He dumped the headless torso and a dead dog in bin bags outside his Montreal flat, and fled his homeland. This story first appeared in The Sun and is republished with permission. Read Today's Paper Tributes. The Sun. Mike Armstrong reports. The court sentenced him to life in prison for murder and handed Magnotta the maximum sentences for all other charges.
The lawyers were in their respective spots, opposite the wide, wooden desk from each other. On top of first-degree murder, police charged Magnotta with 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.
We cannot talk much about Lin Jun without talking about his murder. The murder has robbed us not only of Lin Jun but our ability to think and talk about him without feeling pain and shame. In accordance with Canadian law, Magnotta will serve life in prison without a chance of parole for at least 25 years for the murder.
The law also compelled the trial judge to ask the defendant whether he would like to say anything about the trial, verdict or sentence. Magnotta is alleged to be the person behind a series of videos of animal cruelty involving cats which were posted to YouTube beginning in , including one titled "1 boy 2 kittens" which showed a man deliberately suffocating two kittens with a vacuum cleaner. Alex West, a journalist for British tabloid newspaper The Sun, met Magnotta while he was living in London in , following claims that he had made "Python Christmas", an online video showing a kitten being eaten alive by a Burmese Python.
The Sun contacted Scotland Yard, which denied that the python video incident had occurred within its jurisdiction, stating that the video had been "posted from somewhere in North America.
On June 8, the Los Angeles Police Department announced they were in contact with Montreal police to determine if Magnotta was involved in the unsolved murder and decapitation of Hervey Medellin, known as the "Hollywood Sign Murder" but later announced that they did not believe he was involved in the crime.
The animal rights group Last Chance for Animals claimed responsibility for posting YouTube videos linking him to the Hollywood Sign Murder in an attempt to lure Magnotta into contacting them. The case also drew comparisons across North America to Mark Twitchell, a convicted murderer inspired by Dexter, who used social media in his crimes and to self-promote his work.
A warrant was issued Thursday for Mark Marek on a charge of breaching conditions of his bail, which a judge granted last week. Police say the year-old was picked up at a gas station after they received a tip that led them to a nearby Edmonton-area storage facility. Marek was originally charged with one count of corrupting morals for allegedly posting a video from Magnotta while knowing it depicted a real killing.
The video allegedly showed the killing and dismemberment of Chinese university student Jun Lin in Montreal. Magnotta has pleaded not guilty to murder and is to stand trial in September Police had said he had been living out of his car since he returned to the city. Luka Magnotta's murder trial is set for Sept. Although that date is more than two years after his arrest in connection with the death of Jun Lin, that is not an unusual amount of time for a high-profile murder case to reach the trial stage.
Some have questioned why it takes so long for cases like Magnotta's to get to court. The key determinant in most cases has to do with judicial resources, rather than issues related to the defence or the prosecution. Ottawa criminal lawyer Ian Carter told CBC News that the month delay between the preliminary hearing and Magnotta's trial before judge and jury is not unusual.
A trial like Magnotta's "is normally set that far in advance because they need to find a courtroom and a judge. The Magnotta trial is expected to last six to eight weeks, a relatively big block of court time. The court facilities, the judge, the lawyers and the witnesses all need to be available at the same time, and there are always other trials in the queue competing for timeslots.
In the Magnotta case, his lawyer, Luc Leclair, had requested an earlier start date — April — but last week Justice Andre Vincent said September was the earliest possibility. There are others factors as well that play a role in setting the date. The starting point is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states, "Any person charged with an offence has the right Section 11 of the Charter is also the one that says anyone charged should "be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
A defendant who is to be tried by a superior court judge alone or a judge and jury usually has the right to a preliminary hearing. Magnotta's wrapped up April 12 with an order to stand trial for first-degree murder and four other charges. Carter says Magnotta's preliminary hearing happened relatively quickly. Where that does happen, sometimes, is in murder cases, with an argument over whether the charge should be first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter.
Leclair argued unsuccessfully that Magnotta should be tried for second-degree. However, Carter explained that the reality with preliminary inquiries is that, "In the vast majority of cases it's used by the defence as discovery-type process, to get information about certain parts of the crown's case," and to get an idea of how witnesses will perform in the courtroom.
The Crown can avoid a preliminary inquiry by getting the attorney general to approve a direct indictment. The decision to do so is made unilaterally by the prosecutors and the defence has no ability to argue against it. Last year, the Crown got a direct indictment in a terrorism case in which Carter is representing one of the accused, Misbahuddin Ahmed, who was arrested in In that case, the jury trial won't begin until April The availability of the lawyers for both sides, and the witnesses, is also taken into account when setting a trial date.
Once the available date for a judge and courtroom are known, the two sides usually work out which option to choose. Once the trial date is set, both sides have more work to do. Although most of the investigative materials should have been handed over to the defence ahead of the preliminary hearing, both sides will study the transcripts from the hearing. The prosecution probably won't put forward its full case at the inquiry, and "it's a much bigger task doing it in front of a jury," Carter explains.
