Canadian Beheader Found Not Criminally Responsible

How long until the Buffalo headchopper Muzzammil Hassan has his attorney try the insanity defense?

He's got some precedent across the border.

Vince Li has been found not criminally responsible for the unprovoked killing and beheading of fellow passenger Timothy McLean on a Greyhound bus last summer.

Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Judge John Scurfield said Thursday that Li, 40, could not be found guilty of murder and is not criminally responsible for the crime because he was mentally ill at the time of the killing.

"These grotesque acts are appalling... but are suggestive of a mental disorder," the judge said.

"He did not appreciate the act he committed was wrong."

Li had pleaded not guilty to a charge of second-degree murder. Psychiatric evidence at his trial suggested he is a schizophrenic who suffered a major psychotic episode last July 30 when he fatally stabbed McLean, 22, ate some of the body parts, and cut off McLean's head.

For five hours after the killing, Li wandered around on the bus, from which passengers had fled along the Trans-Canada Highway, defiling the body while an RCMP tactical team waited to subdue him.

Rather than go to prison, Li will be kept in a secure psychiatric facility, most likely in Selkirk, Man.

McLean, a carnival worker, was returning home to Winnipeg on the bus from Edmonton. Listening to his iPod while sitting in the back row of Greyhound bus 1170, he gave Li a friendly greeting as the stranger sat down beside him.

Then, around 8:30 p.m. CT, when the bus was near Portage La Prairie, Man., Li pulled a buck knife from his side and began stabbing McLean — for no apparent reason, witnesses said. After passengers fled the bus, Li was barricaded inside the vehicle.

During the stabbing, Li was heard to say, "get emergency." During the five-hour standoff, he walked around the bus carrying the severed head in one hand, the knife in the other. At one point, he threw McLean's head into the bus's stairwell.

Bus Beheader Pleads: 'Please Kill Me'

I doubt this maniac will get his wish since he certainly appears insane.

Vince Li stood in a Manitoba courtroom Tuesday pleading for it all to end.

“Please kill me,” he said quietly, in a court packed with journalists and members of the victim's family.

Mr. Li, 40, is accused of stabbing and beheading 22-year-old Tim McLean, a complete stranger, who was sleeping next to him on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg on July 30.

The judge ordered a psychiatric assessment to determine whether Mr. Li is fit to stand trial and whether he can be held criminally responsible for his actions. He has so far refused to speak to a lawyer.

Court was told Mr. Li spent four days in a Canadian psychiatric facility at some point, but the Crown is still trying to determine where and when. Crown lawyer Joyce Dalmyn said Mr. Li has not yet offered any explanation for what occurred aboard Greyhound 1170.

“No explanation, no note, almost nothing verbal,” Ms. Dalmyn said. “There is nothing to indicate it's anything other than a random and unprovoked attack.”

Meanwhile, new details have emerged about how Mr. Li spent the 24 hours before Mr. McLean was killed, including that he spent a night on a public bench, sold a laptop to a teenager that contained personal letters and photos, as well as a note that expressed feelings of guilt at leaving China, and confusion about life in Canada.

Mr. Li first stepped off the Greyhound bus from Edmonton in the tiny western Manitoba town of Erickson, population 456, just before 6 p.m. last Tuesday, July 29.

He strode across the street from the convenience store, which doubles as a bus depot, carrying five pieces of luggage under his arms. He was wearing small black sunglasses, a green shirt and a hat, and looked perfectly put together, like a businessman, said Darren Beatty, a 15-year-old student who works at a local gas station.

“The whole time I seen him he never took off his sunglasses,” Mr. Beatty said.

He watched him sit down on a shaded wooden bench next to the Co-Op grocery on Main Street, arranging his bags around him and resting his arms as though he were sitting in an arm chair.

He didn't move for the next three hours.

Around 9 p.m., he walked into the M and M store, where David Dauphinais's husband Darren was working alone.

Mr. Li hung around for what felt like ages, making Darren extremely uncomfortable. He called his husband, saying he was afraid to walk home.

“He was really freaked out,” Mr. Dauphinais said. “He said there was something about this guy that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

That's not the least of it. Check out some of the more gory details.

A CHINESE immigrant who stabbed, gutted and beheaded a fellow passenger on a bus travelling across Canada last week also ate the victim and pocketed his nose, lips and ear, a court heard today.

Vince Weiguang Li, 40, of Edmonton faces a second-degree murder charge in the horrific case.

The victim has been identified by friends as Tim McLean, 22, who was returning home to Winnipeg from a job as a carnival worker in Edmonton in Western Canada.

In his second court appearance, Mr Li was overheard saying "please kill me".

Prosecutors said police observed him eating pieces of his victim when they surrounded the bus on a desolate highway about 90 kilometres west of Winnipeg immediately following the July 30 attack.

Mr Li had decapitated the victim, sliced off an ear and bits of flesh and was taunting police and bystanders with the head, refusing to leave the bus and screaming "I have to stay on the bus forever", the Crown said.