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I visited Luka Magnotta in prison. He was incarcerated at the Rivière-des-Prairies Detention Centre in Montreal. Are you a Canadian citizen? No. Are you a reporter? No. Are you American? Yes. What business do you have with Eric Newman? I’m a writer and a technologist, I advised the warden via email. I’m compiling material for a nonfiction work about Magnotta and Mark Twitchell. Ah, yes. Canada’s finest. You Americans really like to stir the pot, as they say? I’m not a reporter, sir. I’m writing a book about the events. I have no interest in portraying your country in a negative fashion. You know our procedures? Tremblay asked. I read them online, I replied via email. You have a passport and cleared bloodprints? I do. I will email you soon. I will wait, I said. Thank you, I said. I did not hear from the assistant warden for three months.
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I researched documents online. I worked on material for other books. I was juggling the writing of three books simultaneously. It was unusual for me. I was energized after having received an unsolicited email from a publisher who’d read a piece I’d written on the abolition of capital punishment. The publisher wasn’t interested in my thoughts on abolition of the death penalty so much as he was interested in an academic paper I’d authored in the summer of 2010 called In Remembrance of the Victims’ Final Image and its continuous projection via the Eternal Punishment Screen. Earning money from my writing was rare. When it happened I felt vindicated for the late nights and the increasingly poor posture. I was two-thirds of the way through the rough draft of a book unrelated to crime and social media when I received an email from the assistant warden at Rivière-des-Prairies. You have permission to visit Mr. Newman. Please understand that your visit was granted based upon your contribution to prisoner rehabilitation through your work on the EPS. Your visitation is scheduled for 14 August, _____ at 1 p.m. Is this acceptable to you? Yes, I replied via email. Thank you, assistant warden Tremblay.
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Magnotta spoke English. Assistant warden Tremblay spoke English. I was grateful. I’d muddled through French class in high school, but I was more interested in the unobtainable classmate to the left and two seats in front of me than in proper conjugation. On the night before August fourteenth, I felt ill. I had trouble sleeping. Twice I woke when the bile burned my esophagus. The diagnosis, made ten years prior, was GERD. Omeprazole and ranitidine no longer helped. You’re on your own, kid. Death waited for me behind grey walls at Rivière-des-Prairies Detention Centre. The collective pieces of Lin Jun haunted my mind. Sleep, I told myself. Sleep. I turned the illuminated clock face away, took a sip of Canadian water. I pulled the covers over me. Something pulled them away from me. I sensed a presence directly behind me, flat against the hotel wall. When it wasn’t directly behind me it was slightly to my right. When I moved it moved. It mimicked my exact body posture, location and position. I tried opening my mouth to scare it away, but my mouth wouldn’t open. My eyes turned against me. When I closed them fireworks exploded against black velvet. When I opened them tracers streaked across my peripheral vision. The presence watched me from a dark corner of the room. It grunted like a depraved child. It slowly compressed into a black ball and moved under the bed. It breathed as I did. I did not look under the bed. I knew I would die if I did. I wished I’d brought a nightlight, a child’s comfort device. I’m afraid of death, of blood, of pain. That’s all it is.
