Pathological

by Henry Cordes

  His history. The video is inarguably the most important part of it.

  I watched it. I had to watch it. How could I write this book and not watch it?

  The name itself. 1 Lunatic 1 Icepick. Compelling. Shocking. Taunting.

  I hit play.

  There is a naked man tied to a bed. A piece of cloth covers his eyes; another is over his mouth. Is he drugged? He moves around a little but more like he just seems restless, not like he is trying to get away. The man is Jun Lin. He is here in this room because he answered a Craigslist ad from someone who was seeking man-on-man sex with a bondage theme. That person was Luka.

  There is a man next to the bed dressed all in black, his face is I had no idea what was going on, but it was clear that whatever it was must be covered with a hood. A poster of the movie Casablanca is on the wall over the bed.

  True Faith by New Order plays in the background.

  The man dressed all in black straddles the man on the bed who struggles a little, but not that much. The man in black, Luka, has one of his hands near the man’s throat.

  Then Luka stabs him in the abdomen with an ice pick (or is it a screwdriver?) over and over again. It doesn’t seem really violent as you watch this happen, it just seems odd at this point, like you aren’t really sure what is happening, like you don’t know what is to come. But of course, it is violent. Extraordinarily, viciously so. Then the torso is shown, riddled with holes.

  The victim is then seen with his throat slashed, there is a close up on his face, his throat bloody and gaping. At this point it doesn’t seem like things could possibly get much worse, how could they? Then Luka begins to slice various parts of his victim’s body with what appears to be a large kitchen knife.

  This goes on for a while until there is a jump cut and you see Jun Lin’s decapitated head. Luka plays with it a bit, pulls it around by its hair. Then the video shows a knife cutting into various limbs, as the corpse is dismembered. Luka plays with the limbs a bit and even rubs his crotch with one of the dismembered hands.

  This obviously gets him rather worked up. One can tell this is true because he flips the headless and limbless corpse on its stomach and has sex with it from behind. Or does he just simulate the sex? Is he not worked up at all? He seems to be wearing pants. Is this just for show? Is all of this? If so what could Luka be possibly trying to show us?

  I want this to stop of course. I don’t want to watch this anymore. I get nothing from this. I don’t even get a real sense of shock value. I just feel sadness, both for the man and his family who were destroyed by Luka, and for Luka and his family who were destroyed by...what?

  Once Luka is finished pleasuring himself, he begins to cut off pieces of flesh from Jun Lin’s ass with a knife and fork, which one assume he eats. He then brings in a dog (are you fucking kidding me?) to eat a little of Jun Lin. Luka then sticks the neck of a bottle up the victim’s anus repeatedly before finally ending the video by taking off his pants and masturbating with Jun Lin’s severed hand. One can see his face rather clearly here.

  In one letter Luka wrote me “There is an old saying, Tell your story, otherwise, someone else will and that’s what happened. Almost everything reported was complete lies and spin, exaggerations and pure sensationalism.” But Luka, what is your story? What could it possibly be?

  At one-point Luka was accused of making a series of cat killing videos with names like 1 Boy 2 Kittens and Python Christmas, which to many, myself included, is somehow even worse than what went on in 1 Lunatic 1 Icepick. While I did watch the latter, I never could bring myself to watch the cat videos. Some things are just too much to bear.

  Luka denied killing any cats, let alone on video, saying I never harmed any animals! I actually adore and love them! He has denied being the star of these videos to many other people. One thing he denied at first but then later admitted was sending an email under the name John Kilbride to British journalist Alex West who was writing a story about the cat killing videos for the Sun in the United Kingdom.

  He wrote in the email “I will send you a copy of the new video I’m going to be making. You see killing is different than smoking...with smoking you can actually quit. Once you kill and taste blood, it’s impossible to stop. The urge is too strong not to continue. You know the fun part of all this is watching millions of people get angry and frustrated because they can’t catch me. That’s why I love this. I love the risk factor. It’s also fun watching people gathering all the evidence, then not being able to name or catch me, you see I always win, I always hold the trump card, and I will continue to make more movies. London is wonderful because all the people are so stupid. It’s easy. So, I have to disappear for a while, until people quit bothering me. But next time you hear from me it will be in a movie I am producing that will have some humans in it, not just pussies.”

  Luka wanted to tell me his story, and then wanted me to tell his story to the world. He wants the truth to be known. But that video.

  Why would the man I was talking to do something like that? Why would anyone?

  1

  Anna

  The people I was with in 2012 mailed boxes. It was not me—Luka Magnotta

  In the wee hours of the morning of May 30, 2012, I awoke to a thunderous banging on the front door of my home. In a panic, at first, I thought we were being broken into, but when I peered through the blinds, I saw that the street outside was lined with police vehicles and that there were several officers from the Peterborough Lakefield Police Service standing on my porch. I found out later there was also a team of officers in my backyard with searchlights, scouring my property.

  I felt scared: why would they send so many officers to my home at that hour? I had no idea what was going on, but it was clear that whatever it was must be very serious.

