Society can’t take risk of his ‘recovery’

Vince Weiguang Li is one seriously psychotic dude. He hears voices he says commanded him to kill a man, instruct him when to board buses and tell him he’ll have to take part in his own demise one day.

He’s not really sure if it’s God’s voice or an evil spirit tricking him. What he is sure about is the voices told him to stab, mutilate and dismember a travelling carnival worker on a Greyhound bus last year. (more…)

She was back in the community in six months

It was a crime so horrific it shocked and sickened people across the country. Newspaper headlines all over Canada reported the brutal Manitoba slaying. Months later, many people were upset when it became clear the accused was going to be declared not criminally responsible instead of being handed a long prison sentence as punishment.

But it’s not last summer’s stabbing and beheading of Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus by Vince Weiguang Li that we are talking about – it’s the slaying of four-year-old Skylar Trevor Wiebe by his own mother, Donna Lynn Trueman, with a broom handle more than 17 years ago.

During a three-day hearing this week, Li is expected to be the latest person who committed a criminal offence in Canada to be found not criminally responsible for his actions.

In 1992, Trueman was the first to be sentenced under the then-new federal law. It had just replaced the former verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

The main change had to do with who looks after the patients.

Under the old law, provincial politicians determined what happened to those found not criminally responsible for their crimes. Under the new law, a system of forensic review boards was set up in every province.

Trueman, a Winnipeg mother, choked her son with a broomstick handle before thrusting it through his head in October 1991.

She said she did it because she believed her son was possessed by the spirit of Adolf Hitler. (more…)

Mental illness no excuse says mother

“Once the crime has been committed, I still believe they need to be held responsible, otherwise what sort of a message are you sending?”

Experts anticipate Li’s lawyers, who have said they don’t dispute Li is responsible for McLean’s death, will try to prove that Li was not criminally responsible for his actions due to mental health issues.

If successful, Li would end up with no criminal record (more…)

Mother of Victim Pushes for Change as Trial Approaches

Her son was sleeping peacefully, listening to music on his earphones as the Greyhound bus drove across the Prairies last summer.

Minutes later, horrified passengers heard Tim McLean “scream bloody murder” as he was repeatedly stabbed and eventually decapitated.

Seven months later, McLean’s mother Carol De Delley is steeling herself to face the man charged with second-degree murder in her son’s brutal slaying as Vince Li goes on trial in Winnipeg Tuesday.

But she doesn’t expect closure from the proceedings, regardless of the outcome.

“There is no possible good outcome for me,” she said in an interview with The Canadian Press. “The trial to me seems like another thing we have to endure – a formality that we have to sit through.”

That’s because the sole issue at the three-day trial, which is being heard by a judge without a jury, will be whether Li is criminally responsible for his actions. (more…)

Your money well spent…

Family and friends of victim Tim McLean, wearing T-shirts remember him, enter the Law Courts in Winnipeg, Canada, Tuesday before the trial of Vince Li.

Li, accused of beheading McLean, a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus, apologized to police when he was arrested and pleaded with officers to kill him. A court-ordered psychiatric evaluation had declared him fit to stand trial.

I find this confusing how they find him fit to stand trial yet testify that he is unfit to be found guilty of murder. These same evaluators will conclude that the time spent is well worth the money…and will ask for the money!… are you confused… so am I

Li trial gets underway

Vincent Li appeared in court in Winnipeg today, and pleaded not guilty to second degree murder in the killing of Tim McLean last summer. It happened in a Greyhound Bus just west of Portage.

The Crown and defense attorneys agree Li is fit to stand trial, but is also mentally ill, and not criminally responsible.

A forensic psychiatrist told the court Li felt he was commanded to murder McLean by the voice of God. The psychiatrist says Li suffers from schizophrenia.

The trial has been scheduled over three days.

“One Day at a Time.” says Carol DeDelley

The mother of Tim McLean, who was stabbed and decapitated on a Greyhound bus last year, said she’ll get through the upcoming trial “one day at a time.”

