Canadian Porn Star Luca Magnotta Sentenced To Life For Dismembering His Lover
The two-and-a-half year saga of Luka Magnotta has come to an end. The former porn star has been convicted by a Montreal jury of the killing of Jun Lin, a Chinese exchange student he met via Craigslist in May 2012.
The story was an especially gruesome one. Not content to have just murdered Lin, Magnotta dismembered his victim’s body and videotaped himself while doing so. He then mailed Lin’s limbs to two schools and Canadian politicians before fleeing the country. Magnotta was eventually tracked to Berlin, where he was arrested and returned to Canada to stand trial.
During the trial, the prosecutors introduced as evidence videos Magnotta posted in which he killed cats and explained that he planned to move on to a human victim.
Despite a previous diagnosis of schizophrenia, Magnotta refused a psychiatric evaluation for his trial. He pled not guilty to the charges against him, which included the very Canadian-sounding allegation of “committing indignity to a body,” as if indignity was sufficient to describe cutting someone up and possibly eating him.
Magnotta’s lawyers chose an insanity defense for the trial, which began in September, acknowledging that Magnotta was responsible for killing Lin. Magnotta had previously insisted he was innocent.
The verdict means that Magnotta will serve time in a Canadian prison and not a psychiatric hospital. He will be eligible for parole in 25 years.
Lin’s father, Diran Lin, traveled from China to Montreal to offer a victim’s impact statement. “My brave son, smart son, laughing son, caring son, adventurous son, handsome son, strong son, popular son. Gone,” Lin told the court in the statement. “The night Lin Jun died, parts of many other people died in one way or another. In one night, we lost a lifetime of hope, our futures, parts of our past.”
JohnGallagher
