Accused killer Luka Rocco Magnotta has attracted many supporters and admirers on Facebook, with the biggest fan page nearing 1,400 members.
For years, occasional porn actor and escort Luka Rocco Magnotta mined the Internet in a bid for fame, or at least, infamy. But the respect, the attention he desired, never came.
That changed in late May when Magnotta was accused of one of the most disturbing crimes in recent memory, the dismemberment slaying of Concordia student Jun Lin. Magnotta’s face, stylized with makeup and Photoshop, was splashed on screens across the globe during an international manhunt. His name, which he so desperately attempted to link to Karla Homolka in web postings over the years, was finally being mentioned in the same sentences as Paul Bernardo and other famed sex killers.
And like many of those famed killers, Magnotta has garnered a collection of “fans.” Some of them say they love him, say he has been set up for a murder, that they want to have sex with him, maybe just get a tattoo of him. Others say he is mentally ill, needs help or they feel sympathetic to his desire to find fame. And some say it was Magnotta in that snuff film that purportedly shows the slaying of Lin, the sex acts performed to his corpse — yet they still find the alleged killer “inspirational.”
You hardly need to go into the deepest, darkest forums in the Internet’s bowels to find these people. They’re just the ones on Facebook.
Luka Magnotta’s biggest fan page on Facebook has nearly 1,400 members. There appears to be dozens of other ones. There are groups such as Support Luka Magnotta, where members discuss if they can visit him in the Rivière-des-Prairies Detention Centre, and how they can send him a letter.
“I like Luka Magnotta because he is inspirational, nice, and very, very good looking,” the Support Luka Magnotta administrator, who says she is Destiney St. Denis, 21, of Saskatoon, said in an email. “I have seen the video over 20 times. I do think that was him, and I liked it. He is inspirational because he is not afraid to be himself.”
When asked about how the victim’s family would feel about her page, filled with unprintable comments, St. Denis is unapologetic.
“I couldn’t care less about that dude. I think that if anyone is a victim in this case, it is Luka … because of all the bullying he had to endure before the murder,” she said.
Others defend Magnotta. Say he could be mentally ill or maybe he was set up in his accused crimes.
“I truly think he may suffer from schizophrenia. That or he could have been paid to do it also,” Kerri-Lyn Duhaime, 30, a personal support worker in northern Ontario said.
She says she watched the “1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick” video — which police say is authentic — twice.
“Of course it bothered me but these days I’m so desensitized to violent acts [and] such with all the horror films and the news,” she added.
Another group, closed to the public with about 200 members, says it is “for people who are fastiated [sic], with luka, or anything that goes against society,and thier [sic] morals, or who would just want to have sex with him.”
