Luka Magnotta said to have called himself a murderer in email to sister

Three days before his arrest in Berlin, Luka Magnotta sent an email to his sister with a line saying: “How does it feel to be the sister of a murderer?” his first-degree murder trial heard on Friday.

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The second-hand information, which was never verified, came from forensic psychiatrist Dr. Joel Watts, who is testifying for the defence about Magnotta’s criminal responsibility.

Melissa Newman, Magnotta’s sister, told the psychiatrist about the email in a telephone conversation Watts made to help assess the accused, but she said she did not keep a copy of the message.

The sister also initially failed to mention text-message exchanges with Magnotta on the day of the crime, and said she couldn’t remember what she and her brother spoke about in a conversation lasting four minutes on the morning of May 25, 2012.

Newman also told the psychiatrist her brother’s personality had changed from 2006 on, and in a Skype chat in March 2012, he seemed dazed, jumped topics and “had a blank look, what he was saying was not making sense.”

“I thought he was possessed,” she told Watts. “He wasn’t Eric.”

Watts also spoke to Magnotta’s mother, who said she worried about her son over the years and felt he was particularly “unwell mentally” in late 2011 and 2012.

Acute psychotic episode: psychiatrist

The conversations with family members are only a fraction of the 124-page report Dr. Watts submitted to the defence.

His conclusion is that Magnotta was suffering from an acute psychotic episode linked to his schizophrenia when he killed and dismembered Jun Lin and mailed his body parts on May 24, 25, and 26, 2012.

Magnotta has admitted to killing Jun Lin and to the acts included in the five charges against him, but he has pleaded not guilty due to mental illness.

The Crown alleges the killing was planned.

Watts, a psychiatrist at Institut Philippe-Pinel de Montréal, determined that because of his psychosis, Magnotta was unable to know what he was doing was wrong at the time, even though he understood the physical acts.

The psychiatrist was initially asked by Montreal police to help escort Magnotta back to Canada from Berlin after his arrest, to comply with German regulations.

At the time, Watts jotted down notes from a 20-minute meeting with the accused, but the doctor’s suspicions were roused when Magnotta offered up details of his illness and hallucinatory symptoms without prompting.

The psychiatrist’s initial impression was that it was a show and that the accused was not being straight with him, but his opinion changed after he conducted a more in-depth study of Magnotta, at the request of the defence.

Watts is the second psychiatrist to testify for the defence who has come to the conclusion that Magnotta is not criminally responsible for his crime because of psychosis.

Voices told him to kill Lin

Magnotta told Watts he felt “out of control” the night he killed Lin, and that a man named Manny kept calling on the phone, asking the two men to perform sex acts, and later saying Lin was a government agent.

Then, Magnotta said the voices in his head took over, telling him to kill Lin.

Magnotta told Watts “it was like a blackout”. He remembered “feeling wet, hearing (voices) saying ‘cut it.’”

The psychiatrist noted in his report that the accused appeared to be close to hyperventilating when he recounted what happened, and Magnotta said it was difficult for him to remember details about the crime because they scared him.

“In my head, he was an agent, I was hearing static, being very afraid that he poisoned me and that is why I was feeling sick. He (Mr. Lin) was working for the government,” Watts quoted Magnotta as telling him, specifying that he felt as if he did not have control over himself.

Magnotta also claimed Manny told him to put the body in the tub, to put things in the garbage and to buy the boxes that were used to mail body parts.

Manny was much more present in the version of the crime Magnotta gave to Watts, compared to the story the accused told psychiatrist Dr. Marie-Frédérique Allard, who examined him months later.

Magnotta told several psychiatrists he met Manny while escorting and the client turned abusive, but the court has not heard evidence that Manny exists.

“I’m not sure at times if he is real or not,” the accused himself told Watts.

Watts will be back on the stand when the trial resumes on Monday.