Horrific crime on Greyhound Bus In Canada

[Selena]

Here is the victim, this poor boy!

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/bre...-4799431c.html

[Selena]

[AudreyII]

Shocking

[mcbg1]

I had trouble sleeping last night because of this story. Apparently the victim wasn't sleeping when this incident happened. He has been texting his girlfriend. This article mentions some passengers saw the man eating the victim's flesh.

Quote:

WINNIPEG - A quiet, easy-going carnival worker who was heading home to Winnipeg has been identified as the victim of an unthinkably horrific and random slaying on a Greyhound bus. Friends said Tim McLean, 22, was the young man who was stabbed repeatedly and then decapitated by a man sitting next to him, who then carved up his body in front of terrified passengers. William Caron, 23, of Winnipeg, said that contrary to some reports, McLean was not asleep when the attack happened. "I was talking to one of his ex-girlfriends not too long ago, and she was texting him the whole way back from Edmonton until 10 minutes before this accident happens," Caron told The Canadian Press. "He was just sitting there texting her, listening to music on his cellphone." Manitoba RCMP had few answers Thursday as to what prompted the attack. Police would only say that a victim was stabbed on the bus that had left Edmonton for Winnipeg, but passengers described a gruesome, unprovoked attack that left them shaken. "It's not something that happens regularly on a bus," said Staff Sgt. Steve Colwell. "You're sitting there enjoying your trip and then all of a sudden somebody gets stabbed." Passengers gave a much more graphic account of events. "We heard this blood-curdling scream and turned around, and the guy was standing up, stabbing this guy repeatedly, like 40 or 50 times," Garnet Caton said from a hotel in Brandon, Man., where he and other passengers had been taken to rest. "There was no rage or anything. He was like a robot, stabbing the guy." Caton said the bus stopped immediately, just west of Portage La Prairie on Wednesday night, and everyone scrambled to get out while the attacker started methodically carving up the victim's body, not paying attention to anyone else. There have been several media reports that the man was seen to consume some of the victim's flesh. Caton and the driver shut the bus door from the outside while they waited for police to arrive. "We put our bodies up against the door, waiting for him to come out ... and he went back and brought the head to the front and pretty much displayed it ... and dropped it on the ground in front of us," Caton said. "All very calmly. He was wearing sunglasses. It was no big deal to him." Fellow passenger Cody Olmstead from Kentville, N.S., also recalled the chilling scene. "The guy came to the front of the door with buddy's head in his hands, decapitated. He dropped the head and went back and started cutting the body back up," Olmstead said. When police arrived a few minutes later, passengers were taken away and the officers tried to get the attacker to surrender. The man, described as a 40-year-old from outside the province, eventually tried to flee by breaking a bus window and jumping out, Colwell said. "He was immediately subdued and arrested without incident." Both Olmstead and Caton said the attacker and McLean appeared not to know each other. They said the attacker boarded the bus in Brandon on Wednesday night. McLean had been on the bus since it left Edmonton. McLean's father, Tim McLean Sr., told CBC News Thursday night that he was in the process of trying to get confirmation from the police that his son was, in fact, the victim of the attack. The father said that his son had sent him a text message as the bus was leaving Brandon, the last leg of its journey, to ask if he could come home for the night. McLean told his son that, of course, he could come home, and that was the last contact he had with him. A Facebook website called "R.I.P. Tim" quickly sprang up after news of the attack. "I can't believe this is happening," wrote Leah Dryburgh of Winnipeg. "Tim, you were the best guy ever. You didn't deserve this at all." Caron said he was one of McLean's best friends, having known each other since they were in Grade 7. "I knew he was coming back ... from the (exhibition)," said Caron, who said his buddy worked a carnival booth at fairs around western Canada. "My brother was supposed to go meet him at the bus depot and he never showed up." Caron said his three children all loved McLean, who he described as a quiet, easy-going guy. "I was completely shocked cuz Tim has never been a roughhousing guy," he said. "He's always been a quiet guy, just kind of socialized with his buddies and that was it." He said his friend was small, around five-foot-four and weighing maybe 130 pounds. "From what I hear, this other guy is three times his size," Caron said. "All the time I've known Tim, he's never been the type of guy to get into a fight with. He always kept to himself when there's strangers around." Federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said the full weight of the law must be brought to bear on the perpetrator. "We want to make sure the process is followed as aggressively as possible, the full legal process ...." Day said from Levis, Que., where Conservative MPs are gathered for a summer planning session. "This particular incident, as horrific as it is, is obviously extremely rare. Certainly the horrific nature of it is probably one-of-a-kind in Canadian history." Greyhound called the event tragic but isolated. A company spokeswoman said bus travel is the safest mode of transportation, despite the fact bus stations do not have metal detectors and other security measures used at airports. "Due to the rural nature of our network, airport-type security is not practical. It's a very different type of system," Abby Wambaugh said from Greyhound's corporate offices in Texas. Passengers had no explanation either as to what might have prompted the attack. The suspect had been on the bus for only about an hour and didn't even sit near McLean at first. "He sat in the front at first, everything was normal," Caton said. "We went to the next stop and he got off and had a smoke with another young lady there. When he got on the bus again, he came to the back near where I was sitting. "He put his bags in the overhead compartment. He didn't say a word to anybody. He seemed totally normal. About a half an hour later, we heard this blood-curdling scream." RCMP had not yet talked to the suspect, Colwell said.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2...316716-cp.html

[MJDaisy]

i had trouble sleeping as well. i can't imagine. it kept me up...i was thinking about it all night. also gave me a fright too, i had to double check all the doors were locked in my house. that poor boy. he was attractive too, and young...so tragic.