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The death penalty was abolished in the United States in 2020, due largely in part to my theoretical work on the Eternal Punishment Screen, or EPS. In the summer of 2010 I’d published a paper in Coalesce: The Science of Culture, a glossy Canadian magazine on future trends. The paper was called In Remembrance of the Victims’ Final Image and its continuous projection via the Eternal Punishment Screen. In the article I put forth the idea that capital punishment, which had been abolished in every developed country except the United States, was barbaric and costly, and placed undue stress on the North American economy, such as it was. Killing people is expensive. After studying exhaustive research I saw that it was much cheaper to imprison murderers for life than it was to execute them. I argued this point in my article. I substantiated it with figures, tables, resources and footnotes. I postulated that a much more fitting punishment would be a constant reminder of the crimes the perpetrator committed. I contacted a friend, Lawrence Zabriskie, who I’d known since college. He was a well-known neuroengineer who had a taste for Asian women and fast cars. I called Larry and asked him for suggestions on the paper I was in the process of writing. Was it possible to punish prisoners humanely via a continuous feed of repetitive images? I asked. Explain, Larry said. I informed him of an idea I’d been toying with, a continuous feed of images projected onto a screen inside a prisoner’s cell. The screen would be thin and indestructible, a digital blend of mica and onionskin. It would permanently rest on the wall opposite the prisoner’s bunk. As most murderers on death row in North America prior to 2020 were segregated in restrictive housing with little human contact for 23 hours per day, the mounting of the screen in a closed cell would not be an issue. Larry and I worked on it for months. Larry built a working model in his garage. We used various materials, most of them readily available and relatively cheap. We determined that the Eternal Punishment Screen, or EPS, would be constructed of a thin LED-like material. The EPS would measure 55.88 cm by 106.68 cm. It would be permanently fixed to the cell wall. Images on the screen would bleed onto the wall. The images would be projected from the back, much like the flat screen televisions of the early Aughts. Due to prisoner rejection, the material would need to be indestructible. Theoretically, it would be impervious to utensils, plates, and serving trays. Personal care items such as combs and toothbrushes would be harmless, causing no scarring or distortion of image. If the prisoner attempted to remove the EPS from the wall, electric shock would occur. The current would be at low dose, serving more as a deterrent. The EPS would produce low emissions and would be very cost-effective to operate. Each prisoner segregated in restrictive housing would receive programming reflective of their crimes. Programming could be changed or updated immediately by remote IT personnel. The images would be encrypted to prevent hacktivists from politicizing the images. Guards and other personnel visiting a prisoner’s cell equipped with an Eternal Punishment Screen would be outfitted with special Radio-frequency identification, an RFID chip, most likely installed in identification badges. When the guard or visiting personnel approached the prisoner’s cell, the specially-programmed RFID chip would temporarily disable the EPS. The images on the screen would go black. Guards would be spared permanent retinal and psychic scarring.
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I first learned of the crimes Luka Magnotta perpetrated upon Lin Jun as everyone else did. I saw the news reports. Lin Jun was a person Magnotta had professed to love. I typed the words Lin Jun into Google Images and hit search. I was horrified by what I saw. I could not erase the images from my mind. I clicked on a link. I watched an eleven minute video titled 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick. My eyes were scorched. I had seen something I could not unsee. I watched the World Trade Center fall to the ground in a cloud of paper and fire. I watched the unedited July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike on YouTube. I watched the trailers of the Gulf War on a continuous loop in 1991. From these many ancient video feeds I have ascertained that the America I once knew is now dead, the experiment is over. I trembled at the idea of being American. When I watched 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick on an Internet troll site I trembled at the idea of being human. Magnotta’s crimes were permanently burned into my synapses, a Polaroid image I couldn’t shake. What if those images, the last images of the victim’s body, could be played on a continuous loop in a prisoner’s cell, the prisoner only able to escape the images by closing or removing his eyes? It’s a lot cheaper than capital punishment, Larry said. I agreed. We worked on the EPS until a product began to appear that scared not only us, its parents, but scared nearly every person we tested it on (very few, in secret, comprised of mostly-compliant relatives and loved ones).
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Shortly after I published the article In Remembrance of the Victims’ Final Image and its continuous projection via the Eternal Punishment Screen in Coalesce, I received an email from the ASX Digital Security Corporation. The name sounded innocuous. I figured they wanted to sell me a home security system, although my email host had not identified it as spam. I clicked on the message, expecting a barrage of bland images. Instead I received an email of a somewhat questionable nature. Its contents were troubling because The Corporation had mistaken my satire, an obvious nod to Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, for truth.
