http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1205/31/ijvm.01.htmlJANE VELEZ-MITCHELL
Manhunt for Porn Star MurdererAired May 31, 2012 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST: He was talking about helping children. I think he should really forget about all of that and focus on healing himself. That`s the key.
Now here`s what`s happening. I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell coming to you live from New York City. A porn star accused of killing and dismembering his victim, then sending body parts all over the country. And he allegedly did this all on videotape. An international manhunt is on right now for this possible serial killer. A very strange man with absolutely no conscience next.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VELEZ-MITCHELL (voice-over): Tonight, a crime more gruesome than the plot of any horror movie. A porn actor accused of murdering and dismembering another man and then mailing body parts to political organizations and even sending video of the murder to a fetish Web site. Tonight the manhunt for suspect Luka Rocco Magnotta goes international. We`ll go inside the mind of this so-called male model.
And did smoking bath salts make a Florida man so crazy that he ate a homeless man`s face?
Also, another pastor under fire after a video of a 3-year-old boy singing an anti-gay song in church goes viral. We`ll show you the pastor and his adult congregation cheering the boy on. Why are kids being taught to hate in church?
Plus, the great sugar debate. The mayor of New York City wants to ban large sugary drinks in the battle against obesity. What do you think? We want to hear from you and are taking your calls.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A ghastly find of a torso in a suitcase in Montreal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A shabby and blood-stained apartment not far from where a man`s torso was found rotting in the garbage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dried traces of blood on this table, the couch and the bathtub drain.
RICHARD PAYETTE, NEIGHBOR: It was an overwhelming smell of, like -- it was like bad meat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The suspect is a 29-year-old model and self-styled porn actor named Luka Rocco Magnotta. He`s not known to the police and has no previous criminal record.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A severed foot was found at the Conservative Party headquarters yesterday, and a hand was discovered at a Canada post sorting center.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who knows where the other parts were intended or sent or if there are others out there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve now learned that the suspect videotaped the dismemberment of his victim.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are aware he had postings on YouTube. There are reports that in those videos, he was killing kittens.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to find the suspect, and we need to bring him to justice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight an international manhunt for a porn star accused of sending body parts to members of government. A torso found in a suitcase behind his apartment. What the hell is going on here?
Interpol has issued a red notice alert for this man. He goes by several names but is best known as Luka Magnotta. Outside his apartment in Montreal, an enormous crime scene after a human torso is found stuffed in a suitcase. His landlord finds the leaky luggage which leads to even more gruesome discoveries.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAYETTE: I had my eye on it because it looked like a nice suitcase. In 208 that`s where they found the rest of the body parts, right across from my apartment. I walked out at 7 this morning, and there was an overwhelming smell of, like -- it was like bad meat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Inside his apartment blood stains seeped through a mattress. Plus, blood spatter on the shower, on the table, on the furniture; flesh even found in his refrigerator.
On his mirror, a terrifying message, scrawled in red marker: "If you don`t like the reflection, don`t look in the mirror. I don`t care."
What happened to the rest of the body parts? A left foot was sent in the mail to the headquarters of Canada`s Conservative Party, and a postal worker found a severed left hand in a package addressed to Canada`s Liberal Party.
What kind of human being commits horrific murders and then sends body parts to his elected officials? Listen to Luka Magnotta in his own words in his interview from "The Toronto Sun."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LUKA ROCCO MAGNOTTA, SUSPECT: I`m a stripper, and then basically, I went from there to doing adult films. And I`m not ashamed of making adult films. I have a problem, though, with people saying (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What a weirdo. What a sicko. Where is this porn star turned murder suspect?
Give me a call: 1-877-JVM-SAYS, 1-877-586-7297. I want to hear your thoughts on this very strange case.
Straight out to CBC reporter Terry Milewski, who is live in Ottawa, Canada, with the very latest. What do you know, Terry?
TERRY MILEWSKI, CBC REPORTER: Well, the latest we`re hearing, Jane, now is that police believe that this Luka -- Luka Rocco Magnotta may have taken a plane to Paris, and that he may have done that on Friday, which would have been right after the murders happened.
And we have an idea of the timeline now, because we now know that that breathtakingly gruesome video of the killing was apparently posted online by Friday.
So it looks like that video depicts the actual killing of a naked Asian man, aged about 30 with many, many blows with an ice pick to the head. And the video continues with the dismemberment of the victim.
And we interviewed a professor today, by the way, who saw this video early on before any of this story broke and called the police in Toronto. They didn`t want to talk to him.
