TV

Whose Hands Are Those In The Python Video In ‘Don’t Fuck With Cats’?

If Manny doesn't exist, why are there three hands in the 'Python Christmas' video?

by Michelle Rennex  16 January 2020
Whose Hands Are Those In The Python Video In 'Don't Fuck With Cats'?

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If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve probably run into the new Netflix documentary, Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer. 

The three-part docuseries details the gruesome and grizzly crimes of Canadian animal abuser and murderer, Luka Rocco Magnotta. Told from the perspective of Baudi Moovan and John Green, leaders of the ‘Find the Kitten Vacuumer… For great justice’ Facebook group, the series shows every little clue that led to the capture of the illusive killer.

CW: Discussion of animal abuse and murder. Also… spoilers.

The Manny Lopez Defence

Now if you’ve watched Don’t Fuck With Cats, you’ll know that Luka’s defence in his criminal case was a man named Manny. Luka claimed that Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Lopez was a client from his escorting days, who had turned into an abusive figure in his life.

Luka told police that the reason he killed on camera was because Manny forced him to so the videos could be sold on the dark web. Police eventually decided that Manny never existed and was simply an alibi Luka created to protect him from the consequences of his crimes.

Despite Luka lodging claims of abuse years prior to the murder of Jun Lin, investigators found that Manny was just another link to Luka’s favourite film, Basic Instinct. The link? The film’s main character, Catherine Tramell, had an abusive ex-fiance called Manny Vásquez.

Were They Manny’s Hands In The Python Video?

Despite investigators concluding that Manny was a figment of Luka’s imagination, some still believe he was real. In particular, people have questioned Manny’s existence based solely on the appearance of a second set of hands in Luka’s Python Christmas video.

In Python Christmas, the video where Luka feeds a live kitten to a yellow Burmese python, three hands are seen patting the snake. While people accept that Manny may have been fake, they’re confused by Netflix choosing not to explain who the hands belonged to.

Unsurprisingly, one person who truly believes in the Manny theory is Anna Yourkin, Luka’s mother. While speaking to TMZ, Anna claimed that that extra hand was definitely Manny’s.

“In the cat killing video, there’s a third hand you can see. So, there’s my son’s two hands and there’s a third hand. You can’t see a face, so it’s unidentifiable — but, Manny was there,” Anna said. “My son had phoned me and told me. So, I’m assuming that that hand is Manny Lopez’s hand. ”

Even though we want to believe the woman who desperately wants her son out of prison, her reasoning of an unidentifiable face is questionable at best. Luka may have told her that the hands were Manny’s, but Luka was also a literal murderer.

John Green To The Rescue, Again

Thankfully, John Green from the Facebook group saw everyone’s confusion over the hands and set the record straight. John explained that the original python video posted to LiveLeak was nine minutes long, but was deleted before anyone could download it.

“In this longer video, you can see the python was kept inside a closet and brought out,” John shared in the Find The Kitten Vacuumer Facebook group. “We hoped to get this longer video as we think it will show who the second person is, but we couldn’t locate the longer video.”

John confirmed that while the team couldn’t figure out the second persons identity, a researcher from CBC may have. While working on a Fifth Estate episode on Luka, the researcher spoke to some of Luka’s neighbours in Montreal.

“One of the female neighbours admitted to being the other person in the video, but did not know a kitten was going to be killed,” John concluded.

While it’s all pretty much hearsay, another probable answer discussed on Reddit is that the hands are of the python’s owner.

“If you watched Don’t Fuck With Cats, let me save you hours on Reddit,” a writer from LA tweeted. “[Luka] found someone online willing to feed their snake a cat.”

So there you have it, Manny is still fake and there’s probably a snake handler or neighbour out there feeling pretty guilty right now.