices, and several other torn-up papers, as well as a driver’s licence that had been issued to a Luka Rocco Magnotta. In fact, almost ALL of the documents had Luka’s name and address written on them. He’d LITERALLY left his business cards behind, as if he wanted to make sure that there was absolutely no doubt that he’d been involved in one way or another.
And while the police were busy sorting through Luka’s trash and searching his now-empty apartment, a suspicious package arrived at the national headquarters of the Conservative Party of Canada. It was stained with blood, smelled foul, and someone had drawn a red heart on it. A member of the staff delivered the package to Jenni Byrne, the Campaign Manager, and when she opened it, she realised that it contained a human foot. They immediately called the police, who discovered a note inside the package that was addressed to the then Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and his wife, Laureen (nee Teskey).
That same day, another package — this one containing a left hand — was supposed to be delivered to the Liberal Party. However, a Canada Post employee had reported it before it could be sent out for delivery. Inside it was a note that read –
“You need to speak to Laureen Teskey and her family! Lots to hide!”
The post office and the police then began a desperate search to locate the remaining body parts before they reached their intended recipients. On the 1st of July, a lawyer would inform the police that Luka had buried the head in a public park and where they could find it, but the right hand and right foot would end up being delivered to two schools in Vancouver, which is on the other side of Canada. One of the packages contained another note –
“Roses are Red, Violets are Blue. The Police Will Need a Dental File To Identify You, Bitch”
All of the body parts were later determined to have belonged to the same person – Jun Lin, who’d been reported as missing on the morning of the 25th of May 2012 when he failed to show up for work.
Of course, the police knew exactly who’d murdered him. The only question they had was, where the HELL was Luka Magnotta?
Catch Me If You Can
According to Ryan –
“All of our information, all of our evidence was gained from the internet. So to [the police], it was internet-based fluff. They didn’t care until he killed a person. And then all of a sudden, it was ‘oh my gosh, we’ve got to go find this guy!’ Well, that’s what we’ve been telling you all along!”
According to John Green, their contact at the Toronto Police had been on holiday when they’d emailed him about Luka’s newest video, and when he got back at the office, he was told that the guy they’d been searching for the last 18 months was now a murder suspect. He called John Green back and then asked him if he and the other members of the For Great Justice group and the Animal Beta Group could compile everything they knew about Luka Magnotta and forward it to the police. After all, no one knows Luka Magnotta as well as they do.
They, in turn, were able to draw the police’s attention to some of the clues Luka had left in the video – the black and white puppy, and the fact that he’d slit Jun Lin’s throat. Those two details linked Luka to the ‘John Kilbride’ email. Then there was the fact that the ‘1 Lunatic, 1 Icepick video’ seemed to be a tribute to Basic Instinct, and shared a lot of similarities with the movie’s opening scene. Now, if you’ve never watched it, it opens on a woman and a man having sex. The woman straddles the man, ties him to the bed, and then stabs him to death with a silver icepick. Luka also initially straddled a man who’d been tied up on his bed, but then the camera shifted, and he was standing next to Jun Lin’s body. Then Luka repeatedly stabbed Jun Lin with a screwdriver that he’d painted with a metallic silver paint so that it looked like the silver icepick.
And then there’s the fact that, according to Deanna –
“Luka likes to leave breadcrumbs.”
The group then turned the police’s attention to the Casablanca poster. It featured prominently in the video that Luka had made, and they explained that in the opening sequence of the movie Casablanca, the camera zooms in on a globe, before it focuses on France. And in the closing scene of the movie, Humphrey Bogart’s character says –
“We’ll always have Paris”
They suspected that it meant that he’d gone to Paris. What’s more, they suspected that Luka was going to try and change his identity along the way. This was based not only on the fact that he’d left his driver’s licence and other important documents behind, but he’d written a blog post back in 2009, in which he explained what steps you should take if you planned to ‘disappear forever’. According to an article posted in the French newspaper AFP -
“He said a person must withdraw from all social circles, possess two sets of false identification papers, convert all assets to cash and then take a bus to a chosen destination, after selling a car somewhere else to mislead police.”
