Hollywood horror: tycoon’s son Blake Leibel guilty of scalping girlfriend and draining her blood, echoing gory novel he wrote
Iana Kasian was tortured and mutilated before being killed by Blake Leibel, son of a Toronto construction magnate
A Canadian real estate tycoon’s son who wrote a graphic novel that features gruesome killings was convicted in Southern California Wednesday of the torture and mutilation of a live-in girlfriend who had given birth to their child weeks before.
A Los Angeles jury found Blake Leibel, 37, guilty of first-degree murder, torture and aggravated mayhem in the slaying of Iana Kasian, who was scalped before her blood was entirely drained from her body.
Deputies discovered the 30-year-old’s naked body in the gore-spattered master bedroom of couple’s West Hollywood apartment in May 2016.
Leibel faces life in prison when he’s sentenced June 26.
The case made headlines in Canada, where his father, Lorne Leibel, a sailor on the country’s 1976 Olympics team, built a fortune constructing homes in the Toronto area.
Blake Leibel moved to California and lived off an allowance of about US$18,000 a month over a seven-year period until inheriting the majority of his mother’s estate.