ABOVE: Video sequences from cameras at Magnotta’s apartment building have been released to the jury, and as Domenic Fazioli reports, they suggest a haunting timeline of victim Jun Lin’s fate.
Warning: The following story contains graphic language and details.
MONTREAL — Luka Magnotta brought home a dark-haired man less than one week before he killed Jun Lin in his bachelor apartment in May 2012, a court in Montreal heard Monday.
Despite an exhaustive search, Montreal police have not been able to identify him, investigator Claudette Hamlin told the court during the fifth day of Magnotta’s murder trial.
Another mystery investigators never solved is how and when Lin and his eventual killer met, Hamlin said. Both questions linger despite the mountain of photos, online chats and phone records police pored over.
Hamlin showed the court surveillance footage of the mystery man entering the apartment building at 5720 Decarie Blvd. on the night of May 18, 2012, walking in behind Magnotta. The next time the surveillance cameras showed Magnotta, it was 4:30 a.m. the following morning, when he threw something out in the basement garbage bins.
READ MORE: Luka Magnotta surveillance videos released
At 11 a.m., Magnotta left the building alone, returning shortly after. At 11:30 a.m., the cameras caught him leaving again, this time with the unidentified man, holding his arm in such a way one would hold someone who is unsteady and off-balance.
It is not yet known whether this is the man Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier said last week was seen on the video tape depicting Lin’s killing and dismemberment, portions of which were posted online.
During his opening statements, Bouthillier told the 14 jurors they would have to see and hear some disturbing evidence, including the snuff film that made the rounds online after Lin’s killing.
Live coverage: Luka Magnotta trial
Bouthillier said that tape will likely be shown during the third week of the trial.
During her cross-examination, Hamlin said she and her colleagues were never able to establish how and when Magnotta first met Lin — despite an exhaustive search that included going through downloads, chats and close to 7,500 photos on Lin’s computer as well as Magnotta’s telephone records.
READ MORE: Luka Magnotta – What did we learn in week one of the trial?
Defence Lawyer Luc Leclair went through a bit of that material with Hamlin Monday morning, bringing the court’s attention once again to some racy-sounding material Lin had on his computer. Leclair highlighted those titles last week while cross-examining Feng Lin, the victim’s former boyfriend.
Leclair pointed out evidence showing Magnotta had four different Montreal phone numbers between Dec. 21, 2011 and May 26, 2012, the day he left for Europe. The defence attorney focused on one number in particular, with a 705 area code (which covers much of central and northern Ontario), asking Hamlin to detail incoming and outgoing calls involving those numbers.
It is not clear who owns that 705 number.
Through the cross examination, the court also learned Magnotta travelled under his full name, Luka Rocco Magnotta, and purchased his ticket to Paris via Expedia at 4:38 a.m. on May 25 — not long after surveillance tapes from his apartment building showed him wearing what looked like his victim’s t-shirt. He would depart the next evening, and selected June 1 as a return date.
Footage viewed in the court showed Magnotta walking through Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport in Montreal and making his way to his Air Transat flight. Footage from Paris showed him arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport May 27 at 12:49 in the afternoon.
He would eventually leave Paris on May 31, taking a bus to Berlin. Police would catch him there, sitting at an Internet cafe, on June 4.
Hamlin’s chief testimony began last week, when she showed most of the footage gleaned from the five cameras running 24 hours a day in the building that became the scene of a grisly crime.
The surveillance tapes Montreal police investigators recovered from those cameras provided a haunting timeline of the hours and days following the fateful moment Lin walked into the building with Magnotta on the night of Friday, May 24.
READ MORE: Luka Magnotta trial – Jury hears of victim’s final message to former lover, sex habits
The sequences Hamlin played for the court show Magnotta always appearing calm, never harried, moving slowly through the eye of each camera in different outfits, taking time to look at himself in the mirror and order a pizza.
At around 10:20 p.m. that Friday, Magnotta held the front door open for Lin, walking in behind him. Lin wore a yellow t-shirt and light-coloured shorts.
WATCH: Luka Magnotta and Jun Lin arrive together at Magnotta’s apartment
Before dawn the next morning, Magnotta would be seen wearing an identical shirt, stopping to model it for himself in the large mirrors on the walls of the building’s lobby. That shirt was found in garbage bags the following week when investigators sifted for evidence through the bags awaiting pick-up on the curb outside the apartment building.
WATCH: Magnotta seen leaving apartment wearing Jun Lin’s shirt
The surveillance footage showed Magnotta spent much of May 24 dumping items into the basement garbage bins, running errands outside and buying the suitcase in which he would eventually stuff Lin’s torso.
Several hours later, Magnotta is seen checking the trash area after bags have been removed.
WATCH: Magnotta checks trash area of his apartment hours after alleged murder
In some parts, he is seen wearing a baseball cap just like Lin wore May 24. It was found with Magnotta’s belongings when an international manhunt ended with his apprehension in Berlin June 4.
READ MORE: Luka Magnotta jury watches surveillance footage from night of killing
Hamlin told the court she was called to the apartment building on the morning of May 29, when the apartment building’s janitor discovered a torso in a suitcase among some furniture the city’s garbage collectors hadn’t picked up the Friday before. Hamlin said investigators began going through the plastic garbage bags the janitor had brought out for collection that day, in search of any other body parts or tools that could have been used in the crime.
One of the dozens of bags searched included a piece of paper with “Luka Rocco Magnotta, 1982/07/24” written on it. Police finished inspecting the bags at 10:05 that night, having recovered that piece of paper, tools, bloody clothing, severed body parts and electronics. At the time they thought the torso was Magnotta’s, Hamlin said.
Then, news of a gruesome video posted online depicting the beheading and dismemberment of a man.
After watching the movie, Hamlin recounted, she recovered more items from the garbage previously thought inconsequential — a Casablanca poster and a wine bottle, both seen in the online snuff film. The police looked at the building’s surveillance video and the building manager confirmed the man seen walking in and out many times over was Magnotta. He was now the suspect.
It’s not known whether Magnotta knew there were cameras in the building. The building’s manager told the court he hadn’t pointed them out to Magnotta when showing him around the building.
Editor’s note: This story has been edited to clarify the Crown has referenced one video in court.
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