Do you believe in evil? Because you’re about to meet pure evil. And I promise this is still relevant to the theme of HelloMoneyTree. Well, sort of.
After learning about this cold-hearted murder case, I’ve been subtly ruminating about it for the past few days and I just have to share my insights.
Today, we’ll take a look at this rich Canadian Hollywood murderer and see what exactly he did that makes him so horrendously vile and evil.
Blake Leibel was a child of a rich Canadian real estate tycoon. He used his father’s trust fund to live in Hollywood, drive Ferrari, and gamble in underground clubs with celebrities. Leibel was also a horror comic book writer who later tortured and de-scalped his mistress alive.
Table of Contents
A privileged upbringing
Blake Leibel was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on May 8th, 1981.
From the very beginning, Blake was destined for success. How? Let me explain.
Blake’s father, Loren Leibel was a huge name in the real estate industry.
Eleanor Chitel, Blake’s mother, inherited her father’s company, AllRose which makes plastic polytarp materials. The company brings in $28 million per year in sales every year.
Blake Leibel’s grandfather on his mother’s side, Paul Chitel although wildly successful in his chosen career, was notorious for his controlling behavior and his tendency to bully.
As a result of having such a husband, Blake’s grandmother, Leona Leah Chitel suffered from some form of mental disorder although the details were not revealed.
When Paul Leibel passed away, he had an unusual request to ask his relatives to pass drug and HIV screening tests before they were allowed to get their inheritance.
Blake’s brother, Cody Chitel was cut out of the will as Paul Leibel stated that it wasn’t out of love but the belief that Loren Chitel, Cody’s father would adequately provide for him.
When Loren Leibel spits with his wife, Eleanor Chitel, Blake lived with his mother and Cody lived with his father. It was also at this time that Blake and his father’s relationship worsened. Blake believed that his own father wasn’t providing financially enough for him.
Beyond the few successful names in Blake’s family, there’s Blake’s grandfather, Stanley Leibel who was a well-known sailor. He competed in the Olympics in 1968 and then, later on, developed hundreds of homes across Toronto.
Furthermore, Blake’s aunt, Terry Leibel was a well-known journalist and even an anchor at some points for CBC.
It was in this environment that Blake grew up. Blake and his brother Cody come from a long line of successful people who made a name for themselves in various industries.
You could say that Blake was extremely lucky to be born into such a well-off and well-connected powerful family and Blake should have no trouble following in their footsteps.
In fact, Cody Leibel, Blake’s brother also became somewhat of a success.
In 2017, Cody sold his California mansion for $18 million. The buyer was Katty Parry.
The early adult life of Blake Leibel
Blake Leibel moved to California in 2004.
Fun fact (actually, not so fun), California has the highest number of serial killings per capita in the US.
During this time, Blake received an allowance of $2 million from his mother.
Blake’s mother would die in 2011 due to brain cancer and leave another huge sum of money to Blake and Cody.
Blake tried to remove his father and brother from his mother’s will but the court wouldn’t bite. Blake, in fact, didn’t even attend his mother’s funeral.
Blake Leibel’s Career
Blake Leibel wrote and directed a film called Bold in 2009 which was a complete fail.
He was also involved in an animated show called “Spaceballs” which was again a failure.
In his early career, Blake published a comic book series called “United Free World”.
It involved dinosaurs, helicopters, aliens, and tribes of women (One tribe had “little control” and the other was “fiercer” because they were “very emotional” as he stated).
In 2010, Blake published a graphics novel called “Syndrome”. In the book, Dr.Chitel removed the memory of a serial killer and allowed him to roam free in a fake town full of actors so he could monitor his actions.
Dr.Chitel was able to cure serial killers of their “tendencies” in the book.
There were many graphic scenes in the book where women were tied upside down to “drain them of fluids” (something Blake demonstrated with a flip of his hand when discussing with his artist).
At the beginning of the book, Blake wrote the phrase, “If you love hurting things, what would you do”. A chilling statement that in hindsight revealed Blake’s dark appetite.
Syndrome wasn’t received well and he had to give away many books for free at comic con.
Blake Leibel’s marriage
In 2006, Blake met Amanda Braun (shown in pink). Amanda, a California model caught Blake’s eyes and after 5 years, they got married in 2011.
About a year later, their first son was born.
During this time, they lived in Hollywood and Blake constantly smoked weed. Blake had multiple plans for success but never carried through with them.
It was also right around this time that Blake’s friend noticed a dark turn in Blake’s character as he became more and more obsessed with brutal violence.
In 2015, Blake left his wife, Amanda while she was still pregnant.