Dear Mr. _____,
We are writing today to advise you that we are very interested in the ideas you recently published in Coalesce: The Science of Culture. We find your ideas intriguing. The Eternal Punishment Screen, also known as the EPS, that you and Mr. Lawrence Zabriskie have devised and that you have described in great detail in your article In Remembrance of the Victims’ Final Image and its continuous projection via the Eternal Punishment Screen may very well end capital punishment in the United States once and for all. I truly have hope for you and your Nation. Your prototype EPS device is much cheaper than execution and far more humane. The victim’s family and loved ones may be somewhat emotionally compensated by knowing that the prisoner who perpetrated a crime against their loved one is constantly reminded of the horror and suffering they have irreparably caused. The prisoner’s mental illness with regards to subjection to a perpetual twenty-four hour loop of images they can neither escape nor shut off is of little or no consequence. Their life would be spared; there would be no death penalty. The victim of their crime would be with them constantly, a head on a digital stick, as it were. We would like to compensate you for your published ideas and for your contribution to the overall betterment of humanity. If you and Mr. Zabriskie agree to this, total and vested ownership of the Eternal Punishment Screen, global naming rights, intellectual property and copyright, and the right to manufacture, distribute and sell will rest solely at the discretion of the ASX Digital Security Corporation. We truly look forward to hearing from you!
Regards,
Thomas Silverstein
Chief Information Officer
ASX Digital Security Corporation
I replied via email. Talk to Larry Zabrieski, I wrote. I don’t want anything to do with it.
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Magnotta was thin and sickly. His doll head hair was blonde and nearly translucent. Old plastic surgery scars ran along his hairline. There were plastic surgery scars behind his cheekbones. He had turned forty on July 24th. Eleven years had passed since his initial incarceration for the murder of Lin Jun. He sat behind a glass partition in a small cubed room. He was very small, a petite wisp of an idea rather than a man. An electronic device allowed us to talk to each other without use of a receiver. You are Mr. _____? Magnotta asked. Yes, I replied. I don’t receive many visitors, he said. I guess it’s to be expected, he said. He straightened a wrinkle on his jumpsuit. You created the EPS? Magnotta asked. I came up with the idea for it, yes, I said. It was more of a joke. It’s no joke, Magnotta replied. I live with it every day. I can’t shut it off. It just plays and plays. It’s driving me crazy. I have nightmares. I wish I could take it all back. But you can’t, I said. You took a life and now you are what you are. What am I? Magnotta asked. I don’t know, I said. That’s something you’ll have to discover on your own. You know I’m in restrictive housing twenty-three hours a day? Magnotta said. Yes, Tremblay advised me. What is it you wanted to ask me? We only have thirty minutes. A guard standing behind Magnotta and to the left of him shifted his weight slightly from his left foot to his right. Just some basic questions for a manuscript I’m working on about violence. Sorry, but do you feel social media contributed to your need to murder? I asked. Magnotta grunted. I don’t know. I guess I wanted the attention. Would you still have murdered Lin Jun if you didn’t have access to social media? I don’t know, Magnotta said. Maybe. I’m not sure. Why did you kill someone you professed to love? I asked. Magnotta twitched in his seat. I never said I loved him. Who said that? I don’t know. Because I was bored, he said.
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I asked Magnotta a few more questions. His answers were I don’t know. I’m not sure. Maybe. I wasn’t getting anywhere with him. His hands were behind his back. I couldn’t determine if he was bound. I focused on the lapels of his jumpsuit. I couldn’t remember watching him walk in. Was he already seated when I sat down? I grew frustrated. I wanted to elicit an emotional response from him. Are you friendly with the guards? I asked. I rarely see the guards, he said. How do you deal with loneliness? You know, in the usual ways. You masturbate? I asked. Magnotta snorted. Do you miss physical contact? I asked. Magnotta leaned forward and spat on the glass that separated us. The guard yanked Magnotta from his chair and electronically incapacitated him. A moment later another guard came from behind a white door. The interview is over, he said. All three men disappeared behind the white door. The glass separating me from the interview room went black. The outline of Magnotta’s saliva slowly drifted down the glass and gathered in a pool on the sill. I stood and waited for the door to open. There was a buzz, followed by a mechanical rotation and a heavy click. A guard stood before me. Please follow me, Mr. _____. A taxi drove me from Rivière-des-Prairies Detention Centre to my hotel. I checked my email an hour after I arrived at the hotel. Assistant warden Tremblay asked me if my interview was satisfactory. Yes, I replied. I thought it best to be polite.
