Greyhound Bus Beheading, II

Reported yesterday about a story that trickled in to the US from our neighbors to the north about a gruesome beheading on a Greyhound Bus. It appears that the Media has released more details including the name of the attacker, Vince Wiguang Li, and his unfortunate victim, Tim McLean.

RCMP said Friday that Vince Weiguang Li, 40, of Edmonton, has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder and is scheduled to appear in court in Portage la Prairie, Man., Friday at 10 a.m. local time.

Meantime, friends are remembering the victim, 22-year-old Tim McLean, as a fun guy who loved tattoos and working out,
according to tributes on two social networking websites.

A number of groups on the social networking website Facebook are paying tribute to McLean as the victim of a horrific stabbing and decapitation. "He was a great person, he was kind, thoughtful, and he did not deserve this," Jossie Kehleer, the creator of one of the Facebook groups, wrote on the page. "I feel for his parents and sisters and his (little brother).

"All I can remember is good times with Tim, there was never one day it wasn't fun, or he made you smile or cry because you
were laughing so hard. He made good memories ... but he's in all of our hearts, and he's not going anywhere."

On his Myspace profile, McLean, who called himself "Jokawild" described himself as someone who was into having a good time and "getting the most out of life."

He had three tattoos, and said he owned an iguana and loved loud music, motorcycles and working on his physique, which he called "rock hard."

RCMP have given few details about the baffling homicide.

Passengers described fleeing in terror from a Greyhound bus outside Portage la Prairie as a passenger suddenly stabbed the man sleeping next to him, decapitated him and waved the severed head at horrified witnesses standing outside.

The unprovoked assault left 34 men, women and children stranded on the shoulder of the Trans-Canada Highway about 85 kilometres west of Winnipeg, watching while the bus driver, a passenger and the driver of a passing truck shut the crazed attacker inside the bus with the
mangled victim.

"He didn't do anything to provoke the guy," said Garnet Caton, 26, a passenger on the bus, which originated in Edmonton and was bound for Winnipeg. "The guy just took a knife out and stabbed him, started stabbing him like crazy and cut his head off."

"Some people were puking, some people were crying, other people were in shock. . . . Everybody was running, screaming off the bus."

Caton said Li was only on the bus for a brief time, after boarding in western Manitoba.
Another passenger, Cody Olmstead, 21, told reporters he had smoked a cigarette with McLean earlier in the trip.

He said McLean boarded the bus in Edmonton and was going to Winnipeg.
Caton told a TV station the attacker had changed seats to sit next to his victim just before the killing.

He said Li seemed oblivious to others when the stabbing occurred, adding he was struck by how calm the man was.

"There was no rage or anything. He was like a robot, stabbing the guy," he said.

Caton said he and other passengers prevented the attacker from getting off the blood-soaked bus by threatening him with makeshift weapons - a hammer and a crowbar.

"We were telling him, 'Stay put, stay put, stay there, don't try to come out.' He tried to get the bus working and the bus driver disabled the bus somehow in the back. I'm not sure how he did it, and at that point, I think the police showed up," he said.

After the killing, the passengers were taken to Brandon to be interviewed by police and to stay overnight at a hotel there.

As is becoming common place, the name of the victim was determined by media from the social website Facebook prior to release by authorities. It was because of Facebook that the public became aware of the victims of last years Beach House Fire in NC.

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are fast becoming a popular method by friends, families and even total strangers as a form of corporate coping and mourning. Barring the disabeling of pages such pages become a permanent memorial to the deceased.

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