In this artist's sketch, Luke Rocco Magnotta (left) watches proceedings on the opening day of his first-degree murder trial in Montreal, Monday, Sept.29, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike McLaughlin MONTREAL — How curious is it that in the packages of reeking body parts Luka Rocco Magnotta mailed across the country in the late spring of 2012, the contents weren’t the very worst of it.
The parts — two hands and two feet — belonged to Lin Jun, the sweet-faced international student from China who was killed May 25 that year.
Through his lawyer Luc Leclair, Magnotta on the opening day of his trial Monday admitted to “the physical part” of Lin’s slaying, dismemberment, videoing of much of the attack and posting it online, and then getting busy with snail mail.
All the 32-year-old is contesting, Leclair told the jurors, is whether he was mentally capable of knowing what he was doing or rendered not criminally responsible by dint of mental disorder. Magnotta is pleading not guilty to five charges, including first-degree murder, on that ground.
Through the testimony of three Montreal police forensics officers, the jurors have learned precisely what happened to the body of the 33-year-old Lin after his death.
His torso was found on May 29, stuffed in a fly-covered suitcase in an alley beside the low-rise apartment building where Magnotta lived. His legs and arms were buried in a heap of leaking garbage bags put out on the street for collection.
His severed head was discovered in reeds near an urban lake about a month later in Montreal’s Parc Angrignon. By then, police photographs show, the city was basking in the full bloom of summer, the park lush with new growth.
But Lin’s hand and feet were mailed out, in the sort of standard cardboard boxes Canada Post sells, to the Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of Canada in Ottawa, and two Vancouver schools, one private, one public.
The Liberals and False Creek Elementary each received a severed hand, the Conservatives and St. George’s School, a private boys’ school, each was sent a foot.
But it’s the trouble Magnotta went to that is most jarring; he gaily wrapped the extremities of this human being as though he were posting a birthday gift.
Each was tucked in a garbage bag or two, then wrapped in sheets of pink tissue paper and stuffed into identical black gift bags.
Each bore a false name in the sender’s address box (Renee Bordelais sent two, Hurbert Chretien and L. Valentini one each). The political packages had big, hand-drawn hearts at the bottom of their cardboard boxes.
And each ghastly offering was accompanied by a handwritten note, on pink paper, of course, each with a message either vicious, mysterious, or both.
The Liberals were told, “You need to speak to Laureen Teskey and her family,” while the Tories were warned, “Stephen Harper and Lauren Teskey know who this is. They f — ked up big time!” (It’s presumed Lauren Teskey is a misspelled version of the name of the prime minister’s wife, Laureen Teskey.)
At St. George’s, where the box was addressed to “Louise Jones,” Magnotta wrote, “Die B—h! Soon!,” while False Creek got a whole poem: “Roses are red, violets are blue. The police will need dental records to identify you. B—h.”
The jurors haven’t yet heard a whit of explanation as to how or why Magnotta chose the recipients of the packages or for the notes.
It wasn’t the only bewildering aspect of the proceeding Tuesday.
Wearing latex gloves, Leclair spent much of the afternoon solemnly parading before the jurors, holding out inches from their noses a series of prizes he introduced into evidence as defence exhibits — everything from tools presumed to have been used as weapons in the killing (a grinder saw, a hammer, two knives, scissors, two screwdrivers), various of his client’s shirts and sweatpants, and bits and pieces of paper (day passes for the London Tube, a promotional flyer for a party, maps) and other items whose significance or lack of it was entirely unclear.
At one point, with forensics officer Caroline Simoneau on the witness stand, Leclair asked her to fish into yet another paper bag — she was doing this so much it could have been called aerobic testifying — and retrieve another numbered item.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“A small case, fake leather, black and white,” Simoneau replied.
“What is it used for?” Leclair asked.
“I have no idea,” she said with a smile.
“So,” said Leclair, as though he were looking down the barrel of a smoking gun, “a fake leather, black and white case.”
He paraded it before the jurors, as indeed he also did a pair of black underwear belonging to his client.
As with the other exhibits, the underwear was given an exhibit number without a word of explanation from Leclair as to its relevance, if any.
Given the lawyer’s comments in his opening remarks, it’s a given he’s not contesting Magnotta committed the grievous deeds in question or challenging the evidence against him.
In fact, on Monday, Leclair pledged to the jurors “the defence will be focusing” on Magnotta’s state of mind and whether he was capable of knowing what he was doing, or suffering from a mental disorder.
“Otherwise, you might say, ‘Well, why are we here?’”
Given his perplexing cross-examination of Simoneau, it was perhaps a more prescient remark than he intended.
Before Magnotta left for Paris on May 26, he disposed of Lin’s body and most of his belongings. His cleanup of his small apartment, however, failed to remove splashes and drips of what appeared to be blood from various surfaces. He also left behind a ruinously blood-soaked mattress and red splashes below the crisper in his fridge.
He also left a message scrawled on a wall of the closet.
“If you don’t like the reflection,” it read, “don’t look in the mirror. I don’t care.” It made at least as much sense as all the rest.
cblatchford@postmedia.com
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