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I felt restless. I took an elevator down to the hotel bar and ordered a drink. I watched anonymous couples whisper lies to each other. Hotel guests shoved black food into their mouths. Grey steaks flopped on china. Glasses clinked, silverware announced its presence. The contents of my stomach bubbled just below my ribcage.
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I came away from the interview learning very little of Luka Magnotta. I did not ascertain his motives for murdering Lin Jun. I did not understand his need to record his crimes. He looked like a human being, he moved like one. I wasn’t sure I was convinced. I was disgusted when I watched his eleven minute hackfest, but my fingers typed the title into the search engine. Is Magnotta a morally repugnant purveyor of dark goods? Am I just as guilty for consuming them? Society only creates a theatre of the absurd when there is an audience present to bear witness.
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Two weeks after the Magnotta visit I received a handwritten letter in the mail. The envelope was thick, heavy. How did he obtain my address? It unnerved me. Then I thought, well he is in prison. He has a lot of time for this kind of thing, to find others. I’m on the outside and I have so little time; the world continues to tell us faster faster, faster is better, more more more, more is better. But these are lies, of course. I want less these days, just to preserve my sanity, if nothing else. The world takes too much, and tells me I’m not giving enough. But then, that’s how it’s always been.
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Hey –
I only wanted to be beautiful. That’s all I ever wanted. You can see that in my famous movies. Not like your movies, this thing that plays constantly in my room. You are sick. Why did you do this? You are worse than death! I only wanted to be beautiful, to give the world beauty. You can’t deny that. I created my face to match my inner beauty. My Soul is strong! I guess it’s gone now, I don’t know. I can’t see myself anymore. Maybe it’s a good thing. I’ve got this stupid electronic thing of yours always to keep me company. What were you thinking? And the noises, oh god the noises.
I petitioned the warden for a pet mouse. I want a mouse, maybe a small grey one or a brown one, just a beautiful thing I can hold in my hand. I need something to take care of. You know me, I love people. But I have a feeling he will say No because my whole life has been one big No, people always saying no! My dad said no to me from the time since I was born. My parents were big on no. Always no sayers! The only ones who said yes were my fans, the beautiful people who loved my famous movies. They were the ones who kept me alive when things were not so good.
I’m sorry our time was so short. It wasn’t nice. You maybe think I’m rude. I just didn’t feel beautiful that day. I felt like him, always lying. Dirty and stupid, with his stupid little eyes. I did not like his eyes. And he wasn’t a big thinker, he had such a little brain! I wanted to give people beauty and pleasure and he never could see that. He was just an experiment, a way to waste time. But what did he know? He studied computers! Computers aren’t people. But that’s such a waste of time, thinking about that. I think I did what was best. Most people aren’t beautiful, they only steal beauty from others, so maybe they should be erased? I felt it was best. There are enough computer people in the world! They turn on, they turn off, and nothing changes. We should all have those sleep modes! That way when you are boring me I can turn you off or put you to sleep.
Hey when you come visit me again, I will be much better behaved. Give me some more notice so that my face will be perfect for you. I got a mirror but it doesn’t work, these stupid lights are on all the time and the mirror doesn’t work. I’ve complained but they don’t care. They just care about schedules and making it seem like they know what they’re doing. Just like him. I wonder if you are like that too when you are alone? I don’t know, people are always found to be disappointing to me –
You see I can find you! When I want to be extra beautiful I can find things. I only wish I could find an off switch for you. As a note on side, I see you do not live in apt 208. That’s good! It would be a real cut up if you did! Ha ha! And I’m sure my love for people did come through, but maybe they took me away too fast and you didn’t get it. It’s all the same to me, I’m happy and comfortable and I have a small plant in my room that I water. It keeps me busy and my books, too. I only wish that you had never created this terrible mirror, it really gets to me and the visions I have at night are not pleasant. But then that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? To remind me? That I’ve been bad? Well mister we are all bad, because we are born without god. But that’s ok, I still love you. I love everyone that our great god has made! Someday when I get out perhaps we can meet up and I can take you out to dinner. We’ll go somewhere good, where they have steaks and drinks. And knives. Jk!
