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After a Google search turned up evidence of Mr. Magnotta’s film career, he had become known in the building as Porn Star. He rarely spoke to the other residents, but Mr. Schorer said he was friendly enough and always paid his rent on time.

“He seemed like a really nice guy, really,” he said. “It’s like you see on TV all the time.… It’s almost a cliché or a joke.”

Neighbour Derek MacKinnon, an actor whose best-known role was as a killer in the 1980 slasher film Terror Train, was one of the few people who struck up a conversation with Mr. Magnotta.

“One day we talked, and I said, ‘You and I have something in common. We’re both in film, but I’m not in the same kind of film world you’re in.’ He just laughed,” Mr. MacKinnon said. Later Mr. Magnotta confided that he was worried about his porn career haunting him forever and asked for advice about getting into “legitimate” movies.

Then about five days ago, he invited Mr. MacKinnon up to his apartment as they sat on the front step, where residents gather on warm nights to drink beer. “He said, ‘You’ve never been to my apartment, why don’t you come up?’ And I didn’t, thank God.”

Richard Payette was running his air conditioner full blast Wednesday to fend off the smell coming from Apt. 208 across the hall. He said he never got so much as a hello out of his neighbour, but nothing in recent days suggested crimes were being committed a few metres away.

“Believe me, if there were screams or anything I would have notified somebody, but he was quiet as a mouse, this guy,” he said. Looking out his back window, he had recently noticed the suitcase among the garbage bags in the back alley. “I was telling myself maybe I should pick that suitcase up. You know, one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t, but it looked too new to be in the garbage.”