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5 July 2012

Police Find 'Canadian Psycho' Victim's Head

Canadian police confirmed Wednesday that a head found in a Montreal park does belong to the Chinese student victim in the "Canadian Psycho" murder and dismemberment case.

"We have found the head," Montreal police spokesman Raphael Bergeron told AFP following forensic tests on the remains.

Police would not say what led investigators to a small lake in Angrignon Park in the southwest Montreal neighborhood of Ville Emard where the head was discovered on Sunday.

It is the last remaining body part of the victim to be recovered in the gruesome case that started in May with a hand being mailed to the ruling Tories' party headquarters in Ottawa and culminated in a global manhunt for the suspect.

"It had been in the park for some time," said police Constable Anie Lemieux, offering few details to protect the family and the prosecution.

"What's most important I think in this announcement is that we found what we were looking for and the rest of the investigation can now continue," she added.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, last month pleaded not guilty to killing Lin Jun -- a Chinese student at Montreal's Concordia University -- in an appearance via a video link from a Montreal detention center where he has been held since his capture.

Magnotta, who worked as an occasional porn actor and an escort, is alleged to have used an ice pick to stab Lin on the night of May 24-25.

The suspect is thought to have then carved up the victim's body, sexually abused the corpse and filmed the act, before posting the video on the Internet.

Days later, police in Montreal discovered Lin's torso in a suitcase by the trash outside an apartment along a busy highway. The victim's severed hands and feet were also discovered to have been sent through the mail to federal Conservative and Liberal parties in Ottawa and to two schools in Vancouver.

The whereabouts of the head had, until now, been a mystery.

Dubbed the "Canadian Psycho" by the media, Magnotta initially fled Montreal for Paris after the killing, prompting Interpol to issue a global alert. He quickly became Canada's most wanted suspect.

He was soon traced to Germany and arrested in a cyber cafe in Berlin, after being spotted reading about himself on the Internet, and was later deported to face trial in Montreal.

The 29-year-old suspect from Toronto is also charged with committing indignities to a body, publishing and mailing obscene material, as well as criminally harassing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of parliament.

In Magnotta's first appearance in person before a Canadian judge last month, Lin Jun's parents, sister and uncle watched from a separate closed room a broadcast of the proceedings.

Lin's family and the Chinese government have called for justice, Lin's mother calling Magnotta "a monster" in a passionate eulogy for her son at Concordia University last week.

Magnotta's next court date is scheduled for early next year, and a preliminary hearing is expected for March 2013.