The defence has to work out their strategy, line-up expert opinion, get extra evidence, and prepare to cross-examine witnesses, which Carter says will be different in front of a jury compared to the preliminary. And it's likely there will be additional witnesses called.
Compared to some other high profile murder trials in Canada, the expected timeline for the Magnotta trial appears to be about average. As a comparison:. For Robert Pickton, who was charged in in connection with the disappearance of dozens of women in Vancouver, it was four years, 11 months before his murder trial began.
For the three accused in the Shafia family murder case, two years and three months would elapse between the arrests and the start of the trial. Paul Bernardo was arrested in for the murders of school girls Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. His trial began two years, three months later.
Magnotta's trial is set to begin two years, three months after his arrest. Most of the world first learned of Luka Magnotta on May 30, , when he was named as a suspect in a grisly Montreal killing involving the shipping of body parts to the headquarters of two political party.
But some online communities had taken notice of the man long before that. Over the years, Magnotta had littered the internet with information about himself — both untrue and true — using dozens of pseudonyms, all in an effort to attract the worldwide fame he craved.
Over time, friends, acquaintances and family members became concerned that something was amiss with the Scarborough, Ont. The following is a timeline of Magnotta's life, the troubling signs that emerged and how an online community tracked him down, based on exclusive interviews and information obtained by CBC's the fifth estate.
He is the eldest of three kids. His parents split while Eric is still young. Newman later goes to live with his grandmother, Phyllis.
Newman is home schooled for a period of time; in one blog post, he later writes that it was because he was told the world is a dirty and dangerous place. However, for at least two years, from to , he does attend I.
Former teachers and classmates remember him for his vanity and preoccupation with looks. He changes his hair colour often. Around or , Newman begins stripping at Remingtons, a nightclub in Toronto. By , he has appeared in his first two pornography films, both as a straight man turned gay. The following year, he appears in at least two other pornographic films, including one where he appears as Jimmy — a name he would also adopt while working as a male escort.
He is charged with fraud. Initially, police allege he sexually assaulted the woman and videotaped it, but the Crown drops the charge before the case goes to trial. Newman's lawyer at the time, Peter Scully, now says that the decision changed the course of Newman's life "immeasurably, with huge ramifications to our society eventually. June Newman pleads guilty and is convicted of four fraud charges. Before sentencing, Newman's lawyer shows the court a medical report revealing his client has "significant psychiatric issues.
If you do not, your life is going to get messed up. Newman continues to appear in low-level porn films. Early in , Newman meets Barbie, a transgendered woman, and they begin dating. She recalls his apartment looking like a shrine dedicated to himself.
In April, several months after meeting Newman, Barbie breaks up with him. That summer, Newman legally changes his name to Luka Rocco Magnotta. March Magnotta files for bankruptcy, listing the cause as "illness, lack of employment and insufficient income to pay off debts. In the summer, he auditions for the reality show Cover Guy, telling the judges, "Some people say I am devastatingly good-looking. In February of , he also tries out for the reality show Plastic Makes Perfect.
I've had two hair transplants," he tells them. The Toronto Sun publishes a story by reporter Joe Warmington about how Magnotta had dropped by the newspaper's headquarters to deny online rumours he was dating notorious schoolgirl killer Karla Homolka. The rumours were likely started by Magnotta himself. Magnotta continues to try to garner attention online, posting comments about himself to create rumours and then using other profiles to deny them. Twice this year, he loses battles with Wikipedia to keep a page up about himself.
He also posts an online escort ad under the alias Jimmy. One client posts an unflattering review describing him as cold and remote.
Magnotta meets a year-old man in Toronto who ends up becoming his travel companion. Together, they visit Russia, Italy and France. Henry, a fake name used to protect his identity, told the fifth estate they met at the Pickle Barrel restaurant located near Toronto's Yonge and Eglinton intersection.
Fall of In , Magnotta's online postings get progressively darker. On his Facebook page, he posts a link to a video called, 3 guys 1 hammer that shows a man being viciously beaten to death.
The video was not by Magnotta. The myth about Magnotta's relationship with killer Homolka grows. In one posting about Magnotta and Homolka, the user — likely Magnotta — writes, "Luka is unable to live unless there is chaos in his life, it makes him feel as though he matters. Posted on Dec.
Though the video is quickly removed from YouTube, animal activists learn of it. Soon after, Ryan Boyle, a former U. When the group goes astray in its search for the kitten killer, they believe that Magnotta himself anonymously went on a message board frequented by the group and posted pictures from the video with the face no longer blurred.
One of his feet arrived at the Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa while one of his hands was sent to the Liberal Party but was intercepted by the Canada Post, according to Toronto outlet CityNews.
Magnotta used the address of Logan Valentini — sister of infamous Canadian serial killer Karla Homolka — to mail one package to a Vancouver school. After murdering Lin, Magnotta fled the country, but he was eventually caught. At least one of the cyber sleuths in the new docu-series pointed out that Magnotta wanted attention. Security camera footage featured in the docu-series even shows him stopping to check out his reflection after killing Lin.
Lin was a year-old international undergraduate student from Wuhan, China. He moved to Montreal in to study engineering and computer science at Concordia University. He would always let his closest friends know if he was going out of town.
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