OTTAWA (AFP) — The trial of a Chinese immigrant who stabbed, gutted and beheaded his seat mate on a Canadian bus last year ended Wednesday with both sides asking he not be held criminally responsible due to mental illness.
Vince Weiguang Li, 41, awaits the verdict Thursday on a second-degree murder charge in the gruesome case in which 22-year-old Tim McLean, sleeping against the window of a Canadian Greyhound bus, was brutally awoken as Li repeatedly stabbed him in the chest with a four-inch blade.
The other 35 passengers and the driver were jolted by "blood-curdling screams" and fled, said witnesses, bracing the door on their way out to trap Li inside the bus.
According to a statement of fact, the former computer programmer who immigrated to Canada in 2001 proceeded to saw off McLean's head with the knife and scissors, remove the victim's internal organs, pocket his nose, tongue and an ear, and taunt police and bystanders with the severed head.
Police said in court documents Li "appeared to smell, and then eat parts of Tim McLean's flesh" and "lick blood from his hands" when they surrounded the bus on a desolate highway 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Winnipeg, soon after the July 30 attack.
Body parts would be found littered throughout the bus, some in white plastic bags.
McLean's eyes and a third of his heart were missing, and it is presumed Li ate them, said a pathologist, though Li denies this.
Li was eventually subdued after a three-hour standoff with police, jolted with a stun-gun several times after jumping out of a broken window.
During his three-day trial, psychiatrists for both sides said Li suffers from schizophrenia and did not know what he was doing when he killed McLean.
The court heard Li had auditory hallucinations on the day of the attack, that he heard God's voice telling him to carry a knife with him at all times in order to fight evil, to board a Greyhound bus from Edmonton to Winnipeg, and to kill McLean.
Li dismembered McLean's body, said the psychiatrists, because he feared McLean had supernatural powers and could resurrect from the dead, and so it was not enough to just kill him.
Li pleaded not guilty Tuesday but will be sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment if the court agrees his mental state diminished his responsibility.
McLean, according to his family, was on his way home to Winnipeg from a job as a carnival worker in western Canada, when he was attacked.
He "struggled and tried to escape" his attacker while a six-year-old child watched from across the aisle, but "eventually either fell or was thrown to the floor of the bus," said court files.
Li had some friends who described him as having had mental problems, but they never knew him to be violent, said investigators.
In Canada he was unable to find work in his field, and held several menial jobs as church caretaker, assistant manager at McDonald's, salesman at a Canadian Tire store, and newspaper carrier.
His last boss described him as "a good worker, but somewhat unusual."
Li also routinely took unexplained trips to unusual locations, his ex-wife told police. "His wife and friends were unable to convince him to seek medical assistance" for his "bizarre behavior," said court documents.
The behavior would lead to the couple's divorce in 2006, one year after Li became a Canadian citizen.
On Tuesday, the court heard Li left a note for his ex-wife before leaving on this latest trip, wishing her happiness. "I'm gone, don't look for me," it read.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
