This article contains graphic descriptions of murder, dismemberment, and extreme acts of violence. It also includes incidents of animal cruelty. The content may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
Luka Magnotta first gained attention in 2010 for posting videos of himself killing kittens online. In May 2012, he murdered Jun Lin, an international student at Concordia University in Montreal. He filmed the killing, dismembered the body, and mailed parts to political offices and schools. Magnotta posted the video online before fleeing to Europe.
Who Was Luka Magnotta
Luka Rocco Magnotta was not always called by that name. He was born Eric Clinton Kirk Newman on July 24, 1982, in Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario. His parents were Anna Yourkin and Donald Newman, and he was the oldest of their three kids.
Growing up, things were not exactly normal for him. According to what he said later, his mom was super obsessed with keeping things clean and would sometimes lock her kids outside. One time, she even left their pet rabbits out in the cold to die.
Things got worse when his dad was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1994. After that, his parents got divorced, and young Eric ended up moving in with his grandmother Phyllis. He went to I. E. Weldon Secondary School in Lindsay, Ontario.
As a teenager, he was also diagnosed with schizophrenia and started getting a disability allowance because of it. But that was not enough money for him, so he started working as a male escort on the side.
By 2003, he began appearing in gay adult films. He also worked as a stripper at various clubs. In 2005, he even appeared as a pin-up model in a Toronto magazine called fab, where he used the fake name Jimmy.
Some news outlets later called him a porn star, but that was not really accurate. He had only made less than a dozen videos over five years. Someone who worked at an adult film database said the industry was not really interested in him. His modeling career did not take off either.
On August 12, 2006, he legally changed his name from Eric Clinton Kirk Newman to Luka Rocco Magnotta. It seems like he wanted a fresh start or maybe a cooler sounding name. But money problems followed him anyway. In March 2007, he declared bankruptcy because he owed about $17,000 in different debts. The bankruptcy was cleared up by December of that same year.
He had multiple cosmetic surgeries to change his appearance. In 2007, he tried out for a reality show on OutTV called COVERguy but did not win. He also auditioned for another show on the Slice network called Plastic Makes Perfect in February 2008. He really wanted to be famous and would try almost anything to get noticed by people.
His Crazy Quest for Fame
Magnotta was absolutely obsessed with becoming famous. Over several years, he created tons of fake profiles on social media and internet forums just to spread different stories about himself. Police later said he had set up at least 70 Facebook pages and 20 different websites using fake names. He would use these pages to basically praise himself and make it seem like he was more important than he actually was.
One of his pages even called him the new James Dean. He also used these fake accounts to attack people he did not like and spread false information to get attention.
Nina Arsenault, who had been his girlfriend in the early 2000s, later described him as a manipulative liar who was often self-destructive. Magnotta even planted negative rumors about himself just so he could deny them and make it look like someone was cyberstalking him. It was all part of his weird game to stay in the spotlight.
One of the craziest rumors he started was in 2007 when he claimed he was dating Karla Homolka. For those who do not know, Karla Homolka was a really famous Canadian murderer. This rumor got him interviewed by AM 640 radio and the Toronto Sun newspaper, where he got to deny the whole thing on camera.
The Toronto Sun reporter who met with him said he found Magnotta troubled and actually suspected that Magnotta had made up the rumor himself just to get attention. But the reporter thought Magnotta was more of a danger to himself than anyone else.
One of Magnotta’s ex-boyfriends said in 2012 that Magnotta was obsessed with fame and seemed to view Karla Homolka and her partner Paul Bernardo as role models. During the murder investigation, Montreal police announced that Magnotta and Homolka had actually dated, but they quickly took that statement back when they realized they had no proof.
Back in 2005, when he was still going by his birth name, Magnotta got convicted for fraud and impersonation. He had taken advantage of a woman with a developmental disability by convincing her to apply for credit cards, then used those cards to buy over $10,000 worth of stuff from stores like Sears Canada, The Brick, and 2001 Audio Video.
