Police wage unsuccessful campaign to remove 'frickin' horrible' Luka Rocco Magnotta video from web (2024)

Warning: Story contains graphic content and images

A video described by police as “frickin’ horrible” that appeared on a Canadian-operated website and purportedly shows Luka Rocco Magnotta brutally killing and sexually assaulting a Chinese student has been re-posted online despite police efforts to remove it.

The 29-year-old Canadian is wanted in connection with the murder that saw a torso left in a suitcase and a hand and foot mailed to the Ottawa offices of the Liberal and Conservative parties. Police now believeMagnotta fled to Paris on May 26, one or two days after the murder, but could have returned to Canada under a fake identity.

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Police are probing the gruesome video — believed to have been taken by Magnotta — and unsuccessfully attempted to have it removed from the Internet.

Cmdr. Ian Lafrenière said the video was taken down from one site Wednesday but “some very deranged people” have made copies and posted it elsewhere. “That scares me a bit about human beings,” he said. “I don’t understand how people could be interested in watching that. This is so frickin’ horrible. It’s not an actor. It’s someone getting killed and mutilated.”

The website that initially showed the alleged attack describes itself as a “reality news website” that posts real videos to show people the “uncensored truth.”

“They are as real as they get and I believe people have the right to know the truth,” the website reads.

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Detectives revealed todayMagnotta’s alleged victim is Lin Jun, a 33-year-old Concordia University student from Wuhan, Hubei, China.

Montreal police are working with the city’s Chinese consulate to contact the victim’s family, who say they lost contact with him on May 24. Prior to Lin’s identification, Montreal police had determined the suspect and victim likely knew each other.

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Cmdr. Lafreniere said the victim was “engaged in sort of a relation” with the suspect.

One day after Lin’s family reported they were unable to contact him, a brand new suitcase appeared among the trash in an alley behind Magnotta’s apartment building. For some reason garbage collectors did not take it away in their regular pick-up that day, and on Tuesday the building’s janitor opened the stinking bag to discover a human torso.

The same day packages containing a foot and a hand were found in mail addressed to the federal Conservative and Liberal parties’ offices in Ottawa. One of the parcels included a note that police have described as the “ramblings of a mad man.” Police have evidence that the remains are from the same victim but are awaiting confirmation.

Magnottamoved into a $490-a-month furnished one-room flat in Montreal’s Snowdon district about four months ago. It was there that he is alleged to have killed and dismembered his victim, committing acts of cannibalism and necrophilia before disposing of the remains.

The nearly 11-minute video purports to show Magnotta attacking a naked man, who is tied to a bed frame, with both an ice pick and a kitchen knife, according to the description. The victim is stabbed, has his throat slashed and is later decapitated and dismembered.

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“1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick is without a doubt the sickest thing you will have ever seen in your entire life,” the website writes.

“It is a sad reminder that things far worse than any of us would ever imagine really take place in our neighborhoods.”

At the end of the video, a photo is shown of a person dressed in a purple hooded jacket or sweater, leaning over while holding what appears to be an ice pick. His or her face is mostly obscured – the only details that can be made out are that the individual has light skin and brown, cheekbone-length hair.

The person is standing in front of a poster of the movie Casablanca.

“Thorough investigation by the [website] community [led] to an assumption that the 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick perpetrator could be a renowned cat killer and internet attention whor* Luka Magnotta,” the website reads.

National Post

With files from Graeme Hamilton, Armina Ligaya, Postmedia News and The Canadian Press

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