MONTREAL (AP) — The man killed in a videotaped attack that was discovered after body parts were mailed to Canada’s top political parties was a Chinese student, police said Friday, as authorities in France searched for the suspect, a Canadian porn actor.
Montreal Police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere identified the victim as Jun Lin, 33. Police have said he dated Luka Rocco Magnotta, who is now on Interpol’s equivalent of its most-wanted list.
A senior French police official said he is sure Magnotta is in France and that Magnotta has been there in the past. Another French police official said Magnotta apparently flew to Paris from Montreal last weekend, before the case emerged.
Lafreniere said Jun Lin doesn’t have family in Montreal, but a family member reported him missing on Tuesday. He had last been seen May 24. Lafreniere said the murder occurred the night of May 24-25, and the suspect left for Europe on May 26.
According to a missing person’s notice on the website of the Chinese consulate in Montreal, the victim was from the city of Wuhan and arrived in Montreal in July 2011.
“He is a Chinese citizen who studied at a university here in Montreal and was here for a certain time,” Lafreniere said. “Thanks to the Chinese embassy, we have been able to reach the family with the sad news of what happened.”
A spokesman for Concordia University said Lin was registered as an undergraduate in the faculty of engineering and computer science.
The case began Tuesday, when a package containing a severed foot was opened at the ruling Conservative Party headquarters. A hand was discovered at a postal facility, addressed to the Liberal party of Canada. A torso was found in a suitcase on a garbage dump in Montreal, outside Magnotta’s apartment building.
Montreal police have said they believe Magnotta, 29, fled for France based on evidence they found at his apartment and a blog he once wrote about how to disappear.
“What will hinder him the most is what he used to glorify himself, the web, with all the photos we have of him,” Lafreniere said. But he warned that Magnotta is “someone who can disguise himself, he can change into a woman, wear a wig.”
France’s fugitive search unit has been ordered to hunt for Magnotta, the French officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about such searches publicly. They gave no details about his suspected whereabouts.
Lafreniere said Magnotta could be anywhere in Europe, and “there’s even been talk he might have returned to Canada under another identity.”
Police suspect Magnotta filmed the murder. The video, posted online, shows a man stabbing another man with an ice pick while the victim lies naked and tied up. The first man later reveals he has slashed the other man’s throat. He also dismembers the corpse and performs sexual acts with it.
“We have quite convincing proof of the crime he committed,” Lafreniere said Friday, referring to the video.
Other body parts remain missing.
Police said Magnotta is also known by the names Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov, and they described him as white and 5 feet 8 inches tall (1.78 meters) with blue eyes and black hair. A police official said he was a porn actor.
Derek MacKinnon, a former resident of the building where Magnotta lived, said he was the only person Magnotta would speak to in the building. MacKinnon identified himself as an actor who played a serial killer in the 1980 horror film “Terror Train.”
“I was a killer who killed 11 people in this film, so he was rather interested in my career versus his,” MacKinnon said. “It was like a quick conversation, not like anything big. And knowing that we were both gay, I think that’s probably where he had the connection with me because he was extremely cold, standoffish, wouldn’t talk to anybody, but he would stop for a sec to say something to me, and I think that he felt there was a kindred spirit or something between the two of us.”
He said Magnotta “was always well groomed” until the last time MacKinnon saw him, on May 25. He said Magnotta was having “a bad hair day.”
“It was red, and he normally is dark,” MacKinnon said. “It looked like a really bad wig.”
___
Angela Charlton in Paris and Phil Couvrette in Ottawa, Ontario contributed to this report. Gillies reported from Toronto.