With this information in hand, the police contacted the Montreal airport. According to Detective Sergeant Claudette Hamlin –
“We informed them that he’s wearing a wig, a black wig, down to the ears. He’s wearing a black short-sleeve t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it.”
The police and the security personnel at the Montreal Airport were able to confirm that on the 26th of May 2012, Luka had boarded a flight to Paris under the name ‘Luka Magnotta’, and on the 31st of May 2012, Interpol issued a Red Notice for Luka’s arrest, explaining that he was being accused of first degree murder, committing indignity to a body, publishing obscene material, mailing said obscene material, and criminally harassing the Canadian Prime Minister and several members of Parliament.
Interpol in France were warned that Luka had travelled to Paris, and they reportedly mobilised a team of between 30 and 40 officers from the Fugitive Task Force to look for him. They were able to track him to a hotel in Paris, where he’d rented a room for one night under the name “Luka Magnotta”. But Luka never actually slept at the hotel. Instead, he’d rented a room under the name “Kirk Trammel”.
At one point, Luka had crashed on the couch of a man he’d met on a hookup website called ‘Gay Romeo’, and when the news of his crimes hit the news channels in France on the 31st of May, he bought a bus ticket to Berlin. He’d also ditched the wig and now had a French accent.
Then he seemingly disappeared again – for a while. Luka was staying over at the house of another guy he’d met on Gay Romeo, and while he was there, he kept on posting videos online, which included a video of himself watching television that was addressed to ‘all of his fans’. He also kept an eye on all of the reports regarding the international manhunt that was underway, and even sent his sister an email to ask her what if felt like to be the sister of a serial killer.
Now, the story of HOW he was eventually caught is honestly my favourite part of this WHOLE saga because it’s just chef’s kiss.
At around 1 pm on the 4th of June 2012, Luka sauntered into an internet café in Berlin. In an affected French accent, he asked one of the employees of the café, a Mr Kadir Anlayisli, if he could go and use ‘the internet’. According to Mr Anlayisli, he’d just been reading an article about Luka’s crimes, so he’d immediately recognised him as the man that the Canadian and French police were looking for.
He calmly led Luka to one of the booths in the back of the café and then kept a close eye on Luka via the CCTV cameras while he double checked the article to make sure that it really was the guy that the media had started referring to as “The Canadian Psycho”. According to Mr Anlayisli –
“I still wasn’t sure if it was actually him. He doesn’t look like a murderer. So I went upstairs […], grabbed this trash can as if I were cleaning up, but one eye was always on him. I wanted to see exactly what he was doing on the internet.”
Mr Anlayisli watched as Luka logged onto the computer using the name ‘Katherine Trammel’, and then went to Interpol’s website, where he looked up his own Red Notice, which included a photo of him. That was the only proof Mr Anlayisli needed, so he returned to the front of the store, walked out onto the street, and waved down a police bus that had just happened to pass by.
The bus was filled with trainee police officers, and their supervisor was shocked when Mr Anlayisli waved them down and told them that the Canadian fugitive, Luka Magnotta, was in his shop. Like, WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
Within minutes, Luka was surrounded by around eight to twelve German police officers, with his mugshot and the Interpol Red Notice on FULL DISPLAY ON THE SCREEN IN FRONT OF HIM. The German police officers reportedly asked Luka to identify himself, and he initially told them that his name was Kirk Trammel and that he was from New Jersey. But when they asked to see his passport, he must have realised that the jig was up, so he held up his hands and said –
“You got me.”
Suspension of Disbelief
In the movie Basic Instinct, one of the detectives questions Catherine Trammel about her work as a writer, and comments that it must be fun to make up stories for a living. Catherine smiles, then says –
“It teaches you to lie.”
“You make stuff up; it has to be believable. It’s called ‘suspension of disbelief’.”
