WHEN I was told to track Luka Magnotta to the dingy hotel he was staying at in Wembley, North London, I was apprehensive.
If it was true he was guilty of the sick animal killings he appeared to be boasting about online, I knew I was about to confront a strange and dangerous individual.
Alex West tracked down depraved killer Luka Magnotta to a hotel in Wembley[/caption]
Little did I know then he would go on to be wanted for a gruesome sadistic murder and become a fugitive from the police.
When he came to the door on that December day in 2011, he was wearing a flat cap, leather jacket and tracksuit bottoms.
Bizarrely he was also wearing blue eye shadow and foundation make-up.
He looked creepy. His high pitch voice was strained and he seemed anxious we were quizzing him.
I looked into his eyes and felt he was hiding something – he was visibly squirming.
Magnotta’s transatlantic accent seemed out of place as he stood at the door to the small, single bed, £40-a-night hotel room.
He appeared from his online pictures to have all the trappings of wealth, yet the reality was grim.
His language was also dark – he claimed he did not want to be ‘hunted down and killed’, without any prompting.
I asked him about the videos online which allegedly showed him feeding a kitten to a python and suffocating two others in a plastic bag, using a vacuum cleaner. In another, he appeared to drown a kitten in a bath.
Unusually, he wasn’t shocked by the questions, instead he had what appeared to be a rehearsed answer.
He calmly denied it and said his lawyer told him not to speak about it.
But he refused to let me speak to his lawyer or reveal who he was.
Photographer Simon Jones and I were both unnerved by his strange answers and manner.
He claimed he did not want to be interviewed and was a private person – yet he has posted swathes of pictures and information about himself online.
Kittens tortured
I asked him about the pictures of him holding two kittens and what had happened to the animals.
He refused to explain how he was parted from them and referred me to his ‘lawyer’.
His story didn’t add up – he couldn’t give answers to questions, and he was fully aware of everything I was talking about.
The depraved killer posted dozens of bizarre photos of himself online[/caption]
The story Magnotta told reporter Alex West didn’t add up[/caption]
After 20 minutes of verbal chess I elicited a confession of sorts. I asked if he had received death threats for the videos he posted online of him killing the kittens.
He replied yes.
When I asked if then he had killed the kittens – he said I was twisting his words, and meant he received death threats about the kitten videos.
When I pointed to the pictures of him posing on the bedspread with the kittens – the same bedspread seen in the killing video – he changed his tune and said his picture had been digitally altered.
Neither the photographer or I believed him and we left the hotel, feeling almost certain of his guilt.
But there was no more we could do than report him to the police.
Killing is different than smoking…with smoking you can actually quit
Luka Magnotta
Two days later, I received a sick email detailing horrific violent sex acts he planned to do on me.
He also boasted that he could not be caught and that the next time it would not be animals that he would kill.
In one line, the email paraphrased a quote from Basic Instinct saying: “You see, killing is different than smoking…with smoking you can actually quit.”
The missive was sent using the alias John Kilbride, one of the child victims of the Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.
But Magnotta’s sick bragging would ultimately come back to haunt him as it proved premeditation for his murder.
Magnotta later threatened The Sun’s Alex West over email[/caption]
Six months after their meeting Magnotta became wanted for the killing of a Chinese student in Canada[/caption]
I reported the email to police and it was recorded as “malicious communication” but the cops said there was nothing that could be done as he had left the country.
I thought little more about it and got back to work on other stories.
Brutal butchering
Six months later, in May 2012, I received a call from the newsdesk saying Magnotta was wanted for horrifically chopping up a Chinese student in Canada.
He had filmed the mutilation of 33-year-old Jun Lin and performed sick sex acts with the body before sending parts to politicians in the post.
I was told he was on the run in Europe and warned there was a chance he could be coming to London.
Killers who hurt animals
SOME of the world’s worst serial killers slaughtered defenceless animals as children. Here, Matt Wilkinson takes a look…
- Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo, who molested and murdered 13 women from 1962 to 1964, trapped dogs and cats as a child and shot them dead with arrows.
- As a boy, hitchhiker killer Edmund Kemper – convicted in 1973 of murdering eight women – decapitated cats and put their head on spikes.
- Jeffrey Dahmer murdered and dismembered at least 16 men and boys from 1978-91 in the US. When young he dissolved a squirrel in chemicals.
- Son of Sam David Berkowitz shot dead six people in New York in the 1970s. He killed dogs as a boy and said he was commanded to kill by a possessed dog.
- Ted Bundy watched his father torture animals. He admitted 30 US murders in the 1970s.
- Andrew Cunanan, who killed desginer Gianni Versace in 1997, burned out crabs’ eyes with matches as a boy.
- Crossbow Cannibal Stephen Griffiths, 42 – who killed prostitutes in Bradford in 2009 and 2010 – once ate a live RAT.
The bisexual porn star was arrested in Berlin in an internet cafe where he was googling his own crime.
I was sent out to cover his appearance in court in Montreal.
But after making myself known in court I was issued with a subpoena by the police and asked to give evidence against him.
Magnotta was brought into court by the custody officer. He was bent over and sullen, his eyes sunken and expressionless.
He sat disengaged in the dock as the charges were read out against him.
The judge asked me if I knew Luka Magnotta and if I recognised him in court.
I was asked to point him out in front of the judge, legal teams and the other press.
Magnotta did not lift his eyes as I pointed in his direction and said: “That’s him.”
He was a completely different vision to the cocky but weird man I had seen at the hotel months earlier.
I had recorded the almost 30 minute exchange and the audio tape was played in Magnotta’s trial – the only time the jury heard the beast speak.
The email he had sent to me afterwards became crucial evidence that the murder was premeditated.
I was cross-examined by Magnotta’s lawyer who tried to suggest this man was not guilty of murder because of mental illness.
But the jury saw through that veil of lies – and convicted him.
In December 2014, Magnotta was given a mandatory life sentence with eligibility for parole after 25 years.
After a drama lasting three chilling years, I could rest easy in my bed, knowing this dangerous psychotic killer was finally behind bars.