Story highlights
NEW: University where dismembered victim studied sets up funds in his honor
Police are looking into possible ties between two grisly crimes
Luka Rocco Magnotta is suspected of killing and mutilating a Chinese student
Hervey Medellin was killed and dismembered in Los Angeles
Los Angeles police are looking into a possible connection between a Canadian porn actor suspected in the mutilation of a university student and the killing of a California man who was dismembered in the same grisly manner.
In January, a woman walking on a hilltop trail near the famed Hollywood sign discovered a freshly severed head. Police scoured the area and found human hands and feet and identified the victim as Hervey Medellin, 66.
Parts of Medellin’s body are still missing.
Officer Cleon Joseph of the Los Angeles police said reporters have asked detectives whether Medellin’s killing was linked in any way to Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, suspected of killing Chinese student Jun Lin in Montreal.
The sick fascination with a death video
Joseph said police do not have any evidence that establishes a connection between the two crimes.
Montreal police told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Magnotta may have been in Los Angeles at the time of Medellin’s killing.
After a massive manhunt, Magnotta was arrested Monday in a Berlin Internet cafe. He is awaiting extradition to Canada to face first-degree murder charges.
In the grisliest Montreal crime in years, police say they suspect the porn actor killed and dismembered Lin and posted a 10-minute video of it online. Montreal police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere said the video shows Magnotta engaged in sexual acts involving body parts and also included evidence of cannibalism.
Police say they believe Magnotta sent Lin’s body parts by mail to political party headquarters in Ottawa and two schools in Vancouver, British Columbia. Magnotta then fled Montreal for Europe.
Lin’s distraught family traveled from their village in China to Montreal this week. Lafreniere said the family had little money and people had stepped up to help.
On Friday, Concordia University, where Lin was studying, announced the Jun Lin Family Fund, which will absorb funds from the Lin Jun Rest in Peace Foundation announced by the Chinese consulate in Montreal a day earlier, university spokeswoman Christine Mota said.
The Jun Lin Family Fund will provide financial assistance to the Lin family, and the school is also creating the Jun Lin Award to benefit Chinese students studying at the university after the family said they wanted something good to come out of Lin’s killing, Mota said.
“The outpouring of offerings have been tremendous,” Mota said. “Calls and letters from Texas, California, Hong Kong – people with no relation to the university – read about this and want to do something.”
CNN’s Jake Carpenter contributed to this report.