OHMYGOSSIP – A Canadian real estate tycoon’s son who wrote a graphic novel that features gruesome killings was sentenced Tuesday in California to life in prison for the torture and mutilation of a live-in girlfriend who had given birth to their child weeks earlier.
A Los Angeles jury found Blake Leibel, 37, guilty last week of first-degree murder, torture and aggravated mayhem in the slaying of 30-year-old Iana Kasian.
Deputies discovered Kasian’s naked body in a blood-spattered bedroom of the couple’s West Hollywood apartment in May 2016.
Judge Mark E. Windham cited the defendant’s “profound brutality” in handing down the life term without the possibility of parole.
“This monster ruined our life, ruined the life of his family,” Olga Kasian, mother of the victim, said in court through a translator before the sentencing.
Leibel used a knife in a “prolonged attack” in which Kasian was “alive for the better part of the mutilation and mayhem,” prosecutor Tannaz Mokayef told jurors. She said the crime “followed a script” from his graphic novel.
Leibel is the son of Lorne Leibel, a sailor on Canada’s 1976 Olympics team who built a fortune building homes in the Toronto area.
Blake Leibel moved to California and lived on an allowance of about $18,000 a month over a seven-year period until inheriting the majority of his mother’s estate.
He worked in a variety of creative roles, including as a director and creative consultant in 2008 on an animated series based on Mel Brooks’ 1987 film “Spaceballs,” according to his profile on IMDb. He wrote and directed his own film comedy, “Bald,” that same year.
He’s credited as creator and executive editor of the graphic novel “Syndrome,” published in 2010. The book’s plot follows a mad doctor’s quest to test his theory that he can isolate the root of evil in the brain and fix it. He tests his theory on a serial killer.
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Blake Leibel (born 8 May 1981), is a Canadian convicted murderer, comic book creator, graphic novelist, screenwriter, and fledgling Hollywood animated film director who has been residing in Los Angeles, California, since 2004. In June 2018, Leibel was convicted of first-degree murder of his fiancée, Iana Kasian.
Blake Leibel was born to two notable Canadian families. His father is of Jewish descent and is a prominent Toronto real estate mogul and Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame inductee Lorne Leibel, who had sailed for Canada in the 1976 Summer Olympics. His mother was Alros Products heiress Eleanor Chitel Leibel, whose father, Paul Chitel, held several patents.
A 2001 lawsuit filed by the maternal grandmother of Blake Leibel, Leona Chitel, against the Bank of Montreal states that she had suffered acute bipolar disorder during the 1980s.
After barricading himself in his West Hollywood apartment, on May 26, 2016, Leibel surrendered to police after they discovered the corpse of his fiancée, 30-year-old Ukrainian model Iana Kasian, mutilated, drained of blood, and lying in their bed. Their infant daughter, born not long before, was in the care of Iana’s mother, who was visiting from Ukraine and staying in an apartment close by. Leibel was subsequently charged with murder, torture, mayhem, and aggravated mayhem, to which he pleaded not guilty.
An autopsy report was released on 20 September 2017, listing Kasian’s causes of death as exsanguination and head trauma.
A civil lawsuit filed by the victim’s mother, Olga Kasian, included transcripts of Los Angeles County Coroner Dr. James Ribe’s deposition, which stated:
“Kasian’s entire scalp was traumatically absent and was not found, was not present with the body. Her skull had been stripped down to the surface of the bone … There was no scalp present except for little bits in the back of the neck… portions of the right side of her face were torn away including the right ear and part of the posterior face on the (right) side, all the way down to the jawline… there were quite a number of bruises and abrasions on the face, primarily on the left side, the left cheek, and left jaw area, a number of bruises and abrasion, including one which turned out to be a human bite mark… she had lived for at least eight hours approximately after receiving the scalp injury and the bruise to the collarbone… I have never seen this before. And I doubt if hardly any forensic pathologists in this country or abroad have even seen this outside of, perhaps, wartime… So it’s extremely rare…”
— Dr. James Ribe, Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office
In June 2018, Leibel was convicted of first-degree murder, with supplemental charges of torture and mayhem.
Featured image: Blake Leibel murdered his girlfriend Iana Kasian in May 2016 (Facebook)
