Police hunt for Internet killer
June 3, 2012
French police searched a bar and two hotels in Paris, where the suspect, Luka Rocco Magnotta, was believed to have fled. The 29-year-old porn actor is thought to have dismembered a 33-year-old Chinese student on May 25, which was captured on video and posted on the Internet.
"This is the kind of guy that's looking for attention," Montreal Police Commander Ian Lafreniere told the AP news agency on Saturday. "He likes to glorify himself with the web. The web will glorify him and the web is also going to bring him back to justice because there are a lot of pictures of him out there and it will help lead him to us."
Lafreniere said Magnotta would be charged with threatening Canada's prime minister, Conservative politician Stephen Harper. He is also wanted for first-degree murder, defiling a corpse and using the mail system for delivering "obscene, indecent, immoral or scurrilous" material.
Body parts in the mail
A decomposing foot was found in a package delivered to Canada's Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa on Tuesday. A hand was found in a post office in another package addressed to Canada's Liberal Party. A torso was found in an abandoned suitcase near Magnotta's Montreal apartment.
At Canada's request, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for Magnotta on Thursday. Police found evidence in Magnotta's apartment that indicated he had fled to France on May 26.
The video posted on the Internet showed one man beheading another, who was naked and tied up. The killer then performed sexual acts on the body. Montreal police said Magnotta's apartment, which was covered in blood, was the worst crime scene they had ever seen.
ncy/pfd (AFP, AP, Reuters)