Becoming Infamous

"He wanted to be famous, or infamous. You might think he succeeded in that, unfortunately."
"He looks pretty purposeful, pretty organized. He looks pretty fit. He's very focused, very mindful, very connected to reality."
"This man looks like he's on a mission."
"He says [in a note: 'will have some humans in it, not just pussys (sic)'] he's going to get away with it. This was six months before Mr. Lin died."
"There's a saying -- 'It ain't bragging if you can do it', or 'It ain't bragging if you can back it up' -- and boy, did he ever back it up."
"I don't think he could have backed it up any better. He rehearsed it, on May 18 and 19, 2012. [Infamous 1 Lunatic Icepick video of dismemberment and indignities performed on body of Lin Jun]."
"If not for those three events [fortuitous discoveries of clues leading to evidence] there would have been no case. The police got lucky ... Mr. Magnotta made a few mistakes ... People who commit first-degree murders get caught if they make mistakes and the police get lucky and this is what happened here."
Prosecutor Louis Bouthillier, Montreal murder trial of Luka Magnotta

"[Mr. Magnotta] knew this [the homicide] was wrong."
"There’s nothing here telling me he didn’t know the acts were wrong."
"[There are few instances on the record to show that if Mr. Magnotta was suffering from schizophrenia that] his illness prevented him from doing what he wanted to do."
"So if he is schizophrenic, schizophrenia doesn’t seem to have had an impact on his life. You may be organized and functioning and be schizophrenic. But if you take for granted there are psychotic aspects [to the killing of Mr. Lin], and you look at his behaviours before and after, even if he was schizophrenic, he knew this was wrong."
"He was working on his image."
Dr. Gilles Chamberland, forensic psychiatrist, testifying for the prosecution

THE CANADIAN PRESS/HOLuka Rocco Magnotta is pictured in Berlin in a court photo.

Luka Magnotta's lawyer contends that though he man concedes he was guilty of the "physical part" of the death of a man he mutilated, murdered and raped alive and dead, videoing the horrific acts, he cannot be held guilty by reason of insanity. He was not in full control of himself, because he was suffering from insanity. Most certainly his behaviour was that of a lunatic, but it was that of an egotistical psychotic eager for attention and willing to overturn all and any vestiges of human decency to get that celebrity status he yearned for.

His actions most certainly did result in the front pages of newspapers all over the world chronicling his exploits. This man whose self-centred preening as a model, porn actor, male prostitute and animal killer led finally to plans to horrify the world by activity plumbing the depths of human depravity. Feigning insanity is not difficult for this man. He had ample opportunity to study the manifestations of mental instability in witnessing his own father's episodes of mental imbalance. He had the act down pat.

Enough so that he convinced other psychiatrists who were prepared enough on the basis of his descriptions of seeing and hearing things normal people do not, to ascribe mental illness to him. His personality is one of narcissistic imbalance. He had sought out a likely prospect for what he planned to do, and found a likely subject in a Chinese national studying at university in Montreal whose absence would not be noticed for awhile. Luka Magnotta had already been recognized as the purveyor of online videos torturing and killing cats.

Trial sees video of Luka Magnotta with Jun Lin before student's death

Now he prepared to present a video online that would make his previous ones that enraged animal lovers tame by any perverted standards. He killed Lin Jun when the young man accepted an invitation to visit at Luka Magnotta's apartment in Montreal. In the opening scenes of the videos the young Chinese man is seen naked and bound, with his killer, an electric saw in one hand, straddled over him, before the gory elements proceed, meant for public consumption on line.

Just to make certain that his bold exploits into the realms of human wretchedness plumbing the dark depths of inhumanity could not be overlooked, an added dollop of insouciant bestiality erupted from his febrile mentality when he neatly wrapped and sent off in the mail body parts (hands and feet) across the country to political destinations. Lin Jun's torso was placed in a suitcase, his head hidden in tall grass in a city park. Both discovered almost by accident.

The defence and the prosecution have both now rested their cases, and the rest is in the mindful determination of a jury. Not, of necessity of the 32-year-old's peers, since he is thankfully quite without peer, but of citizens of the country who are doing their civic duty, sitting on a jury to hear out a trial that no one would volunteer for if they had any other options.