That evening, the news of Luka’s arrest was broadcast all over the world, and CBC News reported that in the end, it was Luka’s vanity that did him in. The authorities were in the process of sorting out Luka’s extradition order, and Ionna Roumeliotis, a news correspondent for CBC News, explained that –
“If Magnotta fights extradition, it might take him months, even years, before he’s back in Canada. But experts are betting that his ego will prevail, and that he’ll want to come back earlier to face trial.”
AND THEY WEREN’T WRONG. Luka didn’t put up even an inkling of a fight, but I’d argue it wasn’t because he was excited to stand trial. No, it was most likely because he was excited at the prospect of being the headline act of the media circus that was going on back home.
In the Netflix documentary, it’s explained that when the Canadian authorities had to arrange for Luka’s return to Canada, none of the commercial airlines had any interest in bringing ‘The Canadian Psycho’ back home. Instead, they had to ask the Royal Canadian Air Force to go and fetch him, and they arrived in Berlin on the 18th of June 2012.
One of the people who was sent to Berlin to collect Luka was the forensic psychiatrist Dr Joel Watts, who’d been appointed by the Crown to determine whether or not Luka was mentally fit to stand trial. After all, some news outlets had already started to report on the fact that Luka had once been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that he was known to suffer from depression and anxiety. According to Dr Watts, when he first met Luka –
“I was sort of struck by the fact that he looked really unwell. He was a little dishevelled, his hygiene wasn’t so good, and he looked like an individual who was in an acute state of psychosis. He was paranoid, he immediately started talking about this woman who he called ‘the witch, Debbie’, who he thought was staring at him through the window, filming him.”
“The forensic psychiatrist part of me was thinking, ‘come on, this has got to be a show, this can’t be real’, but part of me was thinking, ‘wow, he would have to be a really good actor to be faking this’.”
Luka was taken to the police headquarters in Montreal, where he was then interrogated by Detective Sergeant Antonio Paradisio. For the majority of the interrogation, Luka didn’t say much apart from “I don’t want to say anything without my lawyer”, and explaining that he wasn’t planning on admitting to anything, so the Detective would just be wasting his time interrogating him. After about an hour, he did ask if he could have his medication, though, and explained that he was tired.
The next morning, Det. Sgt. Paradisio tried to interrogate him again, and once again, Luka refused to say anything, stating –
“I don’t want to be rude. I just don’t want to talk.”
He did repeatedly explain that he wasn’t feeling well, that he suffered from schizophrenia, that he had no interest in speaking to the police without first speaking to his lawyer or his psychiatrist, and then he asked for a cigarette. And despite Det. Sgt Paradisio’s numerous attempts to get Luka to admit to anything, he eventually had to admit defeat.
The three psychiatrists who ended up meeting with him over the course of the next year had more luck. All of them explained that Luka’s voice and his facial expressions were flat and emotionless (aka, he had a flat affect), and they blamed it on the anti-psychotic drugs that he was taking since it’s a known side-effect. Dr Watts especially spent a LOT of time with Luka, and would end up writing a 136-page report on Luka’s history, his mental health, and his version of events.
Now, by this point, I’ve unfortunately watched a lot of footage of Luka, and everyone who’d met him mentioned the fact that he seemed small and timid. And during his police interrogations, he also presented himself as being oh so weak and helpless. Like when he politely asked Det. Sgt. Paradisio to please bring him a blanket because he was cold. And when he stood up, he hunched his shoulders, waved at the camera and said ‘help me, please help me, I need help’, when he wanted to go to the bathroom.
And while I read Dr Watts’ report on Luka, I also got the impression that in the months leading up to his trial, he was STILL maintaining the whole ‘damsel in distress’ façade – especially when he kept on reminding Dr Watts that he had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by his clients, that he had felt anxious and depressed almost all the time, that people were stalking him online and following his every move, and that they had been sending him death threats for months. (And to be fair, that is exactly what happened.) Luka also reportedly ‘fainted’ several times because everything had become too much for him, and he repeatedly claimed that he was struggling to cope.
