Man decapitated in Canada bus stabbing attack

[Earl]

A man aboard a Greyhound bus repeatedly stabbed and then decapitated a fellow passenger, witnesses said Thursday.

The man was arrested for the killing, which occurred Wednesday night aboard a bus traveling from Edmonton, Alberta, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.

Authorities declined to name the attacker and victim, and provided no other details about the attack.

But passenger Garnet Caton said the victim was stabbed dozens of times by the man sitting next to him. The passenger then severed the man's head with a large knife.

"We heard this bloodcurdling scream and turned around, and the guy was standing up, stabbing this guy repeatedly, like 40 or 50 times," Caton said from a hotel in Brandon, Manitoba, where he and other passengers had been taken to rest.

"There was no rage or anything. He was like a robot, stabbing the guy."

Caton said passengers raced from the bus but then he, the bus driver and a trucker at the scene re-boarded to see what was happening.

Caton said he saw the suspect had the victim on the floor of the bus and "was cutting his head off and pretty much gutting him."

He said the attacker calmly came to the front of the bus to show off the head.

"He dropped the head and went back and started cutting the body back up," said Cody Olmstead, a passenger from Kentville, Nova Scotia.

The victim, who Caton said appeared to be about 19, had been on the bus since Edmonton. He said the attacker boarded the bus in Brandon, Manitoba, about 80 miles west of Portage La Prairie.

The suspect had been on the bus about an hour and initially did not sit near the victim.

"He sat in the front at first, everything was normal," Caton said.

"We went to the next stop and he got off and had a smoke with another young lady there. When he got on the bus again, he came to the back near where I was sitting.

"He put his bags in the overhead compartment. He didn't say a word to anybody. He seemed totally normal," Caton said. "About a half an hour later, we heard this bloodcurdling scream."

Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said 37 passengers and one driver were on the bus.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day called the attack bizarre, but did not discuss details, saying he did not want to jeopardize the investigation.

More...

[Alpha]

Gruesome.

[Ck]

It's meant to be actually quite difficult to cut someones head completely off.

[timey]

It would take quite a while with just a knife.

[lohi1]

And some still wonder why I carry a butterfly-knife...

[Gemo52]

Another greyhound horror

It's no wonder Karina Hébert rents a car now whenever she travels to Montreal.

The Ottawa public servant was a frequent Greyhound rider until a gruesome incident in late January changed all that.

Her story came to light yesterday in the aftermath of the stabbing and decapitation of 22-year-old Tim McLean.

The suspect in Mr. McLean's killing -- a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg -- appeared in court yesterday.

Ms. Hébert says she was travelling through a snowstorm on a mid-afternoon Greyhound bus from Montreal to Ottawa on Jan. 22 when a man who had locked himself in the washroom began using a razor blade to peel off his own scalp.

Ms. Hébert said she had noticed the scruffy man in the bus station, fidgeting and talking to himself. When she boarded the bus, she saw him sitting in the back row, adjacent to the washroom.

The man later barricaded himself in the washroom for more than an hour, forcing the driver to pull off Highway 417 onto Highway 138, east of Casselman.

Ms. Hébert said the driver tried to talk the man into coming out of the washroom, but at first the man refused.

That's when Ms. Hébert said something shocking happened.

"The guy opened the door and his face was completely, completely covered in blood. It was kind of like a horror movie. The only thing that stood out was the whites of his eyes," she said.

The man was holding his still-attached scalp above his head, which she later learned from police he had begun cutting away at the back of his head below the crown.

When the bus driver told the man he was going to call for help, Ms. Hébert said the man re-entered the washroom and locked the door.

The driver then told the 17 remaining passengers to get off the bus.

When Ontario Provincial Police officers arrived, Ms. Hébert said several boarded the bus and dismantled the door after the man refused to come out.

The man was also Tasered.

Horrified passengers stood by as police dragged him out of the bus. He was covered in blood and his pants were around his ankles, Ms. Hébert said.

A police officer later told Ms. Hébert that by the time officers got the man out of the washroom, he had cut all the way around his scalp and down to the bridge of his nose or immediately below.

Still, she said the man did not make a sound and remained conscious.

The bus was towed away and, after a three-hour delay, passengers were back on the road.

When they arrived in Ottawa, Ms. Hébert said Greyhound refunded riders the equivalent of a one-way, Montreal-to-Ottawa fare.

Ms. Hébert said she didn't complain to the bus company at the time, out of respect for the man and his family.

But after reading the company's statements this week following the killing near Brandon, Man., she decided to speak out.

"They say it's a rare occasion, well, it's not. Things like that obviously happen more often than we like to think."

Greyhound spokesman Eric Dallas said, in response to the Manitoba killing, the incident was a shocking, but isolated, event.