  When I opened the door, the officers asked me my name. Then they asked if Luka Magnotta was my son. My first thought was that something had happened to him, so I asked if he was okay. One officer said, “Your son’s fine; we are trying to find him.” Then they asked me if he lived in the home, if I knew where he was, and when I had last seen him.

  I answered their questions and asked if this was about the “cat killing” videos that Luka was accused of posting online. I told the officers I had already been in contact with a Toronto police detective regarding that matter and offered to provide them with the detective’s name. They didn’t seem interested but wrote down the information anyway. They asked to see the last email I’d received from Eric, which was Luka’s given name at birth. I also showed them the Mother’s Day card that he had recently sent me. One of the officers pointed to a photo of Eric on my wall and asked if that was him. When I told him it was, he said, “He’s not as big as I thought he was.”

  I questioned them as to why they were here, but the police refused to give me any further information about why they had come or why they were looking for Eric. They just told me I would know the reason soon enough.

  At this point my daughter Melissa called to tell me that the police had come to her house at roughly the same time as they came to ours. She and my mother, who also lived at the house with my daughter, were hysterical. Melissa thought the police had come about the cat videos, as well, but was also told by the police that they couldn’t disclose any information to her. One of the officers said to her, “Your brother is a very sick individual.”

  We were all very upset and confused. What the hell was going on?

  Over the next few days, our nightmare would unfold.

  I couldn’t get back to sleep that night; my mind was racing. There was no way for me to get in touch with Luka. A few days earlier I had emailed him, and he’d said I’d caught him just in time, that he was closing down his email and that I wouldn’t be able to reach him for a while. This wasn’t unusual for him to say. He switched emails often. He also moved around a lot, and sometimes I suspected he wasn’t living where he said h
e was. This was all normal behavior for him. He told me he was leaving for California, and he was very excited to start his new life there. He said he would contact me once he got settled. He’d been sharing his travel plans with me for a while, and although I knew I would miss him terribly, I was happy for him, he seemed so excited.

  Throughout the day after the police visit, I worried constantly, hoping that Luka would contact me. I asked my mom and Melissa if they had heard from him; they hadn’t either. I checked my email several times to see if he had messaged me using another account. Nothing. While I was on my computer, I happened to read an article about an investigation that was currently underway. It stated that a human foot had been mailed from Montreal to the Conservative Party office in Ottawa. Hours later a second suspicious package containing a human hand had been intercepted by Canada Post at a sorting facility nearby. Later, I saw on the news that a janitor at an apartment building in Montreal had discovered a human torso in a suitcase. It had been placed in the building’s garbage pile. People were in a panic.

  My mind started to spin out of control. I started thinking about the conversation I had a few months earlier with a Toronto police detective. He had viewed the cat videos and had found them very disturbing. He informed me at the time that this sort of behavior could escalate quickly to involve people. The detective and I discussed our concerns, and I provided him with important information as to where I believed Luka was then living. I was convinced Luka was in Montreal, not in Russia, as he had wanted us all to believe. A Mother’s Day card he had sent was postmarked from Montreal and had contained a Quebec lottery ticket. Luka tried to cover that up by saying he had a friend from Montreal send it to me, but the card was in his handwriting. I’d offered to give the detective the card and ticket to assist them in finding him. I figured they could locate the lottery terminal and the store where the ticket was purchased and find the location the letter was mailed from. The detective declined my offer, stating my information wouldn’t be much help.

  With all this running through my head, I had a dreadful thought. Could it be my son, Luka, whom they were looking for in connection with this crime? Had he killed someone? It started to become impossible to escape this thought.

  I was a nervous wreck. Over the following days, I desperately hoped to hear from my son, but there was still no word from him.

  The months leading up to this time had been rough for me; my partner at the time, Leo Sr., had been making my life a living hell since I’d agreed to let him move back home that March. He was arrested for assaulting me in June 2010, and we lived apart until March of 2012 when I made the mistake of letting him come home. The night the police came looking for Luka was no different. Leo Sr. kept me up most of the night, tormenting me, as usual. He kept putting Luka down, telling me I was useless, complaining about things in the past and ranting about finances. It was a horrible night, and I was a mess by morning. Somehow, I got my two youngest children, Leo and Leeanna, off to school. Shortly after I got back from dropping them off, my son Conrad who was twenty-eight at the time came over, as he often did, to keep me company. I loved having him around because I felt safe from Leo Sr. when Conrad was with me. Conrad and I began chatting, and I felt compelled to tell him about my dreadful thought. He was shocked, and told me, “No, Mom, Eric wouldn’t do that, it’s not him! Why would you even think that?” I explained my reasons and told him I heard there was going to be a news conference on TV with more information, and I was going to watch it.

  That afternoon when I turned on the TV, the news conference was already underway. It was broadcast on several channels; we watched it on CNN. The reporter was recapping footage of the crime scene in Montreal. We saw shots of police officers carrying large yellow evidence bags. Commander Ian Lafrenière of the Montreal Police was interviewed, and he stated that after scouring the crime scene in Montreal, police had discovered papers identifying the suspect, and they were going to release the person’s name and photo shortly. As I watched this gruesome story unfold before my eyes, I started to become petrified. Seeing this on the news at any given time would have sickened me, but with my dreadful thought looming over me, I was in an absolute state of panic. I started repeating over and over to myself, “It’s not Luka. It’s not Luka. It’s someone else. They’ll reveal the suspect’s identity soon, and this will all be over!” But in truth, I was scared to death. Conrad kept saying, “Mom, stop, calm down, it’s not him.”