Anyway. In this report, Dr Watts included a criminal profile that had been drawn up on the request of Sergeant Detective Claudette Hamelin on the 12th of June 2012. The profile explained that, based on the video evidence and their analysis of the crime itself, Luka had meticulously planned the murder. The desecration of Jun Lin’s body was a movie, and Luka was both the screenwriter and the director.
They explained that he’d done it all to draw attention to himself and shock his audience, and that he hadn’t done it because he derived any sexual pleasure from the act. This was based on the fact that it was obvious in some of the shots that he wasn’t sexually aroused by what he was doing.
With regards to his personal relationships –
“They hypothesised that his relationships with others appeared to be only utilitarian. He was envious and came from a disorganised family. He appeared to like to talk about himself, to bait people and to brag.”
“They stated that he appeared to be a seducer. They suggested, however, that one would need to verify whether or not he ever made suicidal attempts in the past and whether or not he had a psychiatric history.”
Now, Dr Watts did talk to Luka’s previous doctors, who all confirmed that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. They also all reported that while he complained about hearing voices and feeling like people were watching him or stalking him, he still came across as organised, clear-headed, and seemed to be taking care of himself just fine. One doctor even mentioned that Luka had been grooming himself while he sat in the waiting room.
The police managed to track down and speak to some of his ex-boyfriends and his clients, and they explained that he never showed any indication that he was hearing voices, that he never mentioned feeling like he was being followed, that he never used drugs or drank any alcohol because he ‘liked to feel in control’, and that his personal hygiene was never lacking.
Some of his old caseworkers at various welfare organisations did note that they got the impression that he was faking the majority of his symptoms, and his family members said the same. His sister even mentioned that he’d ‘act like their dad’ and play up his ‘illness’.
After knowing Luka for about 3 months, Dr Watts became convinced that Luka is definitely a paranoid schizophrenic, and that when the murders took place, he’d been suffering from psychosis. In his report, he explained that -
“Mr Magnotta described experiencing an escalation of paranoid fear during the evening of May 24th 2012, leading up to Mr Lin’s killing. His description of these emotions is consistent with a genuine psychotic state of intensifying fear and confusion. This included pacing, feeling his mind was “racing fast”, feeling overwhelmed and extremely scared. He felt like something, or someone, was controlling his body, like he was under a “spell.”
He became convinced that Mr Lin was a government spy sent to poison and kill him.”
You see, Luka had told Dr Watts that he hadn’t planned on murdering Jun Lin. That Manny was the one who was actually responsible for it. According to Luka, Manny had managed to track him down via a mutual friend called ‘Rebecca’, and had then given him a call to let him know that he wanted a threesome. He then ordered Luka to place an ad on Craigslist asking for a third to join their party, to which Jun Lin responded.
When Jun Lin arrived at Luka’s flat, Manny supposedly sat outside in his car and watched everything via a webcam.
Luka claims that he and Jun Lin were supposed to have sex, but then Jun Lin sexually assaulted him. Luka then waffles between whether or not Manny was actually in the room with them or not, because he explains that he went to the bathroom to cry and clean himself up, while Jun Lin and Manny sat in the bedroom and talked. Eventually, he and Jun Lin were supposed to have sex again, and Manny ordered him to tie Jun Lin up. Manny left the apartment at some point to return to the car, but he still watched them through a camera and would call Luka to give him orders.
Luka claims that while he was in the bathroom, he’d come to the realisation that Jun Lin was a government spy, and either ended up killing him because Manny said so, because he was convinced that Jun Lin was planning on forcing himself on him again, or because he didn’t want Jun Lin to murder him on behalf of the government.
According to Dr Watts, Luka’s decision to mail the body parts to the Prime Minister and his wife was even more evidence that at the time of the murder, Luka was in a state of psychosis.
“Delusional statements made by Mr Magnotta shortly after his arrest in the Berlin jail hospital correspond with the paranoid beliefs he reported experiencing from May 24th-26th, 2012. For example, he told [the psychologist in Berlin] that “Manny” told him that Stephen Harper “is evil.” He reported hearing voices as if they were a radio in his head. He talked about having been poisoned.”