[indi3r4]

[scarlett_2005]

I wonder why they haven't charged the guy yet?

[KristyDarling]

That poor, poor boy. There is so much evil and insanity in the world. May he RIP. I feel awful for his parents.

[addisonshopper]

this here is a mess...
oh gosh....the poor guy, but then the victoms that had to witness this and this man walking around with this guys head..
I need therapy from just reading the article........

[RenataM]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...l_gam_mostview

Please remember that links are required when posting stories here, for copyright reasons. Thanks, Roo


The killer has been identified and made an appereance in court today.
Source: The Globe and Mail

Alleged bus killer quiet in court
Canadian Press and Globe and Mail Update
August 1, 2008 at 2:17 PM EDT

PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, MAN. -- The man accused in the beheading of a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba uttered not a word when he made his first court appearance Friday. Vince Weiguang Li, 40, of Edmonton, his feet shackled, shuffled into a courtroom in Portage la Prairie, Man., with his head bowed. He did not make eye contact with anyone the entire time he was before the judge. He would not even reply when the judge asked him if he was going to get a lawyer, and only nodded slightly when asked whether he was exercising his right not to speak.

The Crown asked for a psychiatric assessment, but the judge said he wanted to give Li a chance to talk to a lawyer about that. "It's early and I think the judge just wants to respect his rights to ... speak to counsel and he's giving him that opportunity," Crown prosecutor Larry Hodgson said outside court. "I don't think it will be very long that they'll allow him to do that." Mr. Hodgson said if Mr. Li doesn't get his own lawyer, the court could appoint one or the case could proceed anyway. Mr. Li's next court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday in Portage la Prairie. Mr. Li is charged with second-degree murder in the gruesome slaying of Tim McLean, 22, on a Greyhound bus that was travelling from Edmonton to Winnipeg. Police have not identified the victim, but friends say it was Mr. McLean. Passengers say the young man was stabbed repeatedly before he was beheaded and his body carved up. Police have only confirmed that a man was stabbed. Some passengers also described Mr. McLean's attacker as a big man who weighed at least 200 pounds. The man who appeared in court Friday wearing a grey T-shirt and prisoner's vest appeared to be about five-foot-eight or nine with a stocky build. Mr. Hodgson couldn't offer many details about Mr. Li. "I know he was from Edmonton. I don't know why he was on the bus. That's still under investigation." The RCMP said Mr. Li has no known criminal record. Meanwhile, tributes to the victim were pouring into social networking and media websites. A Facebook website called "R.I.P. Tim" quickly sprang up after news of the attack. "I can't believe this is happening," wrote Leah Dryburgh of Winnipeg. "Tim, you were the best guy ever. You didn't deserve this at all." Friends described Mr. McLean as a quiet, easy-going carnival worker who was heading home to Winnipeg after a job in Edmonton. It was on that night that Greyhound bus 1170 rolled across the darkening prairie. Passengers were dozing off as The Legend of Zorro played on the television screen. An aboriginal man of about 18 or 20, making his way home to Manitoba from Edmonton, was sitting on his own in the back row, headphones covering his ears, sleeping with his cheek resting on the window pane. He barely acknowledged the 40-year-old man in sunglasses who, having boarded the bus in Brandon, first sat near the front, then walked down the aisle, slid his bags into the overhead bin, and sat down next to him. The strangers sat together in silence for a half hour or more, said Garnet Caton, a 26-year-old seismic driller who was in the row ahead. Then the calm of an otherwise unremarkable bus ride was shattered by a sound so chilling it could only be described as somewhere between a dog howling and a baby crying. "It was a blood-curdling scream," he said. "I turned around and the guy sitting right [behind] me was standing up and stabbing another guy with a big Rambo knife … Right in the throat. Repeatedly." Mr. Caton said the attack was utterly unprovoked. He watched in horror as the man, described as tall and well-built with close-cropped hair, plunged his hunting knife into the victim eight or nine times, sending blood spraying across the back of the bus. The driver, hearing the screams, pulled to the side of the road and opened the doors, allowing passengers to flee. They scrambled over one another and, in their haste, knocked an elderly woman to the floor. One mother, who was seated near the back, threw her toddler forward several rows to get the child away from danger, a witness said. Mr. Caton, who served five years in the Canadian Forces and was closest to the attacker, paused before leaving, torn momentarily between concern for his own safety and the thought of abandoning the bleeding victim. He turned to another man nearby and asked for his help. "I said, 'Give me a hand and let's get this guy.' And the other guy took off," he said. It was only moments later that the victim's screams went silent. Mr. Caton knew he was too late. Mr. Caton jumped off the bus, and was met by a trucker who had stopped after seeing the commotion.