L –
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Luka Magnotta committed suicide on August 5, 2026. He was forty-four. He left a simple note. I can’t get these images out of my head. I am punished for love. He committed suicide by hanging. He used a prison bed sheet. His suicide was neither recorded nor televised. Control, Alt, Delete.
Image may be NSFW.
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This article originally appeared in the October 2023 issue of American Prison.
Permission kindly granted to Dennis Cooper DC’s to reproduce.
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p.s. Hey. James Nulick, commonly known around these parts as d.l. James, is the author of the very excellent novel 'Distemper', and, excitingly, the quite soon forthcoming novel 'Valencia' from Nine Banded Books, and this weekend he has gifted the world in and around DC's with a fantastic story that I anticipate and hope you will enjoy spending your weekend with. Please pass along your takes and thoughts to James in the comments arena between now and Monday. Thank you, and thank you, generous James. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, not an Arnold fan then. Understandable. Not at all sure if I could articulate why I, very mildly, sometimes am myself. ** Etc etc etc, Hi. Cool, glad you're giving 'MC' your shot. You're not bothering me in the slightest. I'm just, yeah, given to painful slowness. Well, obviously very curious what you'll get from the new gif/lit collection. Thank you for the pleasant thoughts. I'm on it. The tunnel's light is becoming visible. Great weekend! ** Sypha, Oh, you're one of those, ha ha. I really need to write my long daydreamed of brainy, proselytizing screed about Weezer someday, I guess. I can't remember the first 'Expendables'. Heck, I can't even remember the second one. ** Steevee, Oh, that's most excellent, i.e. your review of the new Joshua Oppenheimer. I'm very, very excited to see that. Everyone, Steevee has weighed in critically re: the new film 'The Look of Silence' by Joshua Oppenheimer, who last directed the amazing film 'The Act of Killing', of which the new film is a companion piece. Very exciting! Enter Steevee's opinion and writing here. Ick, but glad the doctor has that sorted that diagnostically and put you on the mending path at least. Haven't listened to War since the old days, and I think I'm more familiar with their brief early period when Eric Burdon was fronting and collaborating with them. ** Thomas Moronic, Thanks, man, glad you found it potentially helpful. Congrats and hailing ticker tape about your summer officially beginning! Make that hot, unscheduled world your oyster. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Very sensible. Well, okay, hm, then redirect my compliment and insight towards your ability to project saintly patience when composing and executing a comment. Not just a light, but a burning bright one! ** Bill, Hi. I'm so very happy that you, of all people, enjoyed it, B. I wish you weren't too swamped too, obviously. I did also note and like that bit at the video's end, interesting. The Dutch animatronics guy ... oh, yeah, sure. I haven't seen his film stuff. I don't suppose some fan has made a reel of his input only. May your weekend surprise and delight you. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Yeah, at least half to two-thirds of them have lyrics, but, like Bill said, the singing/lyrics often don't kick in for a while. I know, or at least think, that, for instance, 'I Love You in your Tragic Beauty', 'Just a Lifetime', and 'The Lovers (Part 2)' have lyrics that run pretty much all the way through the songs. I disagree. I think our bits are tied for first place. You're starting to give me a geese phobia, just so you know. Not that that's a bad thing. Heck, it might save my life someday. I like natural landscapes too, don't get me wrong. Love them even at more times than not. But there's this little twist inside the effect of fake landscapes. It's like ... escorts versus boyfriends. It's like ... Britney versus Amy Winehouse or one of those other sincere emoter types. ** MANCY, Oh, I do, tons, man! What are you working on? How's stuff up there where you live, etc.? ** Well, then. I leave you in the capable 'hands' of Mr. James Nulick's talent for the foreseeable future or at least until, as you might have guessed, Monday.