Luka Magnotta trial witness describes evidence found at apartment
An investigator who took pictures inside admitted killer Luka Magnotta's Montreal apartment said the unit was cleaned out and bare except for some suspicious "red substance" stains.
Montreal police officer Chantal Turmel, who photographed inside Magnotta’s apartment in May 2012 as part of a homicide investigation, walked the jury in his first-degree murder trial through a number of images taken inside the unit.
She was the second witness to testify since the trial began in a Montreal court Monday.
Magnotta has pleaded not guilty to five offences, but has agreed to the facts of the case, including that he killed 33-year-old Concordia University student Jun Lin.
His lawyer has told the jury he intends to argue that his client should be found not criminally responsible for the death because he suffers from a mental illness.
He said Magnotta suffers from schizophrenia and he intends to present evidence of his client's psychiatric history. The Crown prosecutor in the case told the jury he intends to prove the killing was premeditated and will present evidence that shows Magnotta had been planning the murder for months.
Turmel presented a series of photographs of the small bachelor apartment to the jury, pointing out numerous “red substances" found by investigators throughout the unit. Samples were collected and sent to a lab for testing.
The stains were most notably present on a mattress left in the unit and in the refrigerator.
Also apparent in the photographs taken at the scene is a message scrawled in red on a wall reading, “If you don’t like the reflection, don’t look in the mirror. I don’t care.”
Turmel also told the court she went back to the apartment after a video depicting elements of the killing surfaced. She testified that the video helped her identify more items recovered from the garbage in front of Magnotta's building, namely a Casablanca poster that is seen hanging on the wall in the video and a wine bottle used to assault the victim.
Richard Dionne, another member on the Montreal police forensic team, also testified today. He presented some of the most graphic images, taken in the park where some of the victim's remains were found.
Typically stoic, Magnotta slumped forward in his seat in the courtroom as Dionne discussed some of the evidence.
Threats sent to PM and B.C. schools
Earlier this morning, Montreal police forensic investigator Caroline Simoneau presented a series of photographs to the jury showing bloodstained packages. The packages contained Post-it notes and threats to the federal Liberal and Conservative party headquarters and two Vancouver schools.
Magnotta sent the parcels in May 2012 using aliases.
One of the notes in the packages read: "Stephen Harper and Lauren [sic] Teskey, you will know who this is. They f--ked me big time." (Teskey is the birth name of Harper's wife, Laureen).
"Roses are red, violets are blue, the police will need dental records to identify you, bitch," was scrawled on another sent to an elementary school.
More than 60 witnesses are expected to be called during the trial, which continues Wednesday with the cross-examination of Simoneau by Magnotta's lawyer.
