Warning: This article includes graphic content that may disturb some readers.
The prosecution at the Luka Magnotta murder trial heard from two new witnesses Tuesday; a close friend of the victim Jun Lin and an older man who says he hired Magnotta as a male escort.
It first heard from Dong Dong Xu, who met Jun Lin in September 2011.
He called Lin “shy and lovely” and was “very much liked by everyone around him."
Xu testified that he received a call on May 27 from Lin's former boyfriend Feng Lin in China, who said he hadn't heard from Lin in more than two days.
Xu and some friends visited Lin's apartment on Forest Hill Ave. in Cote-des-Neiges that night.
Lin wasn't there, and Xu told the court, the cat appeared very hungry.
Xu then visited the depanneur where Lin worked. The owner told him Lin hadn't shown up for his past three shifts.
Because Lin was an adult, Xu said police told him he was required to wait before filing a missing person's report.
On May 29, Xu heard about a video of a murder posted online called “one Lunatic, One Ice Pick.” When he searched for it, he found a disturbing image: the severed head of his friend.
"I identified him instantly," Xu told the jury.
"I saw a severed head on the Internet but I didn't look at the video at first," he said.
He said he later glanced at the video, and described what he saw to the jury.
"At the very beginning, a living person bound to the bed, a male, blindfolded, struggling," Xu said. He said that person was not Lin.
In later scenes, a body was severed and there were images of someone with a knife trying to cut pieces off. There were also images of a dog licking severed body parts.
Xu testified that one Montreal police officer told him that in his career, he'd never seen a video of a crime scene that graphic.
"I didn't watch the video again after that," Xu said.
Xu said police then sent five officers over.
The Crown next heard from a 69-year-old man named Thomas Murphy, an American who often visited friends in Montreal.
Murphy told the court he could barely recognize Magnotta at the trial because he was heavier and had darker hair and glasses.
He testified he met Magnotta on a male escort website, where Magnotta used the name Nathan 22. Murphy said he paid him $150 for sex.
“For me, he was a clean cut kid,” he testified. “One reason I liked him was because he didn't drink and didn't want to smoke a joint.”
In fact, Murphy testified, he enjoyed Magnotta's company so much, they met more than once.
“I heard what happened on the news but the drawings on the news didn't look like him. I saw the photo and said ‘holy crap,’” Murphy testified.
Earlier in the day, the trial revealed how the accused murderer made his way to Europe.
The jury was shown items seized from Magnotta's hotel room in Paris including a hair brush, two tubes of mascara, as well as a piece of paper with some French verbs written on it.
They also found a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and an empty wallet.
The jury was then shown surveillance video from the Berlin internet café where Magnotta was arrested on June 4th.
The video shows Magnotta walking into the café shortly before noon, pushing back his sunglasses as he talked to the clerk, and then sitting down for half an hour.
That is when an officer arrives to confirm Magnotta is in the store, then he flags down a police truck and seven German police officers walk in.
The trial continues Wednesday.
With a report from The Canadian Press