Now, I personally believe that in the months leading up to the trial, Luka played Dr Watts like a fiddle. The two of them met over the course of several months, during which time Luka was already receiving a series of anti-psychotic medications. And yet his appearance and personal hygiene seemed to grow worse as time went on, with Dr Watts explaining that the flat affect never went away, that Luka started wearing dirty and stained clothing, and that he’d continue to report that ‘the witch Debbie’ was still out to get him, and was staring at him through the prison windows.
He also told Dr Watts this wild story of how everything that had happened was Manny’s fault, and managed to convince Dr Watts that Manny was either a real person or a delusion that was based on a real person, enforcing Dr Watts’ belief that at the time of the murders, Luka was off his rocker.
Whenever Dr Watts asked Luka specific details about that night, Luka reportedly claimed that he couldn’t remember what had happened because he’d “blacked out.” And then Luka had told Dr Watts that he wanted to change his version of what had happened that night:
“When I met with Mr. Magnotta on January 11th 2013, he informed me that he wanted to clarify information he had given me in the last interview. He was worried that he may have told me events that were not truly from his memory of the incident of May 24th to 26th. He was concerned that he had told me details he remembered of evidence shown to him after his arrest by his lawyers.”
Which I understood as meaning, “whoops, there was a hole in my version. I’d better patch it up quick”.
Dr Watts ended up diagnosing Luka with episodic schizophrenia and histrionic personality disorder, and explained that –
“Although my initial impression of Mr. Magnotta upon meeting him in Berlin and having no knowledge of his past psychiatric history raised suspicions [that he was faking it], it has become clear through the analysis of his extensive psychiatric history, from observations of collateral sources, and from several months of direct interviews and observation of his mental state, that he suffers from a genuine psychotic illness.”
“The episodic disorganised thinking and long-standing flattened emotional expression (a negative symptom of schizophrenia) that he presents are symptoms difficult to and rarely feign by individuals malingering mental illness. The fact that he has maintained such symptoms during his many months of regular observation by multiple individuals, including forensically experienced psychiatrists, makes it extremely unlikely that these symptoms are not genuine.”
“In summary, it is my opinion with reasonable medical certainty that due to his acute psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia from May 24th to 26th 2012, Mr Magnotta did not know that his acts were wrong.”
Like, REALLY? We know that Luka had been planning the murder for MONTHS, had even gone through the trouble of including references to other serial killers and his favourite movies in his videos, and mailed the severed body parts of his victim to the PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA, and yet Dr Watts believes that he did all of this because he didn’t know that what he was doing was wrong? All because he told him a story about how a guy called Manny had forced him to do it, that he was hearing voices, and that ‘people were out to get him’?
If he’d just done his research, he’d have known that “Manny” – or Manuel Vasquez – was Catherine Trammel’s abusive ex-boyfriend in the movie Basic Instinct. After his first cat video had blown up, Luka had gone through a LOT of effort to set up an alibi for himself, and blame all of it on a FICTIONAL CHARACTER. Does that sound like someone who has no idea that what he’s doing is wrong? And do you know what else is mind-blowing about this whole thing? Remember the lawyer Luka had hired to ‘defend’ him should the police come calling? Luka had reportedly asked him if anyone had ever told him that he looked like Michael Douglas – Sharon Stone’s co-star in Basic Instinct.
By this point, it should come as no surprise that, even though the Crown had initially hired Dr Watts to provide an assessment of Luka, he would end up testifying on behalf of the defence instead.
The Trial of the Canadian Psycho
Luka Magnotta’s murder trial began on the 29th of September 2014 in the Quebec Superior Court. His lawyer, Luc Leclair, informed the court that Luka had admitted that he’d committed the crimes that he was accused of, but that he was pleading Not Guilty due to Diminished Responsibility because of his mental disorders.
But Crown Prosecutor Louis Bouthillier argued that Luka had known EXACTLY what he’d been doing, and even went so far as to suggest that Luka doesn’t suffer from schizophrenia AT ALL. He even suggested that Luka had claimed to suffer from schizophrenia after he’d dropped out of school, because it had allowed him to claim disability. All of his eventual claims about hearing voices were a part of an elaborate act that he’d put on for more than a decade.