According to The Guardian, He was also accused of sexually assaulting the woman, but that charge was dropped later. He pleaded guilty and got a nine-month conditional sentence plus 12 months of probation. The court noted he had significant psychiatric issues and did not always take his medication.
The Kitten Videos That Started It All
In 2010, Magnotta did something that would bring him a different kind of attention. He posted a video on YouTube called 1 boy 2 kittens. In this horrible video, he deliberately suffocated two kittens in a plastic bag using a vacuum cleaner.
It was disgusting and cruel and people on the internet were furious. But he did not stop there. He later uploaded another video showing himself drowning a cat in a bathtub. Then came a third video where he fed a cat to a python snake.
These videos spread across the internet, and people were determined to find out who was behind them. In January 2011, a private Facebook group managed to identify Magnotta as the person in the videos. Animal rights groups got involved and offered a $5,000 reward for anyone who could bring him to justice. Online, he earned the nickname the Vacuum Kitten Killer.
The online community that figured out who he was did not just stop at identifying him. They reported him to the authorities and warned that after committing these acts of cruelty to animals, he might become a threat to humans.
As one of the vigilantes recalled: “I’m told, ‘It’s just cats’. … They brushed me aside. What else could I have done? In the end, I told them this guy is going to turn around and kill somebody. And they poo-pooed me.”
In February 2011, Toronto police started investigating Magnotta after the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals filed a complaint. The OSPCA was so concerned that they also contacted the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Britain, the American FBI, and police in Montreal.
They were tracking Magnotta across different places because he traveled so much. But even with all these warnings and investigations, nobody was able to stop what would happen next.
The people who had been tracking Magnotta online were frustrated. They had done everything they could to alert the authorities, but it seemed like nobody was taking the threat seriously enough. They had seen the progression from animal cruelty and feared it would escalate to something much worse. Unfortunately, their fears would turn out to be completely justified.
The Victim: Jun Lin
Jun Lin, also known as Justin Lin, was born on December 30, 1978, in Wuhan, China. He came to Canada in 2010 with dreams of starting a new life and studying computer engineering. He was an international student and undergraduate in the engineering and computer science faculty at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.
Before getting into Concordia, he had attended Tyark College, which was a language school, starting in July 2011. To support himself while studying, he worked part-time as a clerk at a convenience store in Pointe-Saint-Charles.
On May 1, 2012, Lin moved into a new apartment in the Griffintown area of Montreal with a roommate. Things seemed to be going okay for him on the surface, but his personal life was complicated.
Lin was gay, but he had never told his family back in China about his sexual orientation. At some point before coming to Canada, he had been married to a woman, though they later divorced. In Canada, he had lived for a while with another Chinese man who was his boyfriend. His family had even met this boyfriend but did not know the true nature of their relationship.
Shortly before his death, Lin’s relationship with his partner had ended. The breakup happened because Lin was feeling a lot of pressure from his family to settle down and marry a woman. This was really hard for him because he could not be honest with them about who he really was.
After the breakup, Lin started using dating apps like Grindr and other websites to meet men. That is how he crossed paths with Luka Magnotta. According to what Magnotta said later, they met after Lin responded to his Craigslist ad that proposed sex and bondage.
The last images showing Jun Lin alive were captured by a surveillance camera on the night of May 24, 2012. The footage showed Lin and Magnotta entering the apartment building where Magnotta lived on Décarie Boulevard.
After that night, Lin would never be seen alive again. His friends reported getting a text message from his phone at 9:00 p.m. that night, but they had no idea what had already happened or what was about to happen to their friend.
The Murder and the Video
On May 24, 2012, Jun Lin was last seen by his friends. His boss got suspicious when Lin did not show up for his shift at the convenience store the next day. Three of Lin’s friends became worried and went into his apartment on May 27 to check on him. He was officially reported missing to police on May 29.
