A man who witnesses said stabbed and beheaded his seat mate on a Greyhound bus in Canada made his first court appearance on Friday, while police offered no motive for the savage attack against a 22-year-old carnival worker.
Vince Weiguang Li, 40, of Edmonton, Alberta, was charged with second-degree murder, an indication police don’t think the attack was premeditated. He shuffled into the courtroom on Friday in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba with his head bowed and feet shackled.
Li, whose face was bruised and one hand bandaged, did not reply when the judge asked him whether he was going to get a lawyer, and only nodded slightly when asked whether he was exercising his right not to speak. He was not required to enter a plea.
The prosecutor asked for a psychiatric assessment, but the judge said he wanted to give Li a chance to meet his lawyer. Li’s next court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Li, who worked as a newspaper carrier in Edmonton, has no known criminal record.
Li’s employer, Vincent Augert, told the Edmonton Journal that Li had delivered papers until Monday. He said that Li told him recently that he had a job interview in Winnipeg.
“I just had shivers,” Augert told reporters. “And I still do.”
“I cannot believe this. He’s a nice guy,” he said.
Authorities have not released the victim’s name but friends identified him as Tim McLean and said he was headed to Winnipeg after working with the carnival in Edmonton.
William Caron, 23, said McLean was quiet, though he liked to socialize with friends. He was small — about 1.6m and 59kg and tended to stay away from a fight, Caron said.
“All the time I’ve known Tim, he’s never been the type of guy to get into a fight with. He always kept to himself,” Caron said.
Friends started a Facebook group to remember him.
“He was a great person, he was kind, thoughtful and he did not deserve this. I feel for his parents and sisters and his lil [little] bro,” Jossiee Kehleer wrote on the site.
Passengers said the victim was stabbed dozens of times on Wednesday night aboard the bus as it traveled a desolate stretch of the TransCanada Highway about 19km from Portage La Prairie.
Witnesses described the killing that occurred as some passenger were napping and others watching The Legend of Zorro on TV screens inside the bus. Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said there were 37 passengers.
Shortly after passengers reboarded following a break, the suspect — for no apparent reason — stabbed the man sitting next to him several dozen times as others fled in horror, witnesses said. He then severed the man’s head, displayed it and began hacking at the body.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS