LUKA MAGNOTTA: Truly an evil man                      

It is an unfortunate fact of life that there are evil people in this world of ours and every country has them within their midst with Canada being no exception.

Luka Rocco Magnotta was born as Eric Clinton Kirk Newman on July 24, 1982. I don’t know why this freak of nature changed his name.  But as Luka Magnotta, he was a Canadian pornographic actor and model.

In 2003, he began to appear in gay pornographic videos, occasionally working as a stripper and a male escort. He appeared as a pin-up model in a 2005 issue of Toronto's fab magazine using the pseudonym “Jimmy”. In 2007, he was an unsuccessful competitor in OUTtv's reality series COVERguy.  Magnotta had decided to have multiple cosmetic surgeries and and for this reason he auditioned for the Slice network show, Plastic Makes Perfect in February 2008.

In 2005, he was convicted of one count of impersonation and three counts of fraud (against Sears Canada, The Brick, and 2001 Audio Video) after impersonating a woman to apply for a credit card and purchasing over $10,000 worth of goods. He pleaded guilty and received a nine-month conditional sentence with 12 months of probation Magnotta declared bankruptcy in March 2007, owing $17,000 in various debts.  His bankruptcy was fully discharged in December 2007.

Now admittedly, he is a handsome man and he knew it so he began displaying pictures of himself on the Internet for all to admire. He was obviously suffering from narcissism (excessive interest in one’s self). His interest in himself was so extremely excessive; it was what finally placed him on the road to justice and into the hands of the authorities.

But displaying this thief and deadbeat’s body and face on the Internet  wasn’t enough for him. He took steps to make sure that his videos went world-wide.  He took a video of him placing two kittens in a clear plastic bag and withdrawing the air from the bag with a hose from his vacuum cleaner so that the kittens would suffocate. He also showed a video of him tying a kitten at the end of a broom stick and drowning the kitten in the bathtub. Later, he videoed taped a kitten being fed alive to a large snake.

Now psychologists will say that if you torture animals, you will kill humans. That isn’t always what happens but it has occurred a great many times in the past. 

Magnotta’s video pictures were what concerned two men who had seen these videos. They believed that anyone like Magnotta who does this to kittens will kill a human being so they began searching through the Internet to find out where this monster was living. In the course of their search, they discovered the name of this freak after considerable efforts by using their computers. They then contacted an official with the Ontario Society for the Protection of Animals (OSPA) and gave him that information. Now the real problem for everyone was; where was this monster living? No matter how hard the two computer experts tried, they couldn’t track Magnotta down. The main reason was that he was showing on his videos, pictures of him in various parts of the world. It was later determined that he was photo shopping himself in those locations more or less from one location unbeknown to him at that time in Canada which turned out to be in Montreal, Canada’s third largest city.

He created many profiles on various internet social media and discussion forums  over several years to plant false or unverified claims about himself. He repeatedly dismissed such accounts as hoaxes and part of a campaign of cyber stalking against him. I suspect that this was a ruse to confuse anyone who was looking for him. According to the police, Magnotta had set up at least 70 Facebook pages and 20 websites under different names.

Do you remember what I said about monsters who torture animals? Magnotta’s next victim was a Chinese 34-year-old man. The victim’s name was Lin Jun also known as Justin Lin. He was an international student from Wuhan and an undergraduate in the engineering and computer science faculty at Concordia University. He worked part-time as a convenience store clerk in Pointe-Saint-Charles. 

Lin had been studying in Montreal since July 2011. Lin moved into a Griffintown-area apartment with a roommate on May 1. He was last seen on May 24, 2012 and his friends reported getting a text message from his phone at 9 p.m. His boss became suspicious when he didn't show up for his shift the next day. Three of his friends went into his apartment on May 27. He was reported missing to the police on May 29.

On May 25, 2012, an 11-minute video titled 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick was uploaded to Bestgore.com, depicting a naked male tied to a bed frame being repeatedly stabbed with an  ice pick  and a kitchen knife, then dismembered, followed by acts of necrophilia (sex with a dead body). The victim was Lin.                                                        

The perpetrator used a knife and fork to cut off some of the flesh and got a dog to chew on the body. During the video, the 1987 New Order song True Faith was playing in the background, and a poster for the 1942 film Casablanca  was visible on the wall. Canadian authorities were able to obtain a more extensive version of the video and confirmed that cannibalism may have also been performed on the body.  Materials promoting the video appeared online at least 10 days before the murder took place. Now the police really wanted to find whoever killed Lin in such a horrible way.

On the same day, a neighbour of Lin saw Magnotta exiting Lin’s apartment building carrying a box with him. He was taking it to the post office.

The next day, Magnotta flew out of Montreal and landed in Paris. That same day, a lawyer in Montana saw the video on the Internet so he called the American and Canadian police and told them that he just saw a snuff movie. (real victims that are supposedly killed and filmed for the public to see). The police showed no interest since they believed that the video was a fake. I should add that at that time, there wasn’t any record of a real snuff movie actually filmed but there are many that have been determined to have been fakes. This movie in which Lin was murdered is the first recognized snuff movie.
                                                                                     

On May 29^th, Montreal police were phoned by the janitor of a low-rent apartment building after he found a dismembered torso in a suitcase left in the trash. On the same day, a human foot was found in a package mailed to the Conservative party in Ottawa and a hand was found in a package destined for the Liberal party in a Canada Post warehouse. That was also the same day that Lin was reported missing by his friends.     

