No remorse from killer Magnotta in new book
Notorious killer sees society as sick, not him
Deny, deny, deny.
Anyone looking for signs of remorse from Luka Magnotta for killing and dismembering an international student won’t find it in a newly published book that includes extensive interviews with the former escort, who came to be widely known as an attention-seeking narcissist.
“He presents the same way now as he did back then. Rather haughty and above it all,” says true-crime author Brian Whitney, who co-wrote the book with Magnotta’s mother, Anna Yourkin.
Yourkin, who had remained largely out of the spotlight until now, offers in the opening pages of the book “My Son, The Killer” her “deepest condolences” to the family of victim Jun Lin, before going on to describe in detail the “nightmare” she and her family went through.
Through all the grief, anger, depression, shame and fear, she says she has never stopped loving her son and is “proud to be his mother.” She maintains he is “not a monster.”
Magnotta gained worldwide attention in 2012 when he was named a suspect in the grisly videotaped death of Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese exchange student in Montreal, whose body parts were mailed to different parts of the country. Following an international manhunt, Magnotta was arrested at an internet café in Berlin.
During his Montreal trial in 2014, Magnotta’s lawyers argued he was not criminally responsible for the murder on the grounds he suffered from a mental disorder that rendered him incapable of knowing right from wrong.
But a jury found him guilty and a judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole eligibility for 25 years.
In interviews by phone and mail, Magnotta, 36, declined to talk to Whitney about the actual murder. Instead, he offered a laundry list of rebuttals against many of the related allegations against him.
According to the book, Magnotta was never onboard with his lawyers’ “absurd” use of the not-criminally responsible defence (“Every time a weird claim was listed off to me, I was pushed to admit it because it will help my case”); denied having killed any kittens (“I actually adore and love them”); and disputed the notion he craves attention (“This inaccurate spin could not be further from the truth”).
Magnotta also denied he had set up dozens of online profiles and Facebook pages, saying that this was a “huge lie perpetrated by internet trolls.” But Whitney writes in the book that Magnotta wanted people to know who he was, going so far as to “pay people to alter photographs of him and then post them online” in order to make him look rich or special.
In an effort to create more “buzz” about himself, he is also said to have spread a rumour that he had dated serial killer Karla Homolka. Magnotta told Whitney that “unstable internet stalkers” were behind this rumour, but a psychiatric evaluation report by Dr. Joel Watts prior to trial indicated Magnotta admitted to linking himself with Homolka to “seem tougher.”
A consistent theme emerged from the interviews, Whitney told the National Post in an email. “He thinks society is sick — not him. He feels (or at least says) that people are obsessed with him, constantly making things up, gossiping about him, etc. I think there were definitely moments when I felt he was being deceitful, other times it seems like he actually believes what he is saying.”
Meanwhile, Yourkin describes in the book the “utter shock” she felt as she watched her son on television being escorted by police off a military plane.
“I began to cry uncontrollably. I cried for my son; I cried for Jun Lin and his family; I cried for my family, and I cried for myself,” she wrote.
Yourkin says she and other family members received numerous calls from Watts and the defence law- yers, who were seeking to pry information from them before the trial. “It felt like they were expecting us to come up with the ‘magic’ word or phrase that would be the answer to make all this make sense and give some reason to this act that Luka was accused of, but of course, we couldn’t, we were just as confused, perhaps more so, than anyone else.”
At one point, she writes, lawyers thought it would make strategic sense if Yourkin issued a statement on behalf of her son, but she refused. It wouldn’t make a difference and only add “fuel to the fire,” she wrote.
“The public hated Luka.” Yourkin says she has thought about how differently things might’ve turned out had there been earlier intervention for her son.
“He tried but never really seemed to fit in comfortably anywhere. When the world he lived in had let him down time after time and hurt him he started to create a perfect life for himself, one that he could control, a life that he wished for. … Luka was in a constant inner battle, as if he was being taken over by something or someone.”
When the family learned of his possible connection to cat-killing videos, they wanted police to find him, she wrote. “We knew this was getting really bad and out of control, and it was going to get worse if he didn’t get help.”
Despite his lengthy correspondence with Magnotta, Whitney admits in the book it was a challenge getting into the head of the killer, who married a fellow inmate, Anthony Jolin, last year. When it comes to Magnotta, “who really knows what he thinks or what moral code he understands?
“I’ve interviewed him. I’ve talked extensively with his mother. I certainly have my ideas of what he thinks, but do I really know what he thinks? I don’t.”
Which begs the question: what value is there in giving Magnotta this platform?
Whitney told the Post he doesn’t think the book glorifies Magnotta, adding: “I don’t think it benefits any of us to just ignore things that make us uncomfortable or disturb us. I look at interviews with criminals of any sort as an opportunity for all of us to understand how and why people do what they do, and that hopefully can help us combat such things as a society in the future.”
Whitney adds in the book it would’ve been “nice to give more attention to Jun Lin, but just as in all stories about Luka, he is always the star and he will be in this story as well.”