Last Chance for Animals, an organization “dedicated to eliminating animal exploitation” has taken responsibility for posting a series of YouTube pages “glorifying” accused Canadian killer Luka Magnotta and referencing the case of a severed head found by the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles earlier this year. According to an LCA press release, these videos were made by their “special investigations unit” in an attempt to “lure in the killer, or his companions, using covert tactics often reserved for law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”
“SIU investigators immediately got to work and posted a video glorifying Magnotta, dubbing him ‘The James Dean Killer,'” the press release said. “A second video titled ‘1 Man 1 Icon’ was produced to continue the façade using family photos of Magnotta that had not yet been featured in the press.”
LCA was founded by a former soap opera actor named Chris DeRose in the 1980’s. In addition to Mr. Magnotta’s family photos, the YouTube videos posted by LCA also featured pictures of the Hollywood sign, references to the Satanic Bible and a description calling Mr. Magnotta “the sexiest serial killer ever to walk the earth.”
Mr. Magnotta was arrested in Berlin on Monday after an international manhunt after he allegedly killed and dismembered a man named Lin Jun in Montreal. Mr. Magnotta allegedly posted a gruesome video of the crime online and mailed the body parts to the headquarters of Canadian political parties. When he was caught, Mr. Magnotta was in an internet cafe reading news articles about himself. Prior to the Jun killing, Mr. Magnotta earned the ire of animal rights activists after he was linked to a series of videos that allegedly showed him killing kittens.
According to the LCA, their videos caused them to make contact “with several individuals who may have been Luka, or close associates of Luka” and “that information was turned over to Law Enforcement.”
The Observer previously alerted police in Montreal and Los Angeles to the videos posted by LCA in light of other potential links between Mr. Magnotta and the Hollywood sign killing. Along with the videos, there are similarities in the methodology of the Jun killing and the Hollywood Sign murder, which both involved severed body parts placed in prominent locations, as well as Facebook postings on one of the many accounts attributed to Mr. Magnotta that indicate he was in Los Angeles less than one month after the Hollywood Sign killing.
On Monday, a police detective in Montreal told us they planned to communicate with the LAPD to discuss the possibility Mr. Magnotta was involved in that case. At the time, we noted, “it’s impossible to say for sure whether the HollywoodLoveLetters account belongs to Mr. Magnotta and whether he actually had anything to do with the Hollywood Sign killing. The only thing that’s certain is that someone out there is going to great lengths to associate him with it.”
Apparently, that someone was the LCA.
We were made aware of the LCA’s press release after receiving an email from an anonymous member of the organization. We asked them whether they were concerned about potentially wasting the time and energy of law enforcement officials who were looking into the videos and why they chose to reference the Hollywood sign killing in their postings.
“I’m really sorry, but I will need to clear any further comments with LCA’s president,” they said.
