MONTREAL — Police have named a suspect in the shocking case where dismembered body parts were mailed to Ottawa, including the headquarters of the governing Conservative party.
Montreal police say 29-year-old Rocco Luka Magnotta is wanted in connection with a suspected homicide.
A man by that same name has a huge presence on the Internet — as a low-budget adult film actor and for controversial videos he has posted online in the past.
The man, believed to originally be from Toronto, was renting an apartment in a Montreal building that is now at the epicentre of the body-parts investigation.
It was behind that blue collar mid-rise apartment that a man’s torso was found in a locked suitcase Tuesday. On the same day, a foot was found in a package opened at Conservative headquarters and a hand was found at an Ottawa postal warehouse.
The building manager tells The Canadian Press that Magnotta had been living there for about four months. In the manager’s words, Magnotta seemed like a nice guy.
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MONTREAL — Police say they are zeroing in on a suspect in the macabre case involving body parts found in different cities, including the foot in a package opened at the Conservative Party of Canada’s headquarters.
Preliminary testing on three body parts — a hand and foot found in Ottawa, and a torso in Montreal — indicate they all come from the same male victim, Montreal police confirmed Wednesday. The packages in Ottawa were mailed from Montreal.
Police shared other new details about the case Wednesday.
“The suspect and victim knew each other,” Montreal police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere told reporters.
“It isn’t linked to organized crime.”
Police are expected to provide further information around 2 p.m.
What isn’t clear yet is why body parts were mailed to Ottawa, including a foot received at the offices of the Conservative party and a hand found at a Canada Post warehouse.
Montreal police have taken over the investigation, while Ottawa police will continue to provide assistance.
The packages are linked to a grim discovery made behind an apartment building in Montreal, where a janitor found a decomposing male human torso stuffed in a suitcase tossed among garbage.
An autopsy was being conducted on the body part. It wasn’t immediately clear where the rest of the body was.
Initially, there were contradictory reports over whether the Montreal and Ottawa cases were linked. While police were combing through garbage in Montreal looking for clues Tuesday, speculation had been rife that there might be a link to the more high-profile body part discovery in Ottawa.
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