McLean’s mother Carol DeDelley said she’s been through many therapy sessions to deal with the difficult loss of her son last July. She described him as a “wonderful, vibrant” son who was both “friendly” and “approachable.”

“We’re going to miss him so, so much,” DeDelley said. “We already do, it only gets worse as the days go by.”

“I believe that mentality ill or not, people who commit this type of horrific murder need to be held responsible,” DeDelley said. (more…)

Pleads not guilty in canadian bus beheading

A man who stabbed, gutted and beheaded his seat mate on a Canadian bus last year pleaded not guilty Tuesday and will present psychiatric evidence in his defense.

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

The 22-year-old victim, Tim McLean, had been asleep, his cheek pressed against the window of the Canadian Greyhound bus, when his assailant struck suddenly near dusk, stabbing him repeatedly in the chest with a “big Rambo knife,” according to witnesses.

The other 34 passengers and the driver were jolted by “blood-curdling screams” and fled, bracing the door on their way out to trap Li inside the bus.

Li then sawed off McLean’s head with the knife, pocketed the victim’s nose, lips and an ear, and taunted police and bystanders with the severed head, said prosecutors.

Police observed him eating pieces of his victim when they surrounded the bus on a desolate highway about 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Winnipeg soon after the July 30 attack. He was subdued after a three hour standoff.

In court, Li reportedly appeared thinner than after his arrest eight months ago as he stood to enter a plea.

Friends and family of the victim wept, said public broadcaster CBC, as Li in a grey suit spoke in a clear, firm voice.

His trial is expected to last only three days, and only two witnesses — a psychiatrist for each side — will take the stand to testify about his mental shape, Manitoba courts spokeswoman Aimee Fortier told AFP.

The prosecution and defense agreed on a joint statement of facts, she said, thus avoiding having to recite the painful details of the gruesome crime in open court.

This leaves only one issue of whether Li should be held not criminally responsible for his actions due to mental illness and sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment, or convicted and face possible life in prison.

The prosecution’s forensic psychiatrist testified Tuesday Li is schizophrenic, and has been since about 2004.

As well, the court heard Li was suffering from 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, the psychiatrist said, because he feared McLean had supernatural powers and could resurrect from the dead, and so it was not enough to just kill him.

His family said McLean was on his way home to Winnipeg from a job as a carnival worker in Edmonton, western Canada, when he was attacked.

The court also heard Li left a note for his wife before leaving on the trip, asking her not to search for him and wishing her happiness.

Insane or not, Li must pay

Beheading a man is not normal. To commit such a heinous act, one would definitely have to be out of their mind because no sane person could rationalize such violence. This fact could allow Vince Li, the man who brutally decapitated and defiled a sleeping passenger on a Greyhound bus just outside Portage la Prairie in July, to get off scot-free.

Li’s defence team, headed by attorney Alan Libman, is arguing in court on Tuesday that Li is not criminally responsible for his actions as he was suffering from mental illness at the time of the offence. The lawyers are saying Li should be treated in a hospital rather than imprisoned, since they say he did not know his actions were wrong. If this argument is successful, Li will not have a criminal record and will, eventually, be released back into the community if he is deemed healthy by a mental health review board.

The fact Li could get away with murder is insanity. If, at some later point, Li is determined “healthy,” he should then be held responsible for his crime. The taxpayers will foot the bill to make him “well” again, and then the people, on behalf of Tim McLean, should demand he pay them back with life in prison. (more…)

Breaking: Greyhound Bus Killer Hears Voices

;WINNIPEG – A psychiatrist says a man who stabbed and beheaded a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus believed the voice of God was telling him to do it.

The voice told Vince Li to get on the bus and sit next to Tim McLean, Dr. Stanley Yaren told Li’s second-degree murder trial Tuesday.