So this timeline suggests that, if he has gone to Europe, Magnotta would have had about a four-day lead, because it wasn`t until Tuesday that here in Ottawa the discovery happened of the left foot that was mailed to the governing Conservative Party and then after that the left hand that was mailed to the Liberal Party. We do know that those parts were decomposing when they arrived.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Terry, what was the relationship? Do you know anything about the relationship between the victim, who was apparently murdered on tape and decapitated, and then there`s reports that this guy presumably ate some of the body and it`s just beyond comprehension. The connection between Luka and the victim?
MILEWSKI: We don`t know. We know that it was probably a sexual relationship, though. And we also know that Magnotta is well known, that he was responding to men looking for men ads on Craigslist, for example, by sending nude and semi-nude pictures not just of himself, but of other young men. So we assume that it was some sort of sadomasochistic homosexual relationship involved here.
But the police have not yet identified the victim in this case, other than showing the neighbors photographs of an Asian man. So they obviously have some idea. It sounds like the man`s family is overseas. They`re having trouble communicating, and they`re having trouble -- they haven`t yet had -- found some DNA confirmation of the identity.
So they haven`t released it yet, but look -- look at the challenges here for the police. We`ve got body parts, literally, that are all over the map, and there are still body parts missing that may yet be in the mail. For example, they haven`t found the head yet.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Unbelievable.
Now, one of the breaks in this case is that Luka Magnotta allegedly videotaped himself stabbing the man repeatedly with an ice pick and then dismembering his victim. Apparently, his head was covered, the victim, and he was tied to this mattress. Police confirm that these videos are a key part of their investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s not even confirmed his identity so talking about the possible video of the horrible crime, we`re not getting into that. But yes, part of the investigation is looking at different videos.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Here`s what we know about this video. In it, the 29- year-old self-described fashion model allegedly decapitates his victim, who is tied up, covered, his eyes covered, and he`s strapped to -- it`s believed that this Luka character ate part of the human body. And then -- I hope you`re sitting down -- he brings in a dog to eat the fresh kill. He also had sex with the corpse.
Now, one of our producers on this show watched 10 seconds of this video and had to run away from the screen. None of us proceeded to watch the rest of it, because he said you do not want to look at it. He was so shaken.
Joe Warrington, you`re a reporter with the Sun News Network out of Toronto. You have the dubious distinction, but you wrote an excellent article, of having interviewed this suspect. You actually talked to this Luka Magnotta. Your reaction to him being a suspect in this very perverse, perverse killing?
JOE WARRINGTON, REPORTER: Well, Jane, he was one of the creepiest people that I`ve ever run across in this job as a columnist, reporter and TV commentator. You know, we get to meet a lot of interesting and bizarre people, but he was right up there.
It was five years ago when he came into our newspaper here in Toronto. And he was talking about -- trying to deny that he was involved with Karla Homolka, who was one of our most notorious killers with her ex-husband, Paul Bernardo. So right there, it was clearly that he had connecting himself because, in that case, they had dismembered their victims, young females and scattered them about, three in total. So this has been very, very upsetting here for people around this country.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to get a sense of what this guy was like when you talked to him. Did you sense that he might be a murderer?
WARRINGTON: Well, he had this look like, Jane, you looked into his eyes, and you didn`t see anything. He barely blinks. He had these sort of piercing eyes. A monotone way of talking and looking right through you.
Talking about, you know, his dog being killed. Talking about his SUV being stolen, his career as an escort, a male escort, making adult films, talking about drug use.
I offered -- the photographer that I was working with, Veronica Henry (ph), we offered to get him some help, medical help. This is five years ago.
And in retrospect, I mean, I just thought he was a bit of a nut bar because he had a nice kind of demeanor. I could see somebody, Jane, being you know, sucked in by it, because you really feel sorry for the guy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAGNOTTA: Let me just set the record straight that me and Karla have absolutely no connection. I`ve been receiving death threats. My address is posted. That`s why I had to move. I want my Pomeranian back. It was taken in my SUV.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: That was from "The Toronto Sun," an interview with the accused murderer himself, making this bizarre story even stranger.
OK. This guy is accused of killing this unidentified Asian man, chopping him up, eating part of him, and letting a dog eat another part of him, having sex with the corpse and sending it to all sorts of government officials.
As if that is not enough, OK, horror, there`s speculation that this same Luka Magnotta dated a Canadian serial killer named Karla Homolka. He denied it in the interview you just heard, but Karla and her husband, Paul Bernardo, were known as the Ken and Barbie killers for the rape and murders of two Ontario teenagers and Homolka`s own sister.
Believe it or not, she got a plea deal and was released in 2005, and apparently, now she`s like a mother of three or something.
But I`ve got to go to Wendy Walsh, psychologist, co-host, "The Doctors." This is one sick, sick, sick individual. The motive apparently was some kind of sexy, kinky sex game that got very, very sadistic and deadly.