The next day, the police realized that the murderer they were looking for as their prime suspect was Luka Magnotta so they issue a warrant for his arrest.  They added his name to Interpol which then put the police in 130 countries on the alert.  On the same day, Magnotta was spotted in a Paris bar having a soft drink and later leaving the bar with another man.

Meanwhile the Montreal police found his video on the Internet and tried unsuccessfully to have it taken down. I don’t know what fool judge or Internet provider refused their request since it is against the law in Canada to have such a video shown on the Internet.

 Two days later after determining that the victim of the murder and dismemberment was Lin, they increased that charge against Magnotta to first degree murder. They also charged him with threatening Prime Minister Stephen Harper because of the foot mailed to the Conservative Party of Canada offices. I doubt that charge will hold up in court. Charging him with that offence is like charging him with threatening the Queen if the package had been sent to the home of the Governor General of Canada.

Meanwhile, on that same day, the Montreal police confirmed Magnotta left Canada on May 26 for Europe. He used a false passport under the name Kirk Trammel.

On June 3^rd, there were reports that Magnotta stayed in a low-budget hotel in Bagnolet, France, leaving behind pornographic magazines as well as air sickness bags from an airplane. His cell phone signal was traced to that hotel but he had left by the time police arrived. Magnotta had boarded a Eurolines bus at the Bagnolet coach station bound for Berlin.

On that same day, the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa issued a statement advising Chinese visitors to Canada to take safety precautions. That is not unlike warning passengers on board the Titanic to put on their life jackets after the ship has sunk beneath the surface of the ocean.

On June 4^th, German police acting on a tip arrested Magnotta in Berlin after he was spotted in an Internet cafe apparently reading news reports about himself. He tried giving fake names before admitting who he was. His identity was confirmed through fingerprint evidence. Magnotta appeared in a Berlin court on June 5, 2012. According to German officials, he had not opposed his extradition.

He was facing charges of first-degree murder, committing indignity to dead body, mailing obscene material and criminally harassing the prime minister of Canada and several unidentified members of Parliament. Magnotta informed authorities in Berlin he would not fight his extradition to Canada.

The following day, two schools in Vancouver receive packages containing human remains—a hand and a foot.

On June 13^th, forensic tests convinced the Montreal police to publicly confirm that the torso, feet and hands found in various locations all belonging to Lin. That same day, a Berlin court ordered Magnotta to remain behind bars pending his extradition to Canada. 

Five days later, Magnotta arrived in Montreal aboard a Canadian military plane. He was shackled during the flight and escorted by several armed guards. Montreal police said that they weren`t unable to convince a commercial carrier to take Magnotta onboard. Would you want to sit across the aisle from a snake? Actually, a military transport was necessary due to safety concerns with using a commercial flight and potential legal difficulties if the plane was diverted to another country. That actually happened in the 1970s when American fighter planes diverted an Egyptian passenger plane to Italy to capture three terrorists who were on board the plane who had previously killed an American passenger on a cruise ship.

On June 19, Magnotta appeared in court by video link to plead not guilty to all charges through his lawyer. On June 21^st, Magnotta appeared in person at a high-security Montreal courtroom to request a trial by jury.

A preliminary hearing began on March 11, 2013. The evidence presented was subjected to a publication ban. Magnotta's defence team requested the media and the public be barred entirely from the hearing; this was declined the next day. That request wasn’t that unusual. The defence lawyers were concerned that a jury would be aware of all the evidence at the pre-trial which would be one-sided  and therefore make the presumption from the beginning of the jury trial that Magnotta was guilty before they heard the arguments of the defence.

Quite frankly, I am convinced in my own mind that anyone who is sitting on that jury will conclude in their own minds after having read all the media information that was published that this man is unquestionably guilty. The only question that will be before them is, was he insane when he committed the crimes? I doubt that he was. The fact that he flew to Europe to flee from the authorities is evidence that he knew that what he had done was illegal and that fact alone is enough to show that he was not insane when he committed those heinous acts both with the kittens and later with the Chinese student. Luka Magnotta was diagnosed with  paranoid schizophrenia as a teenager. That would make him mentally ill but not insane. He is in my opinion,. a sociopath—someone who has no empathy for living things or people. He simply doesn’t care about what happens to them other than himself.

   

The preliminary inquiry judge set a tentative trial for his trial in the fall of 2014.  After his trial, I will give you the findings of the jury and the sentence he will be given. In my opinion, he will be found guilty and not declared insane. He will be sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility of parole until he has served a minimum of 25 years. However, it is highly unlikely that the members of the National parole board will ever sanction this man’s release.

If that is so, he will in all likelihood serve his natural life sentence in his cell out of reach of other inmates. That is a fitting means of punishment for such an evil man. Paul Bernardo who murdered two girls and butchered their bodies is serving his life sentence in the same way. Maybe those two freaks can talk to one another if they are in the same cell block.

He will be able to do one thing in his cell that will no doubt please him since he is a narcissist. He can stare at himself in the metal mirror above his sink and admire what he sees to the end of his days.  He won’t be sharing his face with others via the Internet anymore. Ohh. That will hurt him.