Netflix/Anna Yourkin/FacebookUnless you’ve been living under a rock for the past four weeks, you’ll have heard of Don’t F**k With Cats.
The twisted, three-part Netflix series follows a group of ‘internet sleuths’ who work together to find the person responsible for a YouTube video called ‘1 Boy 2 Kittens’. The clip – which shows two cats being vacuum-packed, suffocated and killed – horrified anyone who watched it.
None more so than Deanna Thompson (aka Baudi Moovan) and co. though, who hunted down killer Luka Magnotta after he posted several more anonymous videos, eventually culminating in the brutal murder of Chinese student Jun Lin – something he filmed and used to taunt the group.
NetflixThroughout the documentary, viewers heard from police officials, Deanna and her fellow online detectives, as well as Jun Lin’s loved ones – all of whom were disgusted by Magnotta’s cruel and inexplicable actions.
However, we were then introduced to Magnotta’s mother, Anna Yourkin, who we quickly learned denies her son’s culpability and believes he is innocent. Not only that, she believes her son’s line of defence: that he was being controlled by a third party, someone named Manny Lopez, who made him commit the murder.
Despite remaining loyal to her son, phoning him twice a day while the documentary was being made and visiting him in prison regularly, the director of Don’t F**k With Cats revealed Magnotta refuses to see Anna anymore after she published her story in a book called My Son, the Killer earlier this year.
NetflixDirector Mark Lewis said the film crew ‘came just at the right time’ as Anna was ‘ready to talk’. He added: ‘She is desperate to find any redeeming quality she can in her son; to believe Luka so that she can somehow deal with the horrific truth of what really happened.’
Lewis told The Telegraph he asked Anna to bring a bag of her son’s possessions to one of their interviews, recalling how there was ‘a set of keys from when he was 18, on which there was a Basic Instinct key ring’.
It was after seeing the key ring the director realised Magnotta’s murder video might have been inspired by the film, which starred Sharon Stone as serial killer Catherine Trammell. ‘We compared the murder video with the film frame by frame and we made the connection,’ Lewis said.
TriStar PicturesLewis decided not to tell Yourkin – who refused to attend her son’s trial – the murder’s connection to the film, and when Jun Lin’s lawyer tried to show the jury clips from Basic Instinct during the trial, the judge ruled against it on account of it being ‘such a bore’.
Magnotta was eventually found searching the web for stories about himself in an internet café in Berlin, and was arrested at the scene.
He was convicted of first-degree murder and was also sentenced to 19 years for other crimes, including: producing and distributing obscene material; sending obscene material through the mail; and harassing former Prime Minister Stephen Harper – after he sent Jun Lin’s body parts to the Conservative Party.
PA ImagesThe killer is serving a life sentence and will be eligible for parole in 25 years from the date he started serving.
Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer is available to watch on Netflix now.
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence contact Cruse Bereavement Care via their national helpline on 0808 808 1677.
A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).