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It was an extraordinary story back in May 2012. Strange packages surfaced in several places in Montreal, Canada, that contained body parts. A note attached to a severed foot warned that the killer would strike again. It was mailed to the headquarters of a political party.
A severed hand was meant for another party, but this package was intercepted. The torso was found on May 29 in a suitcase dumped in garbage behind an apartment building, and the head turned up in a city park. Several other parts, intercepted at the post office, had been intended for public schools.
The victim was identified as 33-year-old computer engineering student Jun Lin. The killer was on the run.
Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, became the subject of an international manhunt, getting the attention he’d been craving for years. The news stations all discussed an 11-minute video that he’d posted online a few hours after the murder that featured dismemberment and the appearance of cannibalism. The victim, tied to a bed frame, was stabbed to death with an ice pick, then slashed across the throat, beheaded, and cut into pieces.
Shot inside a shadowy apartment, the background resembled the unit in Montreal where police found evidence of a very bloody incident. From a closet, they retrieved a note: “If you don’t like the reflection, don’t look in the mirror.”
On the video, Magnotta made lewd gestures with the body parts before performing necrophilic acts. To music, he appeared to be using a fork to eat some raw flesh.
Magnotta had also posted rambling statements on his website, along with self-promoting PR, to make it clear that he had an urgent need to become famous. To this point, he’d failed. He’d tried to become a gay model and he'd also posed as the supposed boyfriend of a notorious female killer (Karla Homolka). He even killed animals on videotape. Apparently, these acts were insufficient to gain him attention, so he’d aimed for something truly outrageous.
Magnotta fled to Europe but was caught on June 4 in Berlin and returned to Canada. He admitted to the charges, which included first-degree murder, but on the formal indictment, he pled not guilty.
His lawyer, Luc Leclair, told the court today that Magnotta will basically plead insanity, i.e., “not criminally responsible.” At the time of the offense, he supposedly had an unsound mind and was thus incapable of understanding the nature and consequences of his acts.
So he gets one more shot at being famous, because the members of the jury will have to view the gruesome video (I’ve seen it – it’s quite disturbing) and the media will cover every detail.
“You heard about the so-called murder video,” prosecutor Louis Bouthillier told the jury. “Most of you have not seen the so-called murder video. You will get to see it here in court. You are judges now.”
Bouthillier claims to have evidence that this was no crime of impulse but had been planned for months and was therefore quite deliberate. His witness list will include a reporter who received an email in December 2011 to the effect that Magnotta was intending to kill a human and film it.
The trial is expected to last nearly two months. It’s likely that several mental health experts will weigh in on both sides. The defense attorney hopes for “intelligent, open-minded jurors” who will "listen" and not form a judgment too soon.
This proceeding is likely to be polarizing, due to Magnotta’s arrogance and narcissism. In videos from those days, he seems perfectly aware that what he’s doing is wrong, even though his acts are depraved and perverse. Among the factors to be offered is the presence of schizophrenia in several members of Magnotta’s family.
Frankly, it might have been easier to prove his addiction to fame as a disintegrative force. But that's not an official diagnosis.
Some people think that a serious mental illness is equivalent to insanity. However, one can be psychotic but still be found legally sane. It will be interesting to watch how this trial plays out.