“A voice from God told him Mr. McLean was a force of evil and was about to execute him,” Yaren, a witness for the Crown, told the judge hearing the case.

Li, 40, believed he had to act quickly to protect himself, Yaren said.

“In response to that, in a state of panic and fearful for his life, he carried out the acts that he did.”

But that wasn’t enough.

Li , whom Yaren diagnosed as schizophrenic, believed the 22-year-old McLean was still capable of coming back to life, so he continued to mutilate the body and scattered the parts around the bus, the psychiatrist testified.

Although he admitted his guilt to officers that night last July, Li pleaded not guilty on Tuesday. His lawyers are arguing he is not criminally responsible because he is mentally ill.

Yaren concurred.

“Mr. Li did not understand he was killing an innocent bystander. He did not understand his actions were wrong.”

An agreed statement of facts read out in a Winnipeg courtroom said Li, blood still smeared on his face from the attack, politely apologized to police when he was arrested and pleaded with officers to take his life.

“I’m sorry. I’m guilty. Please kill me.”

Yaren said Li is still psychotic and believes it’s just a matter of time before God kills him. He continues to have hallucinations and hear voices, but is on strong anti-psychotic medication.

Li is as much a victim as McLean, Yaren suggested.

“It would be in some sense easier if Mr. Li was an anti-social psychopath with a history of malicious behaviour, but he isn’t that. He is, as I’ve come to know him, a decent person. He is as much a victim of this horrendous illness … as Mr. McLean was a victim.”

The statement said Li attacked McLean “for no apparent reason” and ignored other horrified passengers as he repeatedly stabbed the young man, who unsuccessfully fought for his life.

“Tim McLean struggled and tried to escape,” Crown prosecutor Joyce Dalmyn said.

But McLean couldn’t get away because Li was blocking the aisle.

When the bus pulled over near Portage la Prairie, Man., Li was engrossed with stabbing and mutilating McLean’s body. Passengers fled the bus and stood outside.

It was then that Li tried numerous times to leave the bus. But he was locked inside and, according to the statement, returned to McLean’s body and methodically carved it up further. Police arriving on scene asked him to drop the knife and he said he “had to stay on this bus forever.”

But he eventually tried to escape out a window and was taken into custody.

Police said McLean’s body parts were found throughout the bus in plastic bags, although part of his heart and both eyes were never found and were presumed eaten by Li. He has denied that, but “there is no other possible location for those items,” said Dalmyn.

The victim’s ear, nose and tongue were found in Li’s pocket.

McLean, a carnival worker, had been returning home to Manitoba after working at a fair in Alberta. Passengers have said he was sleeping near the back of the bus and listening to music on his earphones when he was attacked.

No one who witnessed the horror was expected to testify.

McLean’s family and friends, many wearing T-shirts with his picture on them, wept as the grisly details were read out in court.

His mother, Carol deDelley, has said she wants the law changed so anyone found not criminally responsible for a crime still serves time behind bars. But legal experts say the defence is rarely used and doesn’t mean the criminal walks away scot-free.

The agreed facts also presented some of Li’s background. He was born in China in 1968 and came to Canada in 2001. He became a citizen in 2005. He graduated from a business college, but never got a job in his field.

He didn’t have many friends and was divorced in 2006. Li had “mental problems,” according to those who knew him, but they had not known him to be violent

Yaren said Li was briefly hospitalized in 2003 or 2004 after he was picked up by Ontario Provincial Police, who found him walking along a highway “following the sun” as ordered to by God.

Li’s former wife said he used to be gone for long periods of time, took unexplained bus trips and sometimes rambled. He was hospitalized briefly but never sought medical attention.

The statement outlines how Li got off the bus in Erickson, Man., where he spent the night on a park bench before boarding another bus July 30. It was as that bus neared Portage la Prairie that he moved to the back where McLean was sitting.

Before he left on his trip, court heard how he left his wife a note.

“I’m gone. Don’t look for me. I wish you were happy.”

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