WENDY WALSH, PSYCHOLOGIST: Yes. And we have no way of knowing whether he planned this murder or whether it was a game that went wrong, but he certainly went to great lengths to publicize it afterwards, which tells me he loves the limelight, Jane, loves that attention. He`s getting -- he`s sending body parts to high-profile places. He`s putting videos online. Clearly, this guy wants to be a superstar in some way.
And I don`t -- if he is in Paris, it`s not going to be long before he makes himself known.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I`ve got to tell you, believe it or not, I have a connection to this case, because everybody who watches this show knows that I`m an animal advocate.
And for years I`ve been getting e-mails about somebody killing cats that animal rights activists have been looking for, and it turns out it`s the same sick person. Yes, the same person they`re looking at. He is known for videotaping himself torturing and killing kittens and then posting the disgusting videos online. Animal rights activists have wanted to find him for years, and authorities have admitted yes, they knew about this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In terms of what kind of involvement he`s got from the criminal activities with animals and stuff like that, honestly, we heard about it, but we don`t have any conformation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Robyn Walensky, reporter from "The Blaze," I almost fell off my chair, because I remember getting all these e-mails about him killing all these small animals and people, animal advocates around the world trying to find him. And they usually start with animals, don`t they -- Robyn.
ROBYN WALENSKY, REPORTER, "THE BLAZE": Right. I thought about you this morning when I saw this story, because this guy was videotaping himself killing these cats and suffocating them and feeding them to snakes. I mean, he is off the chart with more than one screw loose in his head.
Also, Jane, what comes to mind in this guy is that he has a little bit of a Jeffrey Dahmer-sicko-chopping up the bodies, putting some parts in the refrigerator. Some maintenance people that went into the apartment said they saw blood where you would normally keep the fruit underneath.
Also, additionally, it also sounds to me like he was watching episodes of the Showtime program "Dexter," where they had serial killers chopping up body parts and then sending them in the mail to various people.
This guy, Jane, is sick, and it does normally start with people who are this sick killing animals and then moving on to humans.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAYETTE: Anti-social. He wouldn`t talk to anybody. I`d say hello to him, and he wouldn`t respond, not even with a head nod or anything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Neighbors describing this accused killer, Luka Rocco Magnotta.
And he used several aliases. You see them there: Eric Clinton Newman, Vladimir Romanov. He claims that he was born in Russia, but who knows what`s made up and what`s the truth?
He also wrote a bunch of blogs about how to disappear completely by shedding your identity.
Jeff Brown, criminal defense attorney, how are guys -- how are the authorities going find this guy? He could be anywhere in the world. And he`s got numerous aliases. And he wrote a blog on how to disappear without ever being found again?
JEFF BROWN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, we`ll see just how good he is, apparently, from his blog.
You know, one of the things law enforcement does is they track credit cards, so that`s going to be one of the things they`ll be looking at. He`s going to have to be able to survive either on a new identity and new cards or with cash. So that`s one thing they`ll look for.
You know, Jane, there`s a couple of issues that still legally have to be wrapped up here. There`s been a question about whether or not the videotape shows the body is actually moving. So they`re going to have to prove that the victim was alive. They may be able to do that through the autopsy.
But they`re going to have to first prove that he`s not just guilty of mutilating a corpse, that`s it`s a real victim that`s alive at the time.
And then they`re going to have to also be able to prove that it`s him. You know, the video doesn`t show -- doesn`t reveal the guy`s identity.
So there are some loose ends that law enforcement is going to have to be spending the next couple of hours really trying to tie up. We know that it may be his apartment, but that doesn`t necessarily mean that`s him on the video. So that`s one of the things that...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Did you watch the video?
BROWN: No, I haven`t been able to see the video.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know, I -- my producer was shaken. He watched ten seconds of it. He ran away from the screen, because it shows an ice pick, then a decapitation, sex, necrophilia, cannibalism. I didn`t watch it. You know why? Because I care about what`s happening in my brain. I can read the transcript. I don`t need to be haunted by those images; I know they would haunt me forever.
Christine, Florida. We`re going out to the phone lines. Christine, Florida, your question or thought, Christine.
CALLER: Hi, Jane.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Hi.
CALLER: Great show.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Thank you.
CALLER: This guy, I mean, how much more between the guy eating the face off in Florida, which is where I live that just happened, and now this? I mean, what is the world coming to?
I mean, we know this guy has to be mentally ill. There is no way that a sane person can do something like this.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I thing you bring up a great world. What the heck is happening in our world? We have this sicko, allegedly killing, eating and then sending human body parts in the mail.
Then you have what this lady referred to, that horrific scene that played out in Miami earlier this week. Miami police shot this guy, Eugene -- Rudy Eugene several times. He was literally chewing the face off a homeless man named Ronald Poppo. The horrifying attack lasted 18 minutes. Poppo lost 75 percent of his face.