At this point, Blake’s mental health was deteriorating rapidly. Blake believed that his brother, Cody was in deep debt to some Russian gang members (despite no proof that it was the case) and that he was endangered due to his connection.
It was perhaps his mother’s death in 2011 that sent Blake down a dark path.
When his mother died, she left him with her $5.5million dollar mansion in Toronto as well as a few extra millions but it wasn’t enough for Blake and he went broke.
Blake Leibel’s mistress
Blake started seeing Iana Kasian (Photo from Facebook), a Ukrainian former attorney and they soon expect a child together (while Amanda was still pregnant).
Iana gave birth to a baby girl called Diana in May 2016.
From the outside, the family seemed fine but Blake was jealous of his own daughter. He was jealous that Iana was spending all her time with Dianna rather than with him.
Blake constantly demanded intercourse from Iana and threatened to leave her for another woman if she didn’t comply.
Iana had to leave her baby with her mother to patch things up with Blake.
Blake’s second mistress
Blake briefly dated Constance Bucafury (Photo from LinkedIn) while he was still married to his first wife, Amanda, and dating Iana.
Constance was a storyboard artist who worked on The Emoji Movie. Side note, Constance would later be diagnosed with schizophrenia and a whole host of other problems.
Blake was arrested for forcing himself on Constance and Iana had to bail him out with $100,000.
What happened to Iana Kasian
Finding out about his third girlfriend was the last straw and Iana left Blake for good.
Iana moved in with her mother, Olga and the two were out shopping for a new stroller when Blake started texting Iana.
Iana then left Diana with her mother and meet up with Blake at his condo.
Iana spoke with her mom on the phone the next day on May 24th, 2016. But the following day, when Iana’s mom failed to reach her daughter, she began to worry.
Olga went to Blake’s condo with a friend. They noticed Iana’s car in the driveway. Unable to get into the complex, Olga looked up into Blake’s condo and saw the balcony door open so she yelled for Blake to let her in only to see Blake’s silhouette silently closing the balcony door without answering.
The police were called but they only left a message on Blake’s answering machine. They checked the condo from the outside but they couldn’t do much else as they couldn’t enter without a cause.
On the 26th, Olga returned to the condo complex and called 911. The deputy arrived on the scene and confirmed with the neighbors that they haven’t seen anyone in a couple of days.
It took a while to obtain a key to Blake’s condo but they eventually did. Backup police were called and they entered Blake’s condo.
They had to kick in the door because the safety latch was in the way.
The entire place was dark and there was no sign of anybody. They soon found a locked bedroom door. Blake had barricaded himself with a mattress.
Blake finally spoke when they broke the lock. He stated that he was afraid of being beaten up by the police so he wasn’t coming out and that his father would be there soon so he wasn’t coming out until then.
The officers assured him they wouldn’t beat him up and they were just there to check on Iana but Blake gave them a hospital room number instead. He stated that she was fine.
Blake’s friend, Stephen Green arrived on the scene and after several minutes on the phone, Blake decided to come out of his room. He was only wearing his boxer shorts when he exited the room.
One of the detectives entered the bedroom. Screams ensued.
“She’s on the bed”.
Acting fast, the detectives called everyone outside. Olga was thankfully spared from having to witness the state of her daughter.
The paramedics were unable to save Iana and she was pronounced dead.
Iana was found naked on a clean sheet. She had bite marks on her jaw and arm. There were also bruises on her cheeks.
But those weren’t the most disturbing parts.
Iana’s scalp was nowhere in sight. The skin from her eyebrows to her entire hairline at the back of her head was removed. Part of her left cheek was not present and her left ear was missing.
The examiner stated that a sharp instrument was used to remove her scalp but some of her tissues were removed by hands.
It was concluded that the whole ordeal would’ve taken hours and Iana was alive throughout it all.
I’m not done yet. Half of Iana’s blood was missing. It was likely drained out of her while her body was hung upside down (much like how it was depicted in Blake’s book). Again, this was done when she was still alive.
Iana’s ears and chunks of her tissues were found in a dumpster.
Iana was kept alive for 8 hours while Blake tortured her.
Blake Leibel’s sentencing
On June 26, 2018, Blake was sentenced to life without parole.
Blake was ordered to pay $43 million to Iana’s family.
Throughout the whole trial, Cody Leibel, Blake’s brother was present but Blake’s father never showed up.
Why is Blake Leibel’s case so shocking
What stood out to me was the fact that Blake had it all. He was born into a rich family. He had everything he wanted growing up.
Here’s the thing, it wasn’t as though he was mistreated or abused. He never faced any hardships. Everything was handed to him and yet he still found a reason for evil.
