Killer on the loose

Dogs may be a man’s best friend in real life, but online, cats reign. YouTube videos starring felines have over 26 billion views. And even in the darkest, most disturbing corners of the web, there’s an unwritten rule.

Don’t f**k with cats. That’s where this story begins.

In 2010, Deanna Thompson, a Las Vegas casino data analyst stumbled across a video online.

She initially thought it was another ‘cute cat’ clip.

But, watching a hooded figure suffocate two kittens, she was distraught.

And enraged.

There was an explosion of online fury.

But, with no information

on where the video was taken, or who was responsible, Deanna felt powerless.

So she joined a Facebook group dedicated to tracking down the monstrous kitty killer…

The Netflix series Don’t F**k With Cats takes the audience through the investigation, as together, amateur online detectives analyse the video.

The wall socket, bedspread, doorknobs, background noise.

Another video soon appeared, along with pictures of the deceased cats, plus a pixelated photo of the killer’s face.

Goading the determined cyber sleuths.

‘He’d infiltrated the investigation,’ says Deanna.

Despite this disturbing revelation, the team focused on new evidence, including cigarettes and a vacuum cleaner in the latest film – both North American products.

They’d narrowed their field, but were becoming increasingly alarmed.

Torturing animals is often considered an early-warning sign... of a serial killer.

And after mistakenly accusing the wrong person, with tragic consequences, they received a Facebook message.

The person you’re looking for is Luka Magnotta.

There were hundreds of photos, fan pages, stories about Magnotta online, including an audition for a Canadian reality show. The net was closing in. After scrolling through thousands of Magnotta’s photos, they found one with a location – Toronto.

By using Google maps, zooming in on landmarks, one member, John Green, even worked out his address.

Thinking they’d finally got the cat-killer, they contacted the police.

But the property’s resident told officers that Magnotta had moved to Russia.

The chase, it seemed, had gone cold – until, a few weeks later, two videos appeared.

In the first, a cat was drowned, in the second, one was killed by a python.

Magnotta also started posting under the names of Moors murder victims Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride.

In an email to a journalist, he threatened to move on from cats...to people. The cyber sleuths began to panic.

He’s going to kill somebody, one said.

But their warnings fell on deaf ears.

Then, in May 2012, one final video arrived: 1 lunatic, 1 icepick.

In the video, a man is tied to a bed, and a figure stabs him repeatedly.

‘It’s haunting,’ says Deanna.

But where had

Another video soon appeared... goading the sleuths

this horrific murder taken place?

After days of crossreferencing Magnotta’s photos and Google Street View, the group tracked him to Montreal. Meanwhile, city detectives had found a man’s torso. ‘Everything we said was going to happen, he did it,’ says Deanna.

Parcels containing the victim’s limbs were sent to offices and schools. A receptionist found a severed foot in a blood-soaked box.

Detectives finally found Magnotta’s flat – the crime scene in the video. And the victim was identified as Chinese international student Jun Lin, 33.

Horrified, the Facebook group passed their info to the Montreal police, including evidence he’d met Jun on classified-ad site Craigslist.

Magnotta, then 29, had fled. But, as Deanna says, he enjoyed the notoriety, the chase, and the digital breadcrumbs left behind.

A manhunt eventually tracked him to Berlin, where he was arrested in an internet cafe – reading about his sick crimes.

In the docu-series, Magnotta’s mother Anna Yourkin claimed a mystery man ‘Manny Lopez’ was controlling her son, forcing him to commit these wicked acts.

Yet Magnotta was convicted and sentenced to 25 years for murder.

In the closing credits, Deanna poses the premise that the sleuths were somehow complicit in events, by chasing Magnotta as he wanted.

And perhaps viewers watching at home are, too.

Forensic criminologist Alex Iszatt agrees our obsession with crime has blurred the line between fantasy and real life.

She says, ‘Luka Magnotta ended up killing someone, just like these sleuths said he would.

‘That grabs people’s attention. And Magnotta himself was advertising that he was going to do it.’

Being part of this unfolding drama, she says, is what hooked cyber detectives and viewers.

‘It’s the feeling they’re part of something,’ she adds.

‘But, with social media, and videos like Magnotta’s available, viewers have become desensitised.

‘Nothing fazes them, they forget that behind all this is a real-life victim.’