OTTAWA (AFP) — A Chinese immigrant who beheaded and hacked to pieces a Canadian bus passenger in front of horrified travelers was found not guilty of murder Thursday after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Vince Weiguang Li, 40, had been charged with murdering 22-year-old Tim McLean on a Canadian Greyhound bus on July 30, 2008.
Li had repeatedly stabbed McLean, who had been asleep on the seat next to him, sawn off his head, removed his internal organs, pocketed his nose, tongue and an ear, and taunted 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" as they surrounded the bus on a desolate highway 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Winnipeg, in western Canada, soon after the attack.
Authorities found body parts littered throughout the bus, some in white plastic bags. McLean's eyes and a third of his heart were also missing, and it is presumed Li ate them, said a pathologist in court files, though Li denies this.
The other 35 passengers and the driver were jolted by "blood-curdling screams" and fled, said witnesses, bracing the door after their escape to trap Li inside the bus. He was subdued by police after a three-hour standoff.
Justice John Scurfield of the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench described the killing as "grotesque" and "appalling," but ruled Li was not criminally responsible for the murder because of his mental disorder.
During a three-day trial, psychiatrists testified 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 board the bus from Edmonton to Winnipeg, and kill McLean.
Li dismembered McLean's body, psychiatrists testified, because he feared McLean could otherwise resurrect from the dead and seek revenge.
His mental health is to be evaluated within 90 days, the judge ordered. Thereafter, he may be released or confined to a secure psychiatric hospital for treatment.
Outside the courtroom, McLean's mother Carol Dedelley expressed her disappointment at the verdict and her fears for public safety.
"This isn't the right result," Dedelley told reporters. "Knowing that that killer might get out sometime soon is very hard."
"A crime was still committed here, a murder still occurred, and (this) ruling seems to negate that fact."
"A major illness took my son's life, and he was never sick," she said.
"Mr. Li should be held accountable for it," she said. "Whether he was in his right frame of mind or not, he still did the act. There was nobody else on that bus holding a knife slicing up my child."
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, but "eventually either fell or was thrown to the floor of the bus," said court files.
Investigators said friends described the former computer programmer who had immigrated to Canada in 2001 as having had mental problems since 2004, but said they never knew him to be violent.
Li was admitted to a mental hospital in 2005, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to court testimony.
Doctors identified his auditory hallucinations and offered him medication, but he declined treatment at the time.
"Unfortunately, he appears to have left the treatment facility without permission," the judge said.