The prosecution showed the jury several videos of Luka during the course of the trial. They showed them the videos of Luka suffocating the two kittens. They showed them the video of him drowning a cat and feeding another to a snake. They showed them the email that Luka had sent to Alex West from The Sun newspaper. They showed them the CCTV footage from Luka’s old apartment building, and the jury watched as Luka and Justin entered the building, and Luka later left wearing Justin’s clothing.
They showed the jury the video that Luka had posted online, as well as snippets of video that they’d found on a digital camera that he’d tossed in the dumpster. They also explained that Jun Lin hadn’t been Luka’s only victim. At some point before the murder, Luka had drugged another young man and had recorded himself straddling his victim’s body. Luka eventually let the man go, but he’d end up featuring in the video. The police were never able to identify him.
The prosecution also showed the Jury that Luka had taken photos of Jun Lin’s body parts, that he’d fed pieces of Jun Lin’s body to his dog, and that he then pretended to pleasure himself with Jun Lin’s severed hand.
The prosecution showed them the videos of Luka disposing of his bloody blankets and clothes, how he took the suitcase containing Jun Lin’s torso to the back of the building, and the CCTV footage from a nearby post office, in which you can see Luka carrying the packages that contained Jun Lin’s hands and feet.
They also pointed out all the tributes to Basic Instinct that Luka had included in the murder. The line from the email was an almost direct quote from something Sharon Stone’s character, Catherine Trammel, had said. The poster on the wall was supposed to represent the glass window from the opening scene of the movie. The screwdriver that had been painted silver so that it resembled the icepick that Catherine Trammel used to murder her boyfriend. Luka’s chosen alias, ‘Kirk Trammel’, and the username he’d used when logging onto the computer at the internet café in Berlin – Catherine Trammel. And the revelation that in the movie, Basic Instinct, “Manny” is Catherine Trammel’s abusive ex-boyfriend.
And despite Dr Watts’ insistence that Luka’s belief in the existence of a man named ‘Manny’ was proof that Luka was severely mentally ill, the jury still found that Luka Magnotta was guilty on all charges, which included ‘committing an indignity to a human body, publishing obscene material, criminally harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of Parliament, and mailing obscene and indecent material.’
During sentencing, Justice Guy Cournoyer explained that the case had been unique, but it was clear from the evidence provided to the court that Luka had been a ‘man on a mission’, and had planned all of his actions beforehand. He also pointed out that Dr Watts’ assessment of Luka’s mental capacity was one-sided and relied too much on Luka’s version of events. Basically, there wasn’t enough evidence available to the court to support Dr Watts’ conclusion that Luka couldn’t be held accountable because he didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.
“No one could attest to the accused’s state of mind at the time of the crime except him.”
Because of the ‘exceptional circumstances’ of the case, Justice Cournoyer declared that Luka Magnotta would receive the maximum sentence available - life in prison, with the option of applying for parole after 25 years. For the rest, he received a combined sentence of 19 years in prison.
For Jun Lin
In the Netflix documentary, Jun Lin’s ex-boyfriend points out that whenever Jun Lin’s murder is discussed, everyone always seems to focus on Luka instead of Jun Lin. Unfortunately, as is usually the case,we don’t know much about him. We don’t know what his favourite foods were, whether he was a cat or a dog person, or what kinds of movies he loved.
And the things we do know about him are not exactly the kinds of things that people want to be remembered for. So, I’d like to end today’s episode by including parts of his father’s victim impact statement, since he’s one of the people who knew Jun best. According to his father, Diran, Jun Lin had loved China, but he’d been drawn to the idea of living in Canada for years and had spent months reading up on what his life would be like there.
After he moved to Canada in December 2010, he regularly sent his family photos and videos to show that he was doing well, and in one of the last photos he’d sent his family, he explained that he found the City of Montreal to be ‘beautiful’. According to his father – “The night Jun Lin died, parts of many other people died in one way or another. His mother, his sister and me, his friends.