  It seemed to take forever, but when they were finally ready to name the suspect, I got up and stood in front of the television. My heart was pounding, and I started to shake. I kept repeating, “Oh please let me be wrong!” The first bit of information to come onto the screen was a silhouette of a male. They then reported that the suspect was a twenty-nine-year-old male. Luka was twenty-nine! I started nervously shifting from one foot to the other, holding my hands to my mouth, so I wouldn’t cry out or scream. Then they flashed up the suspect’s photo and name. My knees gave out, and I started to fall. Conrad grabbed me and held me in his arms as I sobbed uncontrollably. I cried out in horror, “No, no, no this isn’t happening!” over and over again. Conrad was shaking, too, as we held each other. He tried to be strong and tried to console me, but we were both in shock and absolutely devastated. As newscasters continued to talk we heard them say that a warrant for first-degree murder had been issued.

  It felt like I was trapped in a horrible nightmare. Is this real? I thought. It can’t be! My head was spinning as I tried to take in what was happening. Leo Sr. sat there smirking at me through it all, saying things like “It doesn’t surprise me.” He almost seemed happy. All of a sudden, the phone started ringing non-stop. I felt I needed to call my parents, and I wanted my other four children with me. But the two youngest, Leo and Leeanna, were at school, and Melissa was still out of town.

  When I called my parents, my father had already heard the news. He was beyond devastated and at a loss for words. My mother was so confused and distraught that she thought Luka was the one who had been murdered. When she finally understood that it was Luka who was wanted for murder. I thought she was going to die. Her voice was shaking, and she was screaming, “Why? Are you sure? No! What are you going to do?”

  I had to call Melissa; I knew she hadn’t heard the news yet, or she would have called me by now. I dialed her number and mustered up enough strength to remain calm. I asked if she was okay, where she was, and when she would be home. She said she was on her way and she would be back in Peterborough in an hour or two. I prayed she wouldn’t hear the news while driving. Conrad and I tended to my poor little granddaughter Emily. She could sense the turmoil in the house, and she was very upset. I didn’t want my granddaughter to see me so distraught. I sat and rocked her in my arms, and as she cried on my shoulder, I sobbed silent tears. Leo Jr. and Leeanna, who were thirteen and fifteen at the time, came home from school and wanted to know what was wrong. Conrad and I were speechless. We didn’t know what to tell them. Still crying and shaking, we did the only thing we could think of. We told them to come and sit down in the living room, and we turned up the television and told them to watch. It was better they found it out this way than when no family was around. Like the rest of us, they couldn’t believe what they were hearing and seeing. They were in shock. They flooded us with a multitude of questions for which we didn’t have the answers. Conrad and I went to the kids, and we all embraced one another in a circle. As my world was falling apart around me, Leo Sr. was still taunting me with cruel comments. Unbelievably, he was taping the news broadcasts. He played parts of them over and over again, switching back and forth from the PVR to live television. I called Melissa a few more times to check on her whereabouts. She kept asking, “Is Emily okay? Is anything wrong? Why do you keep calling me?” I remained as calm as I could and said, “Just checking to see where you are.” She still hadn’t heard the news, and I was worried sick she’d hear it in the car. I couldn’t wait for her to get home.
/>   The phone continued to ring off the hook all afternoon: it was mostly reporters wanting a story. A knock came at the door. It was the Peterborough Police. They had planned on breaking the news to me before the story aired, they said, but they were too late. They explained to me that this was the reason they had come to the house the other night. They had been asked to come by the Montreal Police, but they hadn’t been able to give me any information at the time as the investigation had just begun. I remember the officer asking me if I was okay, and I replied, “No, and I never will be!” They kept asking us questions. I can’t even remember most of what they said. Conrad was handling it all at that point. I felt physically ill and wanted to just lie down, curl up in a ball, and go to sleep. It felt like I was in a horrible nightmare, and I just wanted to wake up. The police didn’t stay long, and soon after they left, Melissa arrived home. She knew instantly that something was terribly wrong. I grabbed my daughter and just hugged her. Melissa was the sibling who had always had the closest relationship with Eric, and I knew this would be hard for her to hear. She said, “Mommy, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

  Conrad and I pointed to the television and I said, “Sit down.” As she watched in silent horror, her face went white. Conrad and I wrapped our arms around her and just held her. Just like the rest of us she was in shock and couldn’t believe it. We all had so many questions, but the only information we had was what was being broadcast on the television.

  Then the media frenzy hit, and we were swarmed. Reporters started pounding on our door, cameras in hand. We were polite with them at first, asking them to please go away and leave us alone. We repeated the words, “No comment” over and over and over again. But they were relentless. They camped out in the street in vans in front of our house. There were reporters with cameras and tripods set up; they were in the neighbors’ yards, some were even in the trees surrounding the house.