[RenataM]

...continued
The trucker grabbed a crowbar and Mr. Caton got a hammer and they tried to contain the attacker on the bus. The attacker swung his knife at them through the partially closed bus door. Then the incident became even more macabre. The attacker returned to the victim's side and began sawing through his neck. A few moments later, he walked to the front of the bus holding a decapitated human head, displaying it to the 34 passengers and the bus driver standing outside. "I got sick after I saw the head thing," Mr. Caton said. "Some people were puking, some people were crying, some people were shocked." The killer, meanwhile, appeared unfazed. "He just looked at us and dropped the head on the ground, totally calm," Mr. Caton said. Reports from the scene indicate the man then ate pieces of the corpse. It was at that point that the RCMP arrived and a standoff developed, with armed officers surrounding the bus. For more than three hours the man taunted police, moving around the bus and cutting away at the corpse. Around 1:30 a.m. local time, he broke a window and tried to jump out but was quickly arrested. At the scene Staff Sergeant Steve Colwell could offer no explanation for what prompted the attack, and had no information on whether the attacker was known to police or had a history of violence or instability. Police did not release the victim's name because they had not been able to notify his family. But CTV reported Friday that his family learned of the attack through the media. Police praised the reaction of the bus driver and passengers, which they say may have averted further injuries. "They were very brave. They reacted swiftly and calmly in exiting the bus and as a result nobody else was injured," Staff Sgt. Colwell said. "It's not every day that someone gets stabbed on a bus. I imagine it would be fairly traumatic for the other passengers on the bus and the way they reacted was extraordinary." The passengers were eventually taken to an RCMP station in Brandon to be questioned, and then put up for the night in a local hotel. Most stayed up late, bleary-eyed strangers gathering in small groups, talking through a horrifying event that defied rational explanation. "I tried to lay down at 4 o'clock this morning and I was up 10 minutes later, because every time I close my eyes I see this man in the window with some guy's head I just smoked a cigarette with an hour before," said passenger Cody Olmstead, who was on his way home to Nova Scotia. Mr. Olmstead may have been the last person to speak to the victim before he was killed. He said they exchanged pleasantries, but not much more. The young man, who was about 5 foot 8 and 150 pounds, was dressed in baggy, hip-hop clothing, passengers said. "He seemed to be all right. I didn't get to know him," he said. "He just told me where he was going. I told him where I was going." At first, Mr. Olmstead said, he thought it was a regular fistfight. But when somebody yelled "knife," everyone started to run. "What can you do when a man's got a knife the size of, you know, it's a big knife. So we just tried to stay out of the way," he said. He said he didn't notice any tension between the two men beforehand, or even a minor incident that could have sparked a confrontation. "No, there was no tension. The guy got on the bus, sat down beside the fellow. The fellow offered him the seat, woke up, said, 'Yeah, go ahead,' fell back asleep. Next thing you know, he's getting stabbed repetitively," he said. "And then I guess he cuts buddy's head off, and he walks up to the door, holds the head in the door and just looks at him, crazy like, and just drops the head." Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day called Thursday's incident horrific and said his heart goes to the family of the victim. However, he played down the possibility of enacting tough security measures in Canada's bus terminals, similar to what exists in airports. "People should always be open to looking at precautionary measures. But let's keep in mind that as bizarre and tragic as this is, it is extremely rare," Mr. Day said. He also dismissed talk by some opposition MPs of a "knife registry," saying that millions of them are bought each year simply for kitchen use. He added that there are already provisions in the Criminal Code against crimes and assaults. Speaking at a Conservative Party caucus meeting, Mr. Day said he does not want to jeopardize the investigation, but added he wants to see the killer "convicted in court." Grief counsellors from the Brandon Regional Health Authority were made available to the passengers at the hotel Wednesday night. They were eventually allowed to complete their journey to Winnipeg, even though all their possessions had to be left on the bus while police continued their search of the crime scene. Greyhound paid for them to buy clothes Thursday, and later transported them into Winnipeg, where some were reunited with anxious family members late in the afternoon. The bus remained parked at the side of the Trans-Canada Highway Thursday, about 20 kilometres west of Portage La Prairie, as forensic teams sifted through evidence.

[mcbg1]

The killer:

[Nynaeve]

That pic didn't come out:
http://canadianpress.google.com/medi...4h7FgcA?size=s

[luckylizard]

This story truly scares me. I'm in Canada and i take the greyhound 2-3 times a month. SOmetimes on late rides like 11pm and such. And im terrified to go on another greyhound. I know this is a rare situation but it happened in a bus full of people. Everytime i go on another greyhound I will constantly think of the possibility of "what of this were to happen" very traumatizing. I dont know how the people who witnessed the incident are getting through it.

[Krysta]

I think the fact people witnessed this crime is the part that freaks me out the most, it's like 30+ poeple witnessing what someone like Dahmer did to his victims.
Maybe the sick fantasy Vince Li had was to commit this crime with a audience??