Luka Magnotta found guilty of all counts, first-degree murder

A Montreal jury announced this morning that 32-year-old Scarborough native Luka Magnotta is guilty. He will now spend the remaining years of his life in prison.

The jury of eight women and four men decided Magnotta is guilty on all counts in the 2012 murder and body dismemberment of 33-year-old Chinese engineering student Jun Lin. It also found him guilty of criminally harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper, mailing obscene and indecent material, committing an indignity to a body, and guilty of publishing obscene materials.

CCTV footage captured Lin entering Magnotta’s apartment in Montreal on May 24, 2014, the last day Lin was seen alive. The following day, a video titled “One Lunatic, One Ice Pick” was published online showing Magnotta stabbing and dismembering Lin’s body.

Magnotta then fled to Europe and became subject to an Interpol alert for an international manhunt. More than a week after the murder, he was arrested by German police at a Berlin internet cafe. A Canadian military transport was used to bring him back to the country to face prosecution.

In the days and weeks following Lin’s death, his body parts arrived in the mail at Vancouver’s St. George’s School, False Creek Elementary School and the federal Conservative Party headquarters.

The jurors ignored the findings of two forensic psychiatrists who diagnosed Magnotta as schizophrenic and in a deep “psychotic state” when he killed Lin. The defence pleaded the jury to find Magnotta not criminally responsible of the slaying due to a mental disorder – that he could not tell right from wrong.

However, prosecutors argued that the steps Magnotta took to hide and flee from police were not consistent with the defence’s claims of what a person with a mental disorder would do.

In addition, just months before the murder, Magnotta wrote the following in an email: “You see, killing is different then smoking.. with smoking you can actually quit. Once you kill, and taste blood, it’s impossible to stop. The urge is just too strong not to continue… Getting away with all this, now that’s genius.”

Magnotta is also believed to be responsible for videos of cat slayings that were posted on YouTube in 2010 and 2011. A British journalist for The Sun, who also served as a witness for prosecutors, said Magnotta sent him a email saying the cat slayings would be followed by the murder of a human being recorded on film.

Feature Image: Luka-Magnotta.com