Luka Rocco Magnotta hunted by online sleuths over kitten videos long before murder accusations (2024)

Long before Luka Rocco Magnotta had gained the attention of INTERPOL for the alleged murder and dismemberment of a man in Montreal, he was already in the crosshairs of an anonymous online group who fingered him as the creator of a series of disturbing kitten-killing videos — and hoped to catch him before he turned his attention to humans.

After months of meticulous record searches and photo analysis, the amateur group, who dubbed themselves Animal Beta Project, were able to draw up a rough biography of the alleged killer, link him to the videos and even pinpoint his Toronto whereabouts. Their work may ultimately have been critical in helping police to link Mr. Magnotta to the brutal murder for which he is accused.

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“We aren’t at liberty to discuss anything just yet,” an Animal Beta Project administrator told the Post in a Thursday email. “Not until we are cleared.”

The group started their investigation on December 22, 2010, one day after the posting of 1 boy 2 kittens, a video which purports to show a man putting the kittens inside a vacuum-seal bag and suffocating the two animals by sucking out all the air. In a follow-up video, the same man can be seen rubbing the cat’s limp bodies against his genitals.

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The perpetrator conceals his face with a hood and digital manipulation, but by intricately noting the clothing, jewellery and physical features of the man in video, group members were able to make near-perfect matches to publicly available photos of Mr. Magnotta, who had first come to the group’s attention by way of an anonymous tip.

Most damningly, group members found that many of Mr. Magnotta’s photos were uploaded with embedded information on the make and serial number of the camera, a hot pink Panasonic DMC-F3. “There are pictures of Luka Magnotta taken with the same camera … as the camera which took the photos of the suspect holding the kittens before they were killed,” wrote Animal Beta Project in a 17-page evidence document posted to their website.

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“We have done all that we can do with our very limited resources and investigation experience, and feel that we have enough evidence for our suspect to be named as a person of interest.”

‘There are pictures of Luka Magnotta taken with the same camera … as the camera which took the photos of the suspect holding the kittens’

“He might end up killing human beings one day,” reads a post to the group’s Facebook page in December 2011. “He might just not stop with animals.”

Meanwhile, during their search two new cat-killing videos allegedly featuring Mr. Magotta came to light. In “Python Christmas,” a man suspected to be Mr. Magnotta feeds a four-month-old kitten to a 17 foot long Albino Burmese Python, all while dressed as Santa Claus. In “Bathtime LOL,” a man tapes a cat to a broom handle before drowning it in a bathtub.

After digging up an Ontario Gazette from five years prior, the Project determined that Mr. Magnotta had been born Eric Newman and had changed his name in 2006. They also dug up the names of his mother, father, sister and grandmother — many of whom live around Peterborough, Ont. — and linked Mr. Magnotta to locations in the Toronto area by analyzing intersections, gas stations and apartment buildings featured in the backgrounds of his online photos.

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Their research also uncovered a man obsessed with cultivating a vast network of fake social media accounts and pseudonyms in order to construct a celebrity image.

“[Magnotta] appears to be a successful model / gay p*rn actor who is tormented by the Canadian Gossip community and press for his sexuality,” reads the group’s evidence document. “However, when you dig deeper, you come to realize that all the information posted on the internet is from Luka Magnotta himself.”

‘[W]hen you dig deeper, you come to realize that all the information posted on the internet is from Luka Magnotta himself’

In repeated Internet comments and fake news articles, Mr. Magnotta attempted to brand himself as a rising p*rn star and a member of the Russian mafia. He is also believed to have started a rumour that he was dating convicted killer Karla hom*olka, for which he was able to secure an interview with the Toronto Sun to “clear his name.”

“He was able to spin the story in such a way to seem as if the people of Canada actually held interest in him and that he was being tormented by the media,” reads the project’s evidence document.

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Wading through the hundreds of photos posted online by Mr. Magnotta, group members discovered that the accused constantly altering his appearance with wigs and hair extensions. They also found him obsessively pasting his photo onto images of male models — taking special care to artificially implant himself in foreign locations such as London or Miami. Mr. Magnotta’s own social media and photo sharing accounts list his location alternately as Los Angeles, San Diego or Moscow.

“Our theory is that he does not want to be found, and that he is trying to convince anyone looking for him that he is anywhere but Toronto,” wrote the group.

Drawing on information gathered by the Animal Beta Project, the online community was the first to draw a link between Mr. Magnotta and the man in 1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick, a video apparently depicting the stabbing and dismemberment of a man.

On Sunday, two days before police kicked off an international search for Mr. Magnotta following the discovery of severed body parts at Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa, an administrator on the Canadian website BestGore.com, which had posted the gruesome video, wrote “my mailbox was full of leads all pointing at a possibility that the perpetrator of this horrible crime could be one Luka Magnotta.”

National Post
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