Gory novel at centre of murder trial testimony

LOS ANGELES • A writer who worked with Canadian graphic novelist Blake Leibel took the stand in a Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday to describe the process behind their book Syndrome — a work prosecutors allege Leibel used as a template in the gruesome killing of his girlfriend.

Syndrome — a 2010 graphic novel about a neuropathologist’s quest to cure a serial killer — includes gory illustrations of a headless female body lying on a bloodsoaked mattress as well as two people hung from their feet, drained of blood. Its cover shows a photoshopped picture of a baby doll head with most of its skull removed to reveal a brain.

The themes seemed somewhat similar to a coroner’s testimony the day before: Iana Kasian, the mother to Leibel’s newborn daughter, was found lying on a bloodstained mattress in the couple’s West Hollywood apartment with the majority of her scalp removed and drained of most of her blood. Apart from those details, however, Syndrome presents a story far different from Leibel’s. Leibel, heir to a Toronto fortune living in Los Angeles, is accused of mutilating, torturing and murdering Kasian. He has pleaded not guilty.

Robert Ryan, who writes under the name R.J. Ryan, is a co-author of Syndrome. Called by the prosecution, he told jurors Tuesday that Leibel didn’t write or illustrate those scenes in the book — a fact Leibel’s defence attorney Haydeh Takasugi stressed often in court. While Takasugi tried to cast him as merely a financier, Ryan disagreed, saying Leibel did have final editorial approval on everything in the book.

Leibel was credited as creator of the book. In the opening pages, he wrote a cryptic, two-page introduction, asking, “If you loved hurting things, what would you do?”

He first approached Ryan and his writing partner with an idea for a TV series about a psychologist treating serial killers, before eventually deciding it would become a graphic novel, Ryan testified.

“The question we all latched onto was, ‘How do you treat evil?’” Ryan recalled. And the book does deal heavily in questions about evil, and what compels killers to do unconscionable acts — with lines like, “In the end, we all become monsters.”

Ryan said Leibel provided a page-and-a-half outline. From there, he and co-author Daniel Quantz wrote a script and provided it to David Marquez for illustrations. Aside from characters names and the concept of a man obsessed with reforming serial killers, Ryan said Leibel had little to do with the writing process.

When asked by Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef, Ryan confirmed Leibel came up with the idea of victims being drained of their blood.

“Blake told us that he had done a lot of research on serial killers,” he said.

Takasugi stressed in her cross examination that Ryan and his team — not Leibel — were responsible for scenes that most resembled Kasian’s murder, particularly the panel of a woman laid on a bed.

“You don’t particularly like Blake, correct?” Takasugi asked Ryan.

“I mean,” Ryan replied, “he disappointed me in the process of this book but I wouldn’t have worked with him if I didn’t see some potential there.”

Takasugi said Ryan had called Leibel a “fraud” who no one took seriously, living a “playboy lifestyle.”.

The graphic novel Syndrome authored in part by Blake Leibel, who is on trial in the death of his girlfriend.