"We're trying to remind people that we are one of the safest modes of transportation to travel," he said from his office in Dallas. "We realize security is a top concern and we want our passengers to feel safe."

Greyhound is working with Transport Canada to adopt some of the safety features Greyhound offers in the United States, such as airport-style handheld scanners and driver shields, he added.

[Earl]

Greyhound has scrapped an ad campaign that extolled the relaxing upside of bus travel after one of its passengers was accused of beheading and cannibalizing another traveler.

The ad's tag line was "There's a reason you've never heard of 'bus rage.'"

Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said Wednesday a billboard and some tunnel posters near a bus terminal in Toronto are still up and would be removed later in the day.

"Greyhound knows how important it is to get these removed and we are doing everything possible," Wambaugh said. "This is something that we immediately asked to be done last week, realizing that these could be offensive."

Vince Weiguang Li, who immigrated to Canada from China in 2004, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old carnival worker Tim McLean. He has yet to enter a plea.

Thirty-seven passengers were aboard the Greyhound from Edmonton, Alberta, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, as it traveled at night along a desolate stretch of the TransCanada Highway about 12 miles from Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. Witnesses said Li attacked McLean unprovoked, stabbing him dozens of times.

As horrified passengers fled the bus, Li severed McLean's head, displaying it to some of the passengers outside the bus, witnesses said.

A police officer at the scene reported seeing the attacker hacking off pieces of the victim's body and eating them, according to a police report.

Wambaugh said the ads only appeared in Canada and that some in Ontario and western Canada have already been removed. About 20,000 inserts of the Greyhound ads were scheduled to be put into an Alberta Summer Games handbook but they stopped the presses.

More...

[Alpha]

Bus rage...oh dear. The Big Grey Dog will need another slogan now.

[Alpha]

Another greyhound horror

It's no wonder Karina Hébert rents a car now whenever she travels to Montreal.

The Ottawa public servant was a frequent Greyhound rider until a gruesome incident in late January changed all that.

Her story came to light yesterday in the aftermath of the stabbing and decapitation of 22-year-old Tim McLean.

The suspect in Mr. McLean's killing -- a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg -- appeared in court yesterday.

Ms. Hébert says she was travelling through a snowstorm on a mid-afternoon Greyhound bus from Montreal to Ottawa on Jan. 22 when a man who had locked himself in the washroom began using a razor blade to peel off his own scalp.

Ms. Hébert said she had noticed the scruffy man in the bus station, fidgeting and talking to himself. When she boarded the bus, she saw him sitting in the back row, adjacent to the washroom.

The man later barricaded himself in the washroom for more than an hour, forcing the driver to pull off Highway 417 onto Highway 138, east of Casselman.

Ms. Hébert said the driver tried to talk the man into coming out of the washroom, but at first the man refused.

That's when Ms. Hébert said something shocking happened.

"The guy opened the door and his face was completely, completely covered in blood. It was kind of like a horror movie. The only thing that stood out was the whites of his eyes," she said.

The man was holding his still-attached scalp above his head, which she later learned from police he had begun cutting away at the back of his head below the crown.

When the bus driver told the man he was going to call for help, Ms. Hébert said the man re-entered the washroom and locked the door.

The driver then told the 17 remaining passengers to get off the bus.

When Ontario Provincial Police officers arrived, Ms. Hébert said several boarded the bus and dismantled the door after the man refused to come out.

The man was also Tasered.

Horrified passengers stood by as police dragged him out of the bus. He was covered in blood and his pants were around his ankles, Ms. Hébert said.

A police officer later told Ms. Hébert that by the time officers got the man out of the washroom, he had cut all the way around his scalp and down to the bridge of his nose or immediately below.

Still, she said the man did not make a sound and remained conscious.

The bus was towed away and, after a three-hour delay, passengers were back on the road.

When they arrived in Ottawa, Ms. Hébert said Greyhound refunded riders the equivalent of a one-way, Montreal-to-Ottawa fare.

Ms. Hébert said she didn't complain to the bus company at the time, out of respect for the man and his family.

But after reading the company's statements this week following the killing near Brandon, Man., she decided to speak out.

"They say it's a rare occasion, well, it's not. Things like that obviously happen more often than we like to think."

Greyhound spokesman Eric Dallas said, in response to the Manitoba killing, the incident was a shocking, but isolated, event.

"We're trying to remind people that we are one of the safest modes of transportation to travel," he said from his office in Dallas. "We realize security is a top concern and we want our passengers to feel safe."

Greyhound is working with Transport Canada to adopt some of the safety features Greyhound offers in the United States, such as airport-style handheld scanners and driver shields, he added.

Horrific. Maybe these crazy people are a minority.