His birth name is Eric Clinton Newman, born July 24 1982 in Ontario, Canada. He changed his name to Luka Rocco Magnotta in 2005 after serving time (see below). He is sometimes referred to as the ‘vacuum kitten killer’. He is notorious. He is featured in a Netflix documentary Don’t F**k With Cats.
- Hear Luka Magnotta say that someone else killed the kittens
- Luka Magnotta says that he is in a university setting in prison
- Luka Magnotta’s mom claims third hand in video belongs to ‘Manny’
He is the eldest sibling of 3. His parents are Anna Yourkin and Donald Newman. He claimed to have had a difficult childhood. It is not clear why but a factor might be his mother who was obsessed with cleanliness. It is alleged that she regularly locked her children outside. She also put their pet rabbits outside in freezing conditions causing their death.
His parents divorced at the time his father was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Magnotta moved in with his grandmother, Phyllis, at this time.
He worked as a sex worker and appeared in porn films. He also worked as a stripper and a pin-up model.
He is fan of cosmetic surgery and has had many operations. He auditioned for a TV programme Plastic Makes Perfect.
In 2005 he was convicted of three counts of fraud and one of impersonation. He pretended to be a woman applying for a credit card. He served 9 months in prison.
Then in 2010 he committed the infamous kitten killings. He uploaded a video of him placing the kittens in a plastic bag. The video was removed but screenshots were taken. I have a page on that episode (please click to see it).
In classic psychopathic mode he moved from killing animals to humans. In May 2012 he posted online his killing of a Chinese student Jun Lin in a video titled 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick. They met on a gay dating site. The video was uploaded to a site called Bestgore.com. It showed a naked man tied to a bed frame being stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick and a kitchen knife. The body was dismembered and there were acts of necrophilia (sexual intercourse with a corpse). Bits of the body were cut off and given to a dog to chew. The song True Faith by New Order played in the background. Canadian authorities believe that cannibalism took place.
The video was reported and law enforcement eventually believed it. They initially believed it to be fake. Body parts turned up in Ottawa and they matched the deceased. For example, a left foot was delivered to the national HQ of the Conservative Party of Canada.
To cut a long story short Magnotta was arrested by Berlin police outside an internet cafe in the Neukolln district reading news about himself. He was extradited to Canada. He was charged with five crimes and was convicted on all on Dec 23 2014. In defence he pleaded that he is a schizophrenic. Evidence was provided at trial that he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as a teenager. The prosecution argued that he pretended to be schizophrenic. Experts have said that he has antisocial, histrionic, and narcissistic traits.
The jury had to decide if he had the required mens rea (intent) to commit the crimes. They convicted him. He is serving a life sentence without parole (apparently) in the Archambault Institution, Quebec.
P.S. Magnotta claimed that Manny Lopez made him murder Lin. Magnotta’s mother believes that Lopez is a real person while others believe he is a work of fiction by Magnotta in order to deflect blame for the killing. There was nothing to corroborate the existence of Manny Lopez.
It seems that he was fixated with the film Basic Instinct in which Sharon Stone’s character, Catherine Tramell straddled her lover and kills him with an ice pick. Magnotta also straddled Lin and killed him with an ice pick and a screwdriver.
In the film Tramell’s ex-boyfriend who was abusive is called Manny Vasquez.
Sources: Myself, oxygen.com, Wikipedia and The Tab.com (Hayley Soen).
SOME PAGES ON KILLING CATS:
