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This article contains graphic references to murder, torture, and domestic abuse. Please read with caution.
The Investigation Discover series Death By Fame, returning Jan 22, 2024, for its second season, will cover the gruesome story of Blake Leibel. In 2016, Leibel, a Canadian graphic novelist who hoped to make it in Hollywood, brutally tortured and killed his fiancée and mother of his child, Iana Kasian.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Blake Leibel is the son of Lorne Leibel, a Canadian Olympic sailor and wealthy construction industry executive. In 2004, Leibel moved to Los Angeles, where he lived on his parents’ money, and tried to break into Hollywood. While in L.A., Liebel met Kasian, a Ukrainian woman. In 2014, Kasian moved to the U.S. to work as an interpreter.
Iana Kasian was tortured and killed
It’s unclear what caused Leibel to snap, but in 2016, Kasian’s mother, Olga Kasian, who had moved to Los Angeles from Ukraine to be near her daughter and granddaughter, took Leibel and Iana’s child so the couple could work on their relationship. It’s here where Leibel’s story grows truly horrific.
While Olga cared for her granddaughter, Leibel inexplicably trapped Iana in their West Hollywood apartment. He then maliciously tortured and killed her, dismembering her while she was still alive. Leibel was jealous of his newborn child, and how Iana died was similar to something that happened in Leibel’s 2010 graphic novel, Syndrome.
At Leibel’s trial, Superior Court Judge Mark E. Windham called the Leibel case “ … unusual only in its savagery” and added that Leibel’s acts showed “inconceivable cruelty” (via the LA Times). Iana’s official cause of death was ruled exsanguination or severe blood loss.
Leibel was sentenced to life in prison
According to Daily Mail, in 2018, Blake Leibel was found guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated mayhem, and torture and sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. He was also ordered to pay Iana Kasian’s family millions. As of 2024, Leibel served that sentence at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, near Bakersfield.
Referring to the Liebel case, Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman said in court,
“This was depravity. Ms. Kasian died a slow and painful death … [Liebel] threw away pieces of his fiancée like she was trash, the mother of his newborn baby … [Iana’s] daughter will never know her, and that’s because of the unconscionable acts you heard about during this trial.”
via Daily Mail
Death by Fame from Investigation Discovery is available to stream Jan. 22, 2024, on Max, Apple TV, and other platforms.