The world knows Luka Rocco Magnotta all too well.
His exploits, whether real or imagined, whether alleged by police or conjured up in his own mind, have been detailed by media outlets around the globe.
It appears the 29-year-old man accused of killing, dismembering and partially cannibalizing Montreal university student Jun Lin wanted it that way.
Mr. Magnotta appeared to live much of his life online, using the Internet to cultivate a dark and twisted, yet sexual, image.
It’s an image that’s likely here to stay now that he has been whisked back to Canada on charges including first-degree murder, defiling a corpse, and harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
He has been transferred to an east-end Montreal jail where he has been placed into solitary confinement and is under a 24-hour suicide watch while awaiting his next court appearance on Thursday.
Mr. Magnotta is under “super protection,” which means he has no contact with any of the other prisoners. Beyond that, he’ll receive no special treatment while in the jail.
“We do our work and we’re not afraid of him,” said Stephane Lemaire, head of the provincial jail guards’ union.
Police precautions used since Mr. Magnotta returned to Montreal have been excessive, Mr. Lemaire said. “It’s ridiculous the amount of money that was wasted to give the media a show … To see that much security, it feels like we’re dealing with Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.”
John Mahoney/THE GAZETTE
Police reported that onlookers crowded onto highway overpasses for a glimpse of the motorcade carrying Magnotta as it sped to Montreal.
In reality, they’re dealing with Eric Clinton Newman, who was born on July 24, 1982 in east-end Toronto. Mr. Magnotta shed his original identity with a name change in 2006; the transition does not appear to have been smooth.
Mr. Magnotta has also gone by the aliases Vladimir Romanov and Jimmy, set up dozens of online usernames and maintained 70 Facebook pages and 20 websites, police have said.
Luka is unable to live unless there is chaos in his life, it makes him feel as though he matters
A MySpace page created by a Luka Magnotta and dedicated to grandparents Phyllis and Walter Yourkin and their extended family, the Yourkin-Williams clan, says he was raised by them, writing, “Luka Magnotta, he is like a very, very special son to Phyllis and Walter.”
There has been no activity on the page for the past several years, but several old family photos were uploaded, as well as two apparently self-stylized pictures of Mr. Magnotta.
In one marked “Eric Newman copyright 2005,” he is wearing a 1940s aviator costume with images of war planes superimposed. It says “Luka Magnotta aka Eric Newman” in red script.
Many other Internet postings that appear to come from Mr. Magnotta himself describe a childhood with his grandmother, though they don’t always paint as rosy a picture.
On what may have been his personal MySpace page, it says he grew up with “absentee parents” and no boundaries, though he “desperately wanted and needed” them.
His grandmother could not be reached for comment, and all other family members contacted, including his mother, Anna Yourkin, did not return calls.
A 1,200-word post by a Vladimir Romanov on a Psych Central “I hate my mother” forum from about nine or 10 months ago rants against the poster’s mom. Mr. Romanov says he is now 29 and mostly lived with his grandmother, but says his mother ruined his life.
Mr. Romanov says his “extremely manipulative” mother homeschooled him and forced him to wear diapers until the age of seven. He alleges abuse at the hands of a male relative.
He says he became a prostitute and was raped, but used the money to take his mother on “lavish vacations.”
AP Photo/Montreal Police
Magnotta is guided into a waiting van after arriving from a Canadian military plane on Monday in Mirabel, Quebec.
On a MySpace page belonging to an Anna Yourkin there are photos of a blond woman and Mr. Magnotta apparently on vacation in a tropical location.
Mr. Romanov’s post praises his 24-year-old sister and her three children.
Media reports say Mr. Magnotta has a sister named Melissa, and a Melissa is connected on MySpace to the family page set up by a Luka Magnotta. On the page, a Melissa writes, “I love my older brother Luka, he is the kindest person I know and he’s always there when I need him!”
He appears to have wanted to get people talking about the movie and wanting to see it, before he was able to post produce it for ‘official release’
An unnamed relative told the Ottawa Citizen the family hadn’t heard from Mr. Magnotta in a while, after he had hurt them when he was younger.
Much of his family lives in Peterborough, where Magnotta grew up. He also went to school for a few years in nearby Lindsay, but few former classmates remember him.
The ones who do remember him say he was targeted by bullies and often beaten up.
An aunt told the Peterborough Examiner that Mr. Magnotta always had a propensity for concocting stories and had “delusions of grandeur.”
He moved back to Toronto in about 2001 and reportedly got into escort work and worked as a stripper at a gay bar.
In 2003 he began his sporadic porn career, appearing in three films that year as both Luka and Jimmy, and five more films between then and 2010. Most of the titles indicate it was gay porn.
In 2004 Mr. Magnotta was charged in Toronto with several offences for nearly $17,000 in credit card fraud. He pleaded guilty in June 2005 and was handed a nine-month conditional sentence and a year of probation.
However, he declared bankruptcy in 2007. He owed $17,000 and had just $6,500 in assets. His job was listed as a server, and his monthly income was just $800.
The income on the Luka Magnotta MySpace was listed as $250,000 or higher.
He also lists his heroes as Jesus Christ, James Dean, Madonna and Abraham Lincoln.
It’s hard to know what, if anything, is true in Mr. Magnotta’s autobiographical information, and what came from Mr. Magnotta himself.
People in the online communities featuring posts about Mr. Magnotta certainly feel all of the information came straight from him. Much of it seems designed to talk up and hype a disturbed character.
There are posts on various blogs, forums and other websites that portray depraved or sadistic encounters with relatives.
One blog with only one entry, from August 2008, contains biographical information about Mr. Magnotta, but also says “he is in fact now living in the (Caribbean) with his new wife Karla Homolka,” that he is a “master manipulator” and in love with his sister.
“How delusional and sick can one man be?” the anonymous post asks.
“By 2007 though Luka’s relationship with his sister was imploding due to its own moral chaos,” the post concludes.
“Luka is unable to live unless there is chaos in his life, it makes him feel as though he matters. That is the explanation a psychiatrist has told me when I described this situation.”
Some wonder if Mr. Magnotta himself is the only source of rumours that he was dating Karla Homolka. He went to a Toronto newspaper in 2007 to deny the rumour and deny that he was behind the rumour.
There is also a post from the same Yourkin-Williams family MySpace page that was created on the personal Magnotta page, reading: “Luka Magnotta walks around his condo dressed to the nines in new clothes and then changes every hour. He has a mental disorder and is very very unpredictable. He abuses a lot of medication and calls his pills ‘vitamins.’ ”
It appears someone was posting about the “1 lunatic 1 ice pick” video, purporting to show Jun Lin’s dismemberment, several days before Mr. Lin went missing.
The operators of Best Gore, the website that hosted the ice pick video, believe the posts came from Mr. Magnotta. Some believe the posts were online before the murder.
“He appears to have wanted to get people talking about the movie and wanting to see it, before he was able to post produce it for ‘official release’ on the deep Web,” says a post on Best Gore dated June 9.
What will likely be a highly publicized journey through the justice system only just started with a first court appearance via video Tuesday when he pleaded not guilty. A quote on the Luka Magnotta MySpace page seems prophetic.
“Only god can judge me and im waiting for my judgement day,” it said. “Life is too short, live every day like it’s your last!”
The Canadian Press, with files from National Post
Article From: http://news.nationalpost.com
