A man accused of beheading and cannibalizing another passenger on a Greyhound bus in Canada shook his head and said “please kill me,” when a judge asked him if he wanted a lawyer on Tuesday.
Manitoba Provincial Court Judge Michel Chartier ordered Vince Weiguang Li to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
Prosecutor Joyce Dalmyn, who argued for the evaluation, revealed new details about the attack, which occurred last Wednesday night.
She said Li, 40, had a plastic bag containing his victim’s ear, nose and part of a mouth in his pocket when officers arrested him.
The only response officers received from him was: “’I have to stay on the bus forever,’” Dalmyn said.
Dalmyn also said the accused carried the victim’s severed head back and forth on the bus “taunting” officers. Armed with a knife and a pair of scissors, he was also observed “cutting body parts from the victim and eating those body parts,” she said.
In an interview with police after his arrest, Li declined to speak for the most part, she said. On four occasions, however, he did indicate in a low voice that he is guilty, she said.
Police are looking into information that Li may have spent as many as four days in a psychiatric facility prior to the attack, Dalmyn said.
Li, who immigrated to Canada from China in 2004, is charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of 22-year-old carnival worker Tim McLean. He has yet to enter a plea.
He was scheduled to appear on Tuesday in court in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, to determine whether he should undergo psychiatric testing, but the judge adjourned the hearing for a short recess to allow a legal aid attorney to confer with the suspect.
Dalmyn said Li refused to work with the lawyer.
Since his arrest, Li has declined to speak to prosecutors and his court-appointed attorney.
When asked by Chartier after the recess if he wanted a lawyer, Li shook his head and then quietly said: “Please kill me.”
“There were some people in the courtroom that were taken aback by it,” Dalmyn said. “Those were the only words I heard him utter in the courtroom.”
Li is due back in court Sept. 8. Dalmyn said they hope to have the psychiatric assessment by then, and that a new lawyer could be appointed to the case after Li rejected the legal aid counsel who handled the case Tuesday.
In the wake of the attack, Greyhound scrapped a billboard ad campaign that extolled the relaxing upside of bus travel.
The ad’s punch line was “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of ‘bus rage.’”
Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said the company feels the ad, launched last year, could be offensive and that it is no longer appropriate.
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