Porn actor wanted over body parts in Canada mail

Montreal Police via EPA

Luka Rocco Magnotta is wanted by police in connection with a murder in Montreal, Canada which involved the discovery of part of a body in Montreal but other parts of the body mailed to political party offices in Ottawa, Canada.

By Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com

A bisexual porn actor and stripper is being hunted over the killing of a man in Canada and the mailing of his body parts to different places including the headquarters of the country?s Conservative Party, police said.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, is wanted for homicide, Montreal police said late Wednesday at a news conference ? amid reports a video of the killing had been posted on a website specializing in ?gore?.

Reports on Thursday said Magnotta has previously been accused of torturing kittens and having a relationship with notorious Canadian sex killer Karla Homolka?- although he strongly denied both.

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Police on Thursday said he is believed to have fled North America.

Magnotta, believed to originally be from Toronto, was renting an apartment in a working-class Montreal neighborhood. It was behind that building that police found a man's torso in a suitcase in a heap of garbage Tuesday, police said. That same day, a foot was found in a package mailed to the Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa, and a hand found at postal warehouse in the Canadian capital. The package with the hand was addressed to the Liberal Party of Canada. Early testing shows the three body parts come from the same man, police said.

Police in masks combed through the blood-soaked Montreal studio apartment on Wednesday. A blood stained mattress remained there after they left.

"For most of the officers that were there all night long this is the kind of crime scene they've never seen in their career," Montreal Police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere said.

The National Post newspaper reported that a 10-minute video posted on a website on May 25 appears to show Magnotta?murdering, beheading and dismembering a young Asian man in an apartment. Police sources said the video ? which is part of the ongoing investigation ? appears to be authentic.

Magnotta?s own website contains rambling denials of internet rumors.?The Star reported that Magnotta became the subject of a highly organized social media campaign in 2010 after he allegedly killed two kittens and posted a video of their deaths online.

The video, posted on YouTube and later taken down, showed a man torturing and killing two kittens after putting them in a plastic bag and using a vacuum to suffocate them.

Frank Gunn/AP

Canadian sex killer Karla Homolka, pictured in 1993.

The video sparked widespread outrage and prompted a massive online manhunt. The next day, a Facebook group devoted to determining the killer was formed.

Police said Magnotta is also known by the names Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov. They described him as white, 5 feet 8 inches tall (1.78 meters) with blue eyes and black hair.

Police discovered the severed foot after Jenni Bryne, a top political adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, opened a bloodstained box at Conservative party headquarters Tuesday.

When Bryne opened the box, a foul odor overcame the office.

"It was such a horrible odor. I'm sure many of us will not forget it," Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey said.

Police said the package was addressed to the Conservative Party of Canada and not to a specific person.

Canada Post wouldn't comment on the discoveries.

Eric Schorer, the manager of the building where the suspect lived, said Magnotta had been living there for about four months but hadn't been seen around in a while. He said there were never any complaints about noise in the unit, and that Magnotta passed a credit test to rent there.

"He seemed like a nice guy," Schorer said.

Richard Payette, who lived across the hall from Magnotta, said the door of Apartment 208 was left open for part of the day on Wednesday. Payette said there was an overwhelming smell drifting out into the hallway, like bad meat.

?"It's very upsetting," Opposition New Democrat member Yvon Godin said. "It could be just one crazy person that did it, but at the same time we have lots of people unhappy in our country, the way the country is going."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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