But the awful truth had already started to spread across the internet. On May 25, 2012, an 11-minute video was uploaded to a website called bestgore.com. The video was titled 1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick. It showed a naked man, later identified as Jun Lin, tied to a bed frame.
In the video, the victim was repeatedly stabbed with what looked like an ice pick but was later determined to be a screwdriver. He was also stabbed with a kitchen knife and then dismembered.
The video was extremely disturbing and included acts of necrophilia. During the video, the 1987 song True Faith by New Order played in the background, and you could see a poster for the old 1942 movie Casablanca on the wall. At one point, the person in the video used a knife and fork to cut off flesh from the body. He also let a dog chew on the remains.
Canadian authorities got a longer version of the video and said it showed signs of cannibalism. However, investigators later figured out that the video did not actually show the actual moment of death. Lin, whose throat had been slit, was already dead when most of the video was filmed.
The first few seconds of the video showed a bound man moving around while another man in a hooded sweatshirt sat on top of him. But police determined that person in those opening moments was not Lin. It was actually another man who had visited Magnotta’s apartment on a different day and had not been murdered.
Creepily, materials promoting the video had appeared online 10 days before the murder even happened. Police later said Magnotta himself had sent the video to bestgore.com, and the website’s owner had posted it online. Several hours after killing Lin, Magnotta booked a round-trip flight from Montreal to Paris using a passport with his real name.
The Discovery of Body Parts
On May 26, 2012, an attorney from Montana tried to report the video to Toronto Police, his local Sheriff, and the FBI. But officials dismissed the report. Viewers of the bestgore website also tried to report it. Police would later confirm the video was real.
Then the packages started arriving. At 11 a.m. on May 29, 2012, a package containing a left foot was delivered to the national headquarters of the Conservative Party of Canada. The package was stained with blood, smelled terrible, and had a red heart symbol marked on it.
Another package containing a left hand was intercepted at a Canada Post processing facility. This one was addressed to the Liberal Party of Canada.
That same day, a janitor made a horrifying discovery. He found a decomposing torso inside a suitcase that had been left in a garbage pile in an alley behind an apartment building in the Snowdon area of Montreal. The janitor had actually first noticed the suitcase on May 25, but it had not been picked up because there was too much garbage that day.
Police searched the scene and recovered human remains, bloody clothes, and papers that identified the suspect. They also found sharp and blunt objects in the alley. Footage from surveillance cameras inside the building showed a suspect carrying numerous garbage bags outside. The images matched the suspect who had been captured on video at a post office in Côte-des-Neiges.
At 11:33 p.m. that night, police searched the apartment Magnotta had been renting on Décarie Boulevard. He had moved in four months earlier, and his rent was paid up until June 1. The apartment had been mostly emptied before he left.
Blood was found on the mattress, refrigerator, table, and bathtub. On the inside of a closet, someone had written in red ink: If you don’t like the reflection. Don’t look in the mirror. I don’t care.
On May 30, 2012, it was confirmed that the body parts all belonged to the same person, who was later identified as Jun Lin. A note found with the Conservative Party package said six body parts had been sent out and that the killer would strike again.
More Body Parts and the Manhunt
On June 5, 2012, more packages arrived. A right foot was delivered to St. George’s School, and a right hand showed up at False Creek Elementary School, both in Vancouver, British Columbia. Police confirmed both packages had been mailed from Montreal.
Some packages were wrapped in pink tissue paper. One had a note that read: Roses are red, violets are blue, the police will need dental records to identify you bitch.
On June 13, 2012, the four limbs and torso were officially matched to Lin using DNA samples from his family in China. Then on July 1, Lin’s head was found at the edge of a small lake in Montreal’s Angrignon Park after police got an anonymous tip, the NBC News reports.
