Magnotta pleads not guilty; will request psych evaluation

Luka Rocco Magnotta has pleaded not guilty to the multiple charges against him, including first-degree murder, in the death and dismemberment of 33 year old Chinese student Jun Lin.

Magnotta appeared via teleconference at the Montreal courthouse, Tuesday afternoon, just one day after being extradited from Germany.

According to the Canadian Press, he stood impassive, in a brown shirt, flanked by a guard at a police station in a different part of the city.

Magnotta's attorney, Pierre Panaccio, is expected to request a psychiatric evaluation for Magnotta on Thursday. According to prosecutors, a psych evaluation process could take up to thirty days.

The 29 year old Scarborough, Ontario native is the prime suspect in the grisly killing of Lin some time in May. Police believe Magnotta dismembered Lin's body, sending the hands and feet to political parties in Ottawa and to schools in Vancouver. Lin's torso was found in a suitcase at a garbage dump in Montreal outside Magnotta's apartment building.

Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthilier repeated earlier comments from police stating that finding Lin's severed head is "very important" to the family and the case.

While it was initially thought that the head could have also been sent in the mail, a retired Ontario Provincial Police criminal profiler said it's possible that police will never locate the final body part.

Jim Van Allen, who now heads the Behavioural Sciences Solutions Group in Vancouver, points to a European study on criminal mutilation which found that in five of 17 decapitations recorded between 1961 and 1990 in Sweden, the head was not found.

"When there's any dismemberment, often all the parts aren't recovered," Van Allen, told the National Post.

"This thing isn't totally resolved all the questions are answered, and in some major investigations, you can't answer all the questions."

Police hope to have some more answers in the coming days.

More to come