Luka Magnotta’s family doctor tells murder trial about accused hearing voices

MONTREAL — A Toronto doctor has told Luka Rocco Magnotta’s murder trial the accused was convinced in 2005 that he was being stalked and that voices in his head told him he walked like an ape.

Dr. Allan Tan saw Magnotta between 2003 and 2009 at three different Toronto clinics.

Magnotta was diagnosed as manic depressive and mildly schizophrenic by a psychiatrist before consulting Tan.

It was around 2004 that Tan first noted in his files that Magnotta said he was hearing voices.

Tan testified today that Magnotta told him in March 2005 that people were taking pictures of him and posting them online in an attempt to ruin his modelling career.

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According to Tan, Magnotta heard voices telling him he walked like an ape and that he tried to get rid of them by blaring the radio.

Tan says Magnotta told him he kept his curtains drawn and thought he was always being watched.

The 32-year-old Magnotta is charged in the slaying and dismemberment of Jun Lin in May 2012 in Montreal before he fled to Paris and then Berlin.

He has admitted to killing the Chinese engineering student, but has pleaded not guilty by way of mental disorder.

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Tan, a family physician, says he knew Magnotta first as Eric Newman — the accused’s birth name.

But in 2006, he noted in his files the accused had changed his name to Luka Magnotta and told the doctor he did so because he thought he was being followed.

Magnotta worked as an actor and an escort but spent the entirety of the six years he was seen by Tan as a recipient of the Ontario Disability Support Program, a form of welfare.

Magnotta faces four charges in addition to the premeditated murder of Lin: criminally harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of Parliament; mailing obscene and indecent material; committing an indignity to a body; and publishing obscene materials.