Tory staffers counselled over body-parts horror
OTTAWA – Trauma counsellors are being made available to the federal Conservative political staffers who were present at the party’s Ottawa headquarters on Tuesday when a mailed package containing a severed foot arrived and sparked what has become a global manhunt for Montreal murder suspect Luka Rocco Magnotta.
Conservative spokesman Fred DeLorey, one of about a dozen employees who were at the party’s national office near Parliament Hill when the horrific incident occurred late Tuesday morning, told Postmedia News that “it was a very, very difficult thing to go through” and that concerns about the emotional state of party workers have prompted the plan to offer psychological help to those affected.
“We have a lot of young staff in our office — particularly at this time of year, there’s a lot of interns,” said DeLorey.
“So to go through this kind of thing, we just want to make sure everyone’s OK and bring in professional counsellors so they’ll have someone to talk to.”
DeLorey said Friday’s official identification of the victim in the case — Concordia University engineering student Jun Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese citizen who had a relationship with Magnotta — only deepened the sense of horror felt by the Conservative staff members.
“What’s been very troubling is that someone was murdered and dismembered and sent to us,” said DeLorey, who also spoke about Conservative staffers’ struggles in an interview aired Saturday on CBC Radio’s political affairs program The House.
“As more and more details come out, it’s more and more disturbing, seeing all this stuff happening,” DeLorey told Postmedia News. “It’s something where you can’t escape it. Every time you turn on the TV, every time you check out Twitter, it’s the leading story. For us, to somehow be part of this is just so strange and surreal.”
Magnotta, 29, is believed to have fled to Europe after allegedly killing and dismembering Jun Lin and then mailing body parts to the federal Conservative headquarters and — in a separate package containing a severed hand, which was intercepted at a Canada Post sorting station in Ottawa — to the Liberal party’s national office.
The fugitive is also alleged to have left a trail of disturbing content on the Internet, including video of Jun LIN’s death and dismemberment.
A picture of the Toronto-born suspect has emerged that suggests he is intelligent but deeply disturbed, craves attention and considers himself a master of disguise.
Along with first-degree murder and other charges Magnotta is already facing, Montreal investigators filed additional charges on Friday related to the shipping of body parts to Ottawa.”