Public transportation is a nightmare. This is something everyone has either heard or said at least once in their life. Whether you’re travelling across the city or across the country, you’ll inevitably be met with sticky floors, stained seats and an acrid smell you can’t seem to place nor get rid of. The only way we make this commute bearable is by putting on our headphones, closing our eye, and pretending we’re anywhere else until we reach our stop. 

It’s likely that 22-year-old Tim McLean was thinking the same thing as he settled in for his long ride home to Winnipeg in July of 2008. McLean, a carnival worker, had left Edmonton around noon on a Greyhound bus after working a fair, and spent several hours sitting peacefully alone at the back of the bus until, after a scheduled rest stop, someone decided to sit next to him. There was nothing unusual about this new passenger: he was tall, likely in his mid-forties, the only unusual thing about him being his decision to move from his seat near the front of the bus to the seat beside McLean. McLean didn’t seem to mind, however, and did exactly what any of us would do: put his headphones on and leaned against the window, quickly falling asleep.

In another universe, the man sitting next to McLean might have introduced himself. They might have talked, and McLean might have learned that this man, Vince Li, was heading to Winnipeg for a job interview after losing his job at Wal-mart. Li might have told McLean about his wife, Anna, or his former job as a computer software engineer in Beijing. In this universe, McLean awoke several minutes later to Li stabbing him in the neck. 

The events that followed were nothing short of horrific: as the driver frantically pulled the bus over, Li proceeded to stab McLean multiple times in the neck and chest, before beheading him completely, severing other body parts, and even beginning to eat McLean’s flesh, eyes and a part of his heart. RCMP officers arrived at the scene at 9 pm, a stand-off between them and Li ensuing until he tried to escape through a window around 1:30 am, and was then quickly apprehended. 

Li, who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic, believed that God was speaking to him: it was God that told him to sit next to McLean, saying that McLean was a “force of evil” who intended to kill him. Dr. Stanley Yaren, Li’s psychiatrist, explained that Li’s continued mutilation of the body was an effort to keep McLean from coming back to life, which, in his state of psychosis, he believed was still possible. While he pleaded insanity, it was clear that Li felt the weight of what he had done, saying this at his trial: "I'm sorry. I'm guilty. Please kill me."

At this point, you’re probably thinking that someone who committed such a vile act would be confined to a psych ward for life, right? Wrong. Li, who now goes by Will Baker, was granted an “absolute discharge” in February of 2017, and is presumably living a fairly normal life in Winnipeg thanks to many years of therapy and medication. Vince Li is no longer a threat to society: but how many others are out there just like him? We may never truly know how many people live on the brink of psychosis, but at least Li’s story has taught us one thing: never fall asleep on the bus.

Sources:
Abedi, M. (2017, February 10). Freedom Granted To Man Who Beheaded Greyhound Bus Passenger. Retrieved September 30, 2019, from https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/02/10/will-baker-greyhound-bus_n_14682796.html?utm_hp_ref=ca-vince-li.
McIntyre, M. (2009, March 6). "I saw the entire attack, heard the screams ...". Retrieved September 30, 2019, from https://web.archive.org/web/20090315135511/http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Beheader+criminally+responsible/1356476/story.html.
Puxley, C. (2009, March 3). Man pleads not guilty in bus beheading. Retrieved September 30, 2019, from https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2009/03/03/man_pleads_not_guilty_in_bus_beheading.html.

Kira Frazer

The 30 rats in a trench coat that form the entity known as Kira Frazer emerged from the sewers on Halloween of ‘97, and have been wreaking havoc upon humanity ever since. She hopes to be the first rat-formed-entity to get a college diploma.