In June , he was apprehended in Berlin. In December , after eight days of deliberations, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder. He had come to Canada in with the intention of starting a new life there and to study computer engineering. Lin, who was gay, had been at some point married to a woman, though they later divorced. In Canada, he had lived for a time with another Chinese man. Lin had never revealed his sexual orientation to his family in China, even though they had met his boyfriend.
Shortly before the murder, Lin's relationship with his partner had ended because Lin was experiencing pressure from his family to "settle down" and marry a woman. After breaking up with his boyfriend, Lin had been using Grindr and other web applications to meet with men. He was the first of their three children. His father was diagnosed with schizophrenia in , [ 25 ] after which he divorced Magnotta's mother, leading Magnotta to move in with his grandmother, Phyllis.
Magnotta attended I. Weldon Secondary School in Lindsay. He also worked as a stripper. Although some media labeled him a "porn star" after the murder, further reporting showed that his work as a porn actor had been "anything but prolific or high-profile" as he had shot less than a dozen videos over a five-year period.
A staff member of the Internet Adult Film Database commented, upon reviewing Magnotta's output, that "not even the porn industry was much interested in him". He did not have much success at modeling either. Over several years, Magnotta created many profiles on various social media and discussion forums to plant a variety of claims about himself. Magnotta would use these pages and multiple false online identities to "sing his own praises" one page called him "The new James Dean " , attack people he disliked, or spread false information about himself in an effort to attract attention.
One such rumour emerged in , claiming Magnotta was in a relationship with Karla Homolka , a high-profile Canadian convicted murderer, which Magnotta denied in a subsequent interview with the Toronto Sun. Nina Arsenault , who had been Magnotta's lover in the early s, described him in as a manipulative liar and often self-destructive. The Toronto Sun reporter who had interviewed Magnotta in about the Homolka rumours later said that he had found him "troubled", and that he had suspected at the time that Magnotta had made up the rumours to gain attention.
