When Luka Rocco Magnotta tortured and killed kittens and posted videos of his acts online, there was little doubt he was disturbed.

Then after being questioned by journalists in England, he wrote an email to The Sun newspaper in London warning that in the next video he would release, the victims would not be small animals.

Police had several opportunities to reach Magnotta before his crimes escalated, but a psychiatrist who formerly worked at Montreal’s Pinel Institute said there is little police could have done to stop last week’s crime — in which a 33-year-old man was killed and dismembered, his torso stuffed in a suitcase in Montreal, and his hand and foot mailed to the Conservative and Liberal Party headquarters in Ottawa.
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Magnotta has been identified as the main suspect in the killing, and there is an international warrant out for his arrest.

Magnotta had a prominent online profile with disturbing posts. In one of his most recent blog posts, he referred to himself as Necrophilia Serial Killer Luka Magnotta. He had also recorded himself placing kittens in plastic bags, and then sucking out the air with a vacuum cleaner to suffocate them.

For that act, and others made into videos, animal rights activists were trying to find Magnotta and get authorities to intervene. Magnotta was found by reporters while he was in London, and after they asked him about the animal cruelty allegations, he sent a letter to The Sun: “in the near future you will be hearing from me again. This time, however, the victims won’t be small animals. I will however, send you a copy of the new video I’m going to be making. You see, killing is different than smoking . . . with smoking you can actually quit.

“Once you kill, and taste blood, it’s impossible to stop.”
‘You see, killing is different than smoking . . . with smoking you can actually quit’

While police in Britain investigated this letter, it didn’t lead to any action, since Magnotta returned to Canada, and this was outside their jurisdiction.

Jacques Lesage, a psychiatrist who formerly worked at the Philippe Pinel Institute — a forensic psychiatric hospital — said Magnotta’s pattern is similar to that of a serial killer who commits smaller acts before his behaviour escalates.

“You have to take these threats seriously,” he said. “If you read something like that that shows a clear intention (to commit a crime). You need to worry.”

Stephen Hart, a professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, agreed. He said often before someone commits such a crime, he signals his intentions.

“It’s similar to people who have thoughts of suicide,” he said. “They’re clearly preoccupied by the idea and they’re potentially ambivalent about them. So they talk about them publicly and see how people respond.”

Lesage said if police intervene early on, it is possible to stop a pattern before it escalates.

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Luka Magnotta told London's The Sun that next time he killed “the victims won’t be small animals.” “Once you kill, and taste blood, it’s impossible to stop,” he added.

“But at the same time, there is little police could have done here,” he said. “If they had arrested him for animal cruelty, it’s a minimal punishment. They could not have arrested him for making threats, because it was too vague.”

He added that from what he has seen from Magnotta’s behaviour, he doesn’t think he would have been intimidated by police.

“It’s a pleasure to him to defy the authorities and police,” he said. “He gives clues, but at the same time he says, ‘You’ll never catch me.’”

Hart said there is a mechanism in the Criminal Code that allows courts to impose criminal peace bonds, which allow authorities to impose conditions on a person they believe has the potential for violence.

“If we had not just his character problems and fascination with violence, but the kitten killing and the necrophiliac writing, it would have been very easy to gather enough evidence to bring this to a judge,” he said.

He added, however, it doesn’t seem any one law enforcement body had enough information on Magnotta to be able to take such a proactive stance.

Apparently (I read yesterday) that the guy he killed was an ex-lover.