In one night, we lost a lifetime of hope, our futures, parts of our past.” “I am troubled by knowing what his plans were: to stay here and to start a business, to live here permanently, to enjoy your language, your opportunities, your fresh air. I live each day with regret that all I now see available here will never be his, that his name will only be associated with a horrible, degrading crime.”
“It causes me fresh pain to know that my son’s legacy is to be remembered as a victim. He not only suffered in his murder but will be humiliated for each time his name is mentioned, and it hurts me deeply and will hurt me forever. It hurts me to know that my last words to him were “be careful, son.”
I feel bad that I was not there to warn him that night. I will never see his smiling face on video chat or hear about his new accomplishments or hear his laugh.” “In traditional Chinese culture, your child grows up to take care of you when you get old.
A Chinese parent has a saying: “Having a child takes care of old age” or “Raising a child prevents loneliness in old age”. He will not be there for me and Lin Jun’s mother in our old age.” “We do not want to tell our story because it is too sad to repeat.
We cannot talk much about Jun Lin without talking about his murder. The murder has robbed us not only of Jun Lin but our ability to think and talk about him without feeling pain and shame.” “I will never see his smiling face on video chat or hear about his new accomplishments or hear his laugh.”
“He will never be there for his birthday, or ours.” “My brave son, smart son, laughing son, caring son, adventurous son, handsome son, strong son, popular son. Gone.”
Key Takeaways Internet sleuths tracked Luka Magnotta for over a year before his murder of Jun Lin, but authorities dismissed their warnings until after the killing. Magnotta meticulously planned his crimes around film references, particularly ‘Basic Instinct,’ using aliases like ‘Kirk Trammel’ and a fictional abuser named ‘Manny.’ He mailed severed body parts to Canadian political parties and schools, deliberately leaving identifying documents to ensure he received credit for the murder.
A Berlin internet café employee recognized Magnotta while he was viewing his own Interpol Red Notice, leading to his arrest by a passing police bus of trainees. Despite a forensic psychiatrist’s testimony that schizophrenia made him unaware his acts were wrong, the jury found Magnotta guilty and sentenced him to life in prison. Frequently Asked Questions What was Luka Magnotta’s birth name and when was he born?
Luka Magnotta was born Eric Clinton Kirk Newman on July 24, 1982. What was discovered in the package sent to the Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa on May 29, 2012? A foul-smelling package containing a severed human foot and a note addressed to then Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen.
Someone had drawn a red heart on top of the package. Who was Luka Magnotta’s victim in the 2012 murder? Jun Lin (also known as Justin Lin), a 34-year-old Chinese national studying Computer Science at Concordia University in Montreal.
What was the title of the murder video that Luka Magnotta posted online? The video was titled ‘1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick’, a reference to a video called ‘3 Guys 1 Hammer’. How did internet sleuths first identify Luka Magnotta as the ‘Vacuum Kitten Killer’?
They received an anonymous email stating ‘The name of the kitten vacuumer you’re looking for is Luka Magnotta.’ They then found hundreds of fan pages, websites, and photos he had created of himself online. What alias did Luka Magnotta use when he was arrested in a Berlin internet café?
He initially told police his name was Kirk Trammel and that he was from New Jersey. He had also logged onto the computer using the name ‘Katherine Trammel’. What was Luka Magnotta’s plea at his 2014 murder trial?
His lawyer informed the court that Luka admitted he had committed the crimes but was pleading Not Guilty due to Diminished Responsibility because of his mental disorders. What sentence did Luka Magnotta receive? Justice Guy Cournoyer sentenced Luka Magnotta to life in prison with the option of applying for parole after 25 years, plus a combined sentence of 19 years for the other charges.
What movie was Luka Magnotta obsessed with and referenced in his crimes? Luka Magnotta was obsessed with the movie ‘Basic Instinct’, particularly Sharon Stone’s character Catherine Trammel. He used references including the name ‘Kirk Trammel’, the silver-painted screwdriver resembling an icepick, and quotes from the film.
