TORONTO – A porn actor accused of mailing a severed foot to Canada's Conservative party headquarters is believed to have been in the Paris region since at least Friday, according to investigators.
Interpol has placed suspect Luka Rocco Magnotta on the equivalent of its most-wanted list.
An official in the Paris office, speaking on condition of anonymity because of office policy, said Sunday that police were looking into two alleged sightings in northwest Paris but had no additional details.
A source close to the investigation told AFP that police traced Magnotta to a hotel in the suburb of Bagnolet on Saturday, acting on a tip from a witness and Magnotta's cell phone signal.
Investigators also questioned the manager of a bar in Batignolles, who said Magnotta stopped by there late Wednesday for a drink, the French newspaper Le Parisien reports.
"He was very nervous (and) he drank the Coke in one go," the manager said. "A man with an impressive physique came into the bar and started talking to him. They knew each other."
Le Parisien reports that Magnotta then left the bar with the man.
Magnotta is wanted for threatening the Canadian prime minister, first-degree murder, defiling a corpse and using the mail system for delivering "obscene, indecent, immoral or scurrilous" material.
Montreal Police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere said Saturday that because it was addressed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's party office they can lay an additional charge against Magnotta.
Lafreniere also said they still believe Magnotta, 29, is in France. Police have said Magnotta fled to France on May 26 based on evidence they found at his apartment. Police identified the victim as Chinese university student Jun Lin, 33. Police said they dated.
Kankan Huang, the owner of a Montreal convenience store where Jun Lin worked about 10 hours a week, said the victim was a responsible, polite cashier. He said he knew something was amiss when he didn't show up for work last week because Lin had never missed a shift since he was hired last August.
Huang said he was shocked when he read the news about his clerk's death.
The case began Tuesday, when a package containing a severed foot was opened at the ruling Conservative Party headquarters. A hand was discovered at a postal facility, addressed to the Liberal party of Canada. A torso was found in a suitcase on a garbage dump in Montreal, outside Magnotta's apartment building.
Police suspect Magnotta filmed the murder. The video, posted online, shows a man stabbing another man with an ice pick while the victim lies naked and tied up. The first man later reveals he has slashed the other man's throat. He also dismembers the corpse and performs sexual acts with it.
An online video also shows a man who looks like Magnotta committing violent acts against kittens. The video contains at least one photo made available by Montreal police that identified the man as Magnotta. For nearly two years, animal-rights activists have been looking for a man who tortured and killed cats and posted videos of it online.
"This is the kind of guy that's looking for attention," Lafreniere said. "He likes to glorify himself with the web. The web will glorify him and the web is also going to bring him back to justice because there are a lot of pictures of him out there and it will help lead him to us."
Police said Magnotta's birth name is Eric Clinton Newman and that he is also known by the name Vladimir Romanov, and they described him as white and 5 feet 8 inches tall (1.78 meters) with blue eyes and black hair.
A senior French police official said he is sure Magnotta is in France and that Magnotta has been there in the past. Another French police official said Magnotta apparently flew to Paris from Montreal last weekend, before the case emerged.
Montreal police have said they believe Magnotta fled for France based on evidence they found at his apartment and a blog he once wrote about how to disappear.
"What will hinder him the most is what he used to glorify himself, the web, with all the photos we have of him," Lafreniere said. But he warned that Magnotta is "someone who can disguise himself, he can change into a woman, wear a wig."
France's fugitive search unit has been ordered to hunt for Magnotta, the French officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about such searches publicly. They gave no details about his suspected whereabouts.
Lafreniere said Magnotta could be anywhere in Europe, and "there's even been talk he might have returned to Canada under another identity."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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