They believe the suspect may have been hallucinating after taking bath salts, designer drugs. He was naked, and he didn`t even stop attacking after police shot. They had to shoot him eight times.
And then in Maryland, we`ve got another man who admitted eating his roommate`s heart and part of his brain. Honestly, I think we`ve got to bring in a shrink here.
Wendy Walsh, what on earth is happening in our society?
WALSH: Well, the media has become bigger, and we have access to this information. That`s the first thing. Because we should know, Jane, that our community, our society as a whole has actually become less violent. So let`s everyone calm down a bit.
But these isolated sociopaths exist. They`ve existed since the beginning of human time. Sometimes it has to do with atrocious acts that happen in childhood. And sometimes it just happens because there`s bad wiring in the brain, bad brain chemistry that just happens.
But it`s not an epidemic. We`re not seeing growing amounts of crazed serial killers and that`s important for people to know.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A ghastly find of a torso in a suitcase in Montreal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A shabby and blood-stained apartment not far from where a man`s torso was found rotting in the garbage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dried traces of blood on this table, the couch and the bathtub drain.
PAYETTE: It was an overwhelming smell of, like -- it was like bad meat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The suspect is a 29-year-old model and self-styled porn actor named Luka Rocco Magnotta. He`s not known to the police and has no previous criminal record.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A severed foot was found at the Conservative Party headquarters yesterday, and a hand was discovered at a Canada post sorting center.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who knows where the other parts were intended or sent or if there are others out there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve now learned that the suspect videotaped the dismemberment of his victim.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are aware he had postings on YouTube. There are reports that in those videos, he was killing kittens.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to find the suspect, and we need to bring him to justice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: An international manhunt as we speak for this man, 29-year-old Luka Magnotta. And he is suspected of taking a man who`s only described as an unidentified Asian male, at this point, in his house in Montreal, his apartment where he lived, tying him up to the bed, covering his eyes, stabbing him repeatedly with a pickax, and then dismembering him.
And it pains me to even say this stuff, but having sex with the corpse and then feeding part of the corpse to a dog, eating some of it himself, sending the body parts to various Canadian officials.
Now, what is this guy like? Guess what? An interview was done with him in 2007 by the "Toronto Sun". We`re going to talk to a reporter who spoke to this sicko, but first listen to the man everybody in the world is looking for tonight, Luka Magnotta.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LUKA MAGNOTTA, MURDER SUSPECT: I want to set the record straight that me and her have absolutely no connection. I`ve been receiving death threats. My address is posted. That`s why I had to move. I want my Pomeranian back just (inaudible) in my SUV.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Joe Wormington, you did an excellent -- ok, well, he did an excellent interview with The Sun News Network, and he actually talked to this guy. And he said that as he was talking to him, he said he`s never done a stranger interview in his life. That the guy`s piercing eyes looked like they were just going to look right through him. And then he`s talking and talking to this reporter and at a certain point the reporter has decided that everything this guy is saying is completely made up.
Straight up to Meghan Hurley, crime reporter with the "Ottawa Citizen"; what do you know? What information can you bring us tonight on this very, very strange case, Meghan?
MEGHAN HURLEY, CRIME REPORTER, "OTTAWA CITIZEN" (via telephone): Well, Jane, this time, we know that man at the center of an international manhunt for the gruesome killing and dismemberment in Montreal, fled Canada for Paris on May 25th, the day that the killing took place. He`s now been charged with second-degree murder in the death of an unknown person, this person that we know is an Asian male. And that`s about all we know about the victim at this point.
We know that a video had been circulating on the Internet for several days that shows this guy repeatedly stabbing a man with an ice pick, then decapitating and dismembering the body.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now you`re saying that you have information that he fled to France. Now, before we have been hearing that he might have fled to France, but they really don`t know where he is.
HURLEY: I`m hearing from police sources in Ottawa that he actually did, in fact, flee the country. He took a flight to Paris and landed in Paris on Friday, May 22nd. We do not know where he is at this point and whether or not he stayed in the country.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, after being sent body parts in the mail, members of the Canadian government are terrified. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED CONSERVATIVE PARTY MEMBER: I`m troubled that someone decided that a political party was a worthy target for that particular body part. Who knows where the other body parts were intended or sent or if there are others out there?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jeff Brown, criminal defense attorney -- I hate to be morbid -- but one of the big problems with these cases is they have not found the head of this decapitated body.
JEFF BROWN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes. You know, they`re going to have to be able to show or prove the identity of this person. And that`s certainly going to help and finding the head, of course, you know. That`s something I`m sure they all want to find out because they want to get all the body parts together. But, you know, the identity of this person that`s the other problem that we don`t have in this case.
You can convict somebody without an identity because you can prove that they are a human being, but you certainly would like to be able to know who this person is.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We will stay on top of this story and have the latest developments tomorrow.
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