I’m not saying there’s any scenario where evil can be tolerated but in the case of people who’s been born into poverty, abused, and tormented by others, perhaps their evilness could be explained more easily.
I found it alarming that there are rich people out there who enjoy torturing others and get a kick out of seeing someone else suffer.
I’ve heard about the case of an underground torture club in France where children were brought in, raped, body parts cut off, tortured, and murdered in front of a live audience. The extremely wealthy would pay for a seat.
It wouldn’t surprise me if torture clubs like that exist in every country.
What was even more disgusting is that Blake after having tortured Iana for hours (she had given birth to his daughter 3 weeks prior) was afraid of someone inflicting pain on him. What a coward.
Blake Leibel was afraid of pain yet he had no problem inflicting pain on someone else. It seemed to me that he suffered from some sort of narcissistic tendency.
I think to see poor people or people of no significant power be evil seems somehow less alarming than rich, powerful individuals doing the same thing.
Perhaps it’s the fact that they have a lot more victims to choose from and a lot more money to cover things up or bribe their way out (Luckily, Blake was broke so he couldn’t bribe anyone) or the fact that they simply have an affinity for the dark and evil without reason.
When we think of evil, we may think of rapists, racists, drug smugglers, human traffickers, scammers, animal abusers, Nazis, serial killers, etc.
But in truth, the evilest of us hasn’t necessarily been defined by any of those titles yet.
They may be everywhere. They may be some of the most well-known and well-off people in our society.
They may have no reason to kill or reason to hate, their desire stems from an innate genetic anomaly that causes them to glean pleasure from the suffering of others.
In many ways, I’m disappointed by humanity. Most of us grew up believing that evil was rare or that it mostly occurred in dark alleyways and poverty-stricken corners of the world.
In those places, it’d be easy to find a reason to perform evil. If you were going to choose between starving or stealing some food, which would you pick? If you were going to choose between hurting someone who wants to hurt you or letting them do whatever they want to you, which would you pick?
Most of us given the right circumstances would be able to kill but there are people who would gladly do so without being forced into a difficult spot.
People like Blake had it all and what baffles me is how cold-hearted, inhumane, and horrendously vile someone can be with a dearth of impetus.
And why target women? All those innocent women had their lives ruined or ended all because they happen to have the misfortune of crossing paths with Blake. If they were born male, they would’ve been saved from such a monster.
This world can be very cruel and sinful, particularly for those who have little to no power. Perhaps, all the more reasons to get richer and stay rich.
By the way, click here to read how anyone can become rich.
Final thought
I believe having everything handed to Blake was a mistake.
If I were to do a psychological analysis on Blake Leibel (Note: I’m not a licensed professional this is just a personal opinion) I believe a lack of strong female figures in his life may have led him to develop some biases against women.
There was likely an imbalance of power between his maternal grandmother and his maternal grandfather. Remember Blake’s grandfather? The one who was known as a bully? His grandfather openly dated another woman while married to Blake’s grandmother.
Blake’s father and mother likely exhibited the same dynamic. Blake’s mother inherited her father’s empire but otherwise wouldn’t have been nearly as successful on her own. She relied on a close male figure for her fortune. Blake’s father, on the other hand, was known as some sort of playboy.
We don’t know anything about Blake’s paternal grandmother and he doesn’t have any sisters growing up who could’ve been the strong female figures to balance the strong male figures in his life.
When Blake moved to California, he was seen with a lot of beautiful women as well. The women in his life all gladly submit to him without any struggle because he was rich.
Blake likely saw women as objects to control because that’s how his male family members treated their female counterparts. It may have made the impression on Blake that as long as they got the money, controlling their women should be easy.
When Iana rejected him, Blake wasn’t used to having his control taken from him and that may have made him snapped. Note, he was already mentally frail at which point, Iana was just the last straw.
There was of course his family history of mental illness. Blake’s maternal grandmother was not mentally well and she may have passed on some of those genes to Blake.
What a lot of people don’t know is the high rate of mental disorders among entrepreneurs. Genes are complicated. Some genes could predispose one to entrepreneurship but there may have been only a bit of genetic difference between entrepreneurial spirit and madness.
An example is Donald Trump’s own family. His grandfather can be likened to that of Blake’s grandfather Loren Chitel. And I guess I don’t need to explain who rolled the wrong dice.
In addition, there’s also a peculiar case of another Trump family (not closely related to Donald Trump) who experienced a case of collective madness and believed they were being hunted down by someone.
According to the Minnesota Twin Study, a lot of what we do is highly impacted by the genes we were assigned at birth.
Evil has a root. Genes can unfairly expose someone to evil tendencies and insanity although we have to account for environmental influence as well.