Meanwhile, a massive manhunt was underway. The investigation in Canada was led by Peter Lambrinakos. An arrest warrant for Magnotta was issued by the Montreal police and then upgraded to a Canada-wide warrant by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
He was wanted for first-degree murder, committing an indignity to a dead body, publishing obscene material, mailing obscene material, and criminally harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and several members of Parliament.
On May 31, 2012, Interpol issued a red notice for Magnotta at the request of Canadian authorities. For days before and after his arrest, his name and photo were displayed at the top of Interpol’s website.
Magnotta had already fled to France. He had taken that round-trip flight to Paris on May 25. His cell phone signal was traced to a hotel in Bagnolet, but he had left by the time police got there. In the hotel room, they found pornographic magazines and an air-sickness bag.
He had used a fake passport with the name Kirk Trammel at the hotel. He stayed with some contacts in Paris from a previous visit in 2010. Police followed a large man who had been in touch with Magnotta. Another man Magnotta stayed with for two nights did not realize who he was until after Magnotta had already left.
Magnotta then boarded a Eurolines bus at the Bagnolet coach station and headed to Berlin, Germany. On June 4, 2012, Berlin police finally caught him at an Internet café in the Neukölln district. He was reading news stories about himself when they grabbed him. He tried giving fake names at first but eventually admitted who he was. His identity was confirmed through fingerprints.
“He tried at first giving fake names but in the end he just said: ‘You got me,'” said police spokesman Guido Busch.
Trial, Verdict, and Aftermath
Magnotta appeared in a Berlin court on June 5, 2012, and did not oppose being sent back to Canada. On June 18, 2012, he was handed over to Canadian authorities in Berlin and flown on a Royal Canadian Air Force plane to Mirabel International Airport near Montreal.
The government said a military plane was needed because of safety concerns with commercial flights and legal problems if the plane got diverted to another country. He was placed in solitary confinement at the Rivière-des-Prairies detention centre.
The case made huge news in China. Some people there believed the murder was racially motivated, and many questioned whether Canada was safe for Chinese students. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird called the Chinese ambassador to express condolences. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was pleased the suspect was arrested.
Lin’s family arrived in Montreal on June 6, and Concordia University’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association set up a fund to help with their expenses. An award was created in Lin’s honor. His body was cremated on July 11, and his ashes were buried on July 26 at Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.
“Something forced me to do it. It just gave me this weird energy,” Luka Magnotta told a psychiatrist while waiting for his trial to begin. “Something just happened in my brain.”
At trial, Magnotta pleaded not guilty, admitting to the acts but claiming he was not responsible because of mental disorders. The prosecution argued the murder was organized and premeditated. Magnotta told a psychiatrist that someone named Manny had urged him to kill.
It was determined this name came from a character in the movie Basic Instinct, which also inspired his Kirk Trammel alias. Prosecutors suggested he painted a screwdriver silver to look like the ice pick from that movie.
After a 12-week trial, the jury of eight women and four men found him guilty on all charges on December 23, 2014. He got a mandatory life sentence with parole eligibility after 25 years, plus 19 years for other charges served at the same time. He filed an appeal but withdrew it on February 18, 2015.
Jun Lin’s family described the verdict as painful but necessary. In a statement, his father wrote that in one night, they lost a lifetime of hope.
“I will never see his smiling face,” said Lin’s father, “or hear about his new accomplishments or hear his laugh. Lin Jun’s birthday is on December 30 and he will never be there for his birthday or ours,” per CBC.
Even behind bars, Luka continued to attract attention. He received love letters and developed a disturbing fan base. Online pages praised his looks and defended him. Some fans spoke of separating his appearance from his actions.
His videos continued to circulate online. Some even tried to copy his style. Luka himself later appeared on inmate dating platforms, listing an expected release date decades in the future.
The website owner Mark Marek was charged for hosting the video and pleaded guilty in January 2016, getting a six-month conditional sentence with half served under house arrest. The case was later made into the Netflix documentary Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer, which premiered on December 18, 2019.
