Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Real Estate Tycoon’s Son Charged With Torture Slaying of Hollywood Model Girlfriend

The son of a well-known real estate developer in Toronto has been charged with killing and torturing his girlfriend in Los Angeles.

According to The Toronto Star, Blake Leibel pleaded not guilty yesterday for one count of each of murder, mayhem, aggravated mayhem and torture in the killing of his girlfriend Iana Kasian.

Authorities say Kasian’s blood was drained out of her body.

A neighbor told the paper Leibel looked “deranged” when police led him out of the house.

“His legs were bruised, his face was puffy,” she told The Star. A psychological evaluation has been ordered for Leibel.

After a distressed call from Iana Kasian’s mother that her daughter had gone missing, police forced their way into her and Leibel’s condominium on Holloway Drive. He had barricaded the door shut. When police broke through, they found Kasian unresponsive on the floor with blunt trauma.

The two have a child together, and according to KTLA 5, the child is with a family friend.

If convicted, Leibel could face the death penalty.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.