Luka Magnotta sent email about urge to kill, U.K. journalist says

A British journalist says he received an email he believes was from Luka Magnotta, which described the pleasures of killing and the need to continue, six months before Jun Lin was killed and dismembered.​

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The email was sent two days after journalist Alex West met Magnotta in London to question him about online videos showing kittens being killed. The meeting lasted nearly 30 minutes in the corridor of a London inn, and Magnotta repeatedly denied killing cats and recording it on video.

West testified via video link from the Canadian High Commission in London. 

Members of the jury were given a copy of the email that read, "Once you kill, and taste blood, its impossible to stop. The urge is just too strong not to continue.”

It continued: “next time you hear from me it will be in a movie I am producing that will have some humans in it. not just pussys.:).”

The email, which included lewd remarks about the “sexy” journalist, ended with: “Getting away with all this, now thats genius.” 

Email signed with name of serial killer victim

The email was sent using the alias John Kilbride, one of the child victims of a pair of infamous serial killers in Britain, in a case known as the Moors Murders.

West testified he took the email seriously, enough so that he and his superiors at the Sun informed police.

West is a key witness in the Crown's argument that the killing of 33-year-old Lin was premeditated.

West told the court he was assigned by his bosses at the Sun to meet with Magnotta on Dec. 8, 2011, and grill him about the cat videos posted online, which the newspaper had covered a year earlier.

The court saw a photo taken surreptitiously of the meeting and heard the recording that West had captured with a hidden device. In it, Magnotta says he had nothing to do with the online videos, despite West asking repeatedly what happened to the kittens in a photo seen online.

"Are these the two kittens … posted on the internet being suffocated, because they look remarkably like them," the journalist is heard asking.

Magnotta replied he was not involved and he just wanted to "live anonymously."

On the recording, Magnotta says he had reported to police receiving some 500 death threats related to the video and rumours he had dated Karla Homolka, but Magnotta denied both allegations when pressed by the journalist.

Magnotta repeated he was the victim, and denied accusations he was attempting to create a cult of personality and that his "rehearsed" denial was a part of the act.

West told the court that Magnotta was very sure of himself, even cocky, during the meeting, but his body language was defensive. 

Defence suggests accused disconnected from reality

Magnotta has admitted to the physical acts behind the five charges against him, including killing Lin and committing an indignity to his body, but has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer, Luc Leclair, argues he should not be held criminally responsible for his actions because of mental illness.

During cross-examination, Leclair attacked the credibility of the witness and repeatedly tried to bring up the U.K. phone-hacking scandal, only to be stopped short by the judge for an irrelevant line of questioning.

Leclair turned to the email and asked whether the writer seemed to be disconnected from reality, focusing on whether sentences were borrowed from popular films.

“Would you agree with me there’s almost an air of irreality?” the lawyer asked West.

West said when he was made aware of the email, a part of him thought it felt a little “fantastical.”

Leclair also grilled the witness on his comments in an interview he had done for a recent documentary on the accused, called Sex, Fame and Murder.

The trial will not sit Wednesday to give lawyers time to prepare, but testimony resumes on Thursday.