An online mix-up has complicated a struggle by Montreal police to get a video allegedly showing the slaying and dismemberment of body parts victim Lin Jun off an Edmonton-based gore website.
A week ago, Montreal police publicly said they contacted the site’s owner Mark Marek and were urging him to remove the video.
But the owner of bestgore.com said he only received a direct request by email Wednesday from the Montreal police to remove the video entitled “1 lunatic, 1 ice pick.”
While the request was addressed to Marek, it asked him to remove the video from bestgore.fr, a domain name he said he doesn’t own or control.
“I do not own the domain name bestgore.fr and have never in my life owned it. The domain name I own is bestgore.com – it may be similar, but it’s not the same,” Marek wrote in an email to Global News. Marek said he does not own a phone and has only communicated with media via email.
Bestgore.fr is a non-affiliated domain registered to a Boris Baskovec of France. Baskovec said he originally took the video from bestgore.com but later deactivated it for technical reasons. Neither the Montreal nor French police called him to take it down.
The request from Montreal police shows they are facing multiple fronts in their battle to extinguish the existence of the stomach-churning video.
In the emailed letter, police acknowledge the video was posted on bestgore.com, but later asked him to remove the video and point to a link from a separate website.
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Marek said he believes the unintentional mix-up could be why he did not hear from police earlier, despite publicly stating they reached out to him.
Marek was the first to post “1 lunatic, 1 ice pick” on Bestgore.com, after receiving it from a user on May 25.
On May 29, when Lin’s torso was found in Montreal, and his hand and foot surfaced in packages mailed to Ottawa, the possible link between the video and real life events became apparent.
Marek took down the video voluntarily on May 31, with a message saying it was disabled temporarily due to his server not being able to carry the load. He said he had never been asked to take it down before Wednesday.
“I removed it on my own terms, without being asked, requested or ordered,” he said.
Without providing details, Commander Ian Lafreniere of the Montreal police said they attempted to get in contact with Marek earlier, and contacted him again on Wednesday.
As for the confusion over domain names, Lafreniere said Marek knows the video was on his site and that the police want it down.
“At the end of it, you can play a fool or make us look stupid, but at the end of it was it there?” Lafreniere said. “There’s a lot of people not happy about this. He’s an adult, face it.”
Earlier this week, Montreal police confirmed they and their counterparts in Edmonton were investigating Marek and his website for possible violations of Canada’s obscenity laws.
Lafreniere said they are still trying to determine whether charges against Marek are warranted.
While Marek has removed the video, posting it in the first place allowed anyone to download a copy and repost it in any dark corner of the web they see fit.
Lafreniere received an email from a citizen on Wednesday about a website asking people to pay to watch the slaying.
“I just have a hard time believing some people are having a good time watching this,” he said.
There is very little the police can do in the face of such frustrating videos, according to David Wall, an expert in cybercrime and the head of criminology at the United Kingdom’s Durham University.
“The best they can do is to do their best at keeping the availability of these videos off the Internet and appeal to people’s sense of decency,” he said.
The saving grace, according to Wall, is that attention spans are short.
“People’s interest in these videos can be very short-lived and very immediate. They are intrigued by what are the effects of this forbidden fruit,” he said.
Lafreniere said he hopes Marek keeps the video off the site, especially for the sake of the family.
“I’m not wishing it to anyone, but maybe if Mr. Marek can take a minute and imagine himself and it happened to someone he knows how would he feel about it. It’s not a movie. It’s real.”
The letter from police also asks Marek to assist the police investigation by providing any details about the user who sent him the video in the first place.
Police believe it will help build a case against Luka Rocco Magnotta, the main suspect in the case, and Marek said he would help police in any way possible.
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