How did the internet sleuths determine Luka Magnotta was in Montreal before the murder? John Green and Deanna analyzed a photo Luka posted with ornamental iron-cast street lanterns in the background. They divided Montreal into sections and used Google Maps Street View to locate the exact spot where the photo was taken.
Key Takeaways
- Internet sleuths tracked Luka Magnotta for over a year before his murder of Jun Lin, but authorities dismissed their warnings until after the killing.
- Magnotta meticulously planned his crimes around film references, particularly ‘Basic Instinct,’ using aliases like ‘Kirk Trammel’ and a fictional abuser named ‘Manny.’
- He mailed severed body parts to Canadian political parties and schools, deliberately leaving identifying documents to ensure he received credit for the murder.
- A Berlin internet café employee recognized Magnotta while he was viewing his own Interpol Red Notice, leading to his arrest by a passing police bus of trainees.
- Despite a forensic psychiatrist’s testimony that schizophrenia made him unaware his acts were wrong, the jury found Magnotta guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was Luka Magnotta’s birth name and when was he born?
Luka Magnotta was born Eric Clinton Kirk Newman on July 24, 1982.
What was in the foul-smelling package that arrived at the Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa on May 29, 2012?
The package contained a severed human foot and a note. Someone had drawn a red heart on top of the package.
Who were the main internet sleuths that tracked Luka Magnotta before his murder of Jun Lin?
The main internet sleuths were Deanna Thompson (aka ‘Baudi Moovan’), a data analyst, and a man who goes by the name ‘John Green’, both members of the ‘Animal Beta Project’ and the Facebook group ‘Find the Kitten Vacuumer… For Great Justice’ created by Ryan Boyle.
What was the title of the murder video Luka Magnotta posted online, and who was his victim?
The video was titled ‘1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick’ and the victim was Jun Lin (aka Justin Lin), a 34-year-old Chinese national studying Computer Science at Concordia University in Montreal.
How was Luka Magnotta eventually caught?
On June 4, 2012, Luka entered an internet café in Berlin and asked to use the internet. The employee, Kadir Anlayisli, recognized him from a news article, watched him log on as ‘Katherine Trammel’ and look up his own Interpol Red Notice, then flagged down a passing police bus filled with trainee officers. Luka initially claimed his name was Kirk Trammel but surrendered when asked for his passport, saying ‘You got me.‘
What mental health diagnoses did Dr. Joel Watts give Luka Magnotta?
Dr. Joel Watts diagnosed Luka Magnotta with episodic schizophrenia and histrionic personality disorder, and concluded that due to acute psychotic symptoms from May 24-26, 2012, Magnotta did not know his acts were wrong.
What was the jury’s verdict in Luka Magnotta’s trial?
The jury found Luka Magnotta guilty on all charges, which included committing an indignity to a human body, publishing obscene material, criminally harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of Parliament, and mailing obscene and indecent material.
What sentence did Luka Magnotta receive?
Justice Guy Cournoyer sentenced Luka Magnotta to life in prison with the option of applying for parole after 25 years, plus a combined sentence of 19 years for the other charges.
What was the significance of the name ‘Manny’ in Luka Magnotta’s story?
Luka claimed ‘Manny’ (or ‘Manuel Lopez’) was an abusive client who forced him to commit crimes. However, ‘Manny’ was actually the name of Catherine Trammel’s abusive ex-boyfriend in the movie Basic Instinct, which Luka was obsessed with. The prosecution revealed this connection during the trial.
What method did internet sleuths use to determine Luka Magnotta’s location in Toronto?
Deanna Thompson and John Green analyzed EXIF data from Luka’s photos, which revealed GPS locations. One photo from October 25, 2010 showed he was at the Toronto Eaton Shopping Centre. John Green also used landmarks in a balcony photo to determine Luka lived at 304 Mill Street, Etobicoke, Toronto.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: Luka Magnotta: The Butcher of Montreal
- Hero image source by Canmenwalker / openverse, by.
