Canadian bus travel horror

[Ed Mahmoud]

CNN) -- As horrified travelers watched, a Greyhound Canada bus passenger repeatedly stabbed and then decapitated the young man sitting beside him, who was sleeping with his head leaning against the window, a witness said Thursday.

[Chacor]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7535840.stm

"All of a sudden, we all heard this scream, this bloodcurdling scream," passenger Garnet Caton told CBC television.

"The attacker was standing up right over the top of the guy with a large hunting knife - a survival, Rambo knife - holding the guy and continually stabbing him... in the chest area," Mr Caton added.

The attack continued as passengers fled the bus and waited for police on a desolate stretch of the TransCanada Highway near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.

Mr Caton, the bus driver and a trucker who had stopped at the scene boarded the vehicle to see if the victim was still alive.

"When we came back on the bus... he was cutting the guy's head off and pretty much gutting him up," Mr Caton said.

The attacker ran at them, Mr Caton said, and they ran out of the bus, holding the door shut to prevent him getting out.

"He calmly walks up to the front [of the bus] with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us," Mr Caton said.

"There was no rage in him ... It was just like he was a robot or something," he added.

[Stephanie]

That sounds like a horror - flick story. OMG!!!

[Brent]

That's like something out of a movie. WOW.

[O Town]

Thats absolutely horrible.

I feel for the victims family.

[DaylilyDawn]

It sounds like the killer is insane!

[vbhoutex]

It sounds like the killer is insane!

NO!!!! That is WAY PAST INSANE!!!!!!!!

[southerngale]

I think I'm gonna throw up. Geez... poor guy was just minding his own business.

[Category 5]

I think this calls for a creative disposal of the killer. Perhaps decapitating him little by little over a several hour period using a rusty dull saw.

[angelwing]

I have no words...well I do but they would be beyond what could be said here. I feel for the poor victim's family.

[tropicana]

Just absolutely horrible, the victim has been identified as 22 year old Tim Mcclean, from Winnipeg MB. A shocking end to one that didnt deserve to die so young.

The killer has just been identified by RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) as 40 year old Vince Li.

The story defies belief, I just couldnt believe it til I kept reading it and seeing it on the news.
It is such a random, violent and barbaric act that no one could actually have ever envisioned.
Greyhound Buses and Coach Canada are among the most reliable and affordable ways to travel in and across all of Canada. Just last week Thursday ..I myself was on a Greyhound bus from Toronto to Niagara ( return fare was just $ 36 CDN all taxes included) This is a distance of 160 miles return. You simply cannot beat the fare, and thats why many many people opt for this mode of transportation.

But being on the Greyhound several times now, I am always amazed at the lack of security measures , no one is there to scan you, there are no Metal detectors to pass through, at least here in Toronto, you can just walk off the street, pay your fare, get your ticket, and hop on with luggage without anything being checked.
It is a system based on complete trust, and by all accounts, works well in 99% of all cases. This case was just not normal, any person who carries out this kind of violent act without any provocation, is the devil in disguise himself.

Will I be scared to ride the Greyhound again? Scared, maybe not, but certainly more cautious. At least for a while.

-justin-

[Jack8631]

There is a special place in eternity for someone that could commit such an act against one of his fellow men. I'll let Trace Adkins elaborate..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRxEXryTQxo

[Stephanie]

I think this calls for a creative disposal of the killer. Perhaps decapitating him little by little over a several hour period using a rusty dull saw.

I agree, but I don't think that the killer would even FEEL the pain. He's a monster.

I've seen it on the news and in the paper. I kept hoping that they were going to report that it was all a hoax.

[tropicana]

good article here:-

Reading about events on that Greyhound Bus in Manitoba is enough to make an ordinary person sick. So it's impossible to get inside the minds of passengers awakened by a sound more horrible than anything they had ever heard. We're told they bolted to the door, in one case tossing a toddler out of harm's way, in another almost running over a terrified senior in haste.
Everyone who has ever ridden a bus will ask themselves, "What would I have done? Would I have tried to stop the killer?"

Answering requires the ability to weigh the risks and benefits associated with intervening. That's easy enough in your living room on a Saturday morning, but this event occurred in the dead of night, with no warning whatsoever.
To expect ordinary people, under those circumstances, to be capable of calmly weighing the risks and benefits is to ask the impossible.

Even allowing for that, passengers made the right decision.
On the "benefit" side of the equation, media reports contend that by the time passengers knew what had happened, the victim had been stabbed several times, and there was blood spurting all over the bus.

He was well beyond saving and nothing could have been gained by rushing the attacker other than securing him for arrest – a feat that was accomplished by exiting and sealing the bus.
Which leads to the "risk" side of the equation.
Even in their stunned state, it was immediately obvious to other passengers that the attacker appeared not in a normal state of mind. Garnet Caton, a passenger close to the attack, reports:"He looked totally calm. "

Anyone standing in a fountain of blood, repeatedly thrusting a knife into someone's throat, and being totally calm while doing so, is not sane. Calm, reasoned intervention with one so deranged was going to have no effect. The only possible intervention would have been physical, leading undoubtedly to more pathos, more death.

Faced with almost no possibility of doing any real good, scared out of their minds, Greyhound passengers on a dark road outside the sleepy city of Brandon did exactly the right thing.
As a result, only one man died, and his life was not within their power to save. Thanks to their actions, the attacker is in jail.
They did what they could.

No one should expect more of anyone, even themselves, than that.

[Stephanie]

Where was that article from?

I agree with the conclusion. Those poor people are going to have some major emotional issues to deal with down the road.

[Meso]

While it must suck to be the victim.I would rather be the victim than be one of the passengers who has to live with that imagery for the rest of their life.Blood I have no problem with, but gore involving deep open flesh (or needles) just disturbs me more than the average person.

[Ptarmigan]

That's just really scary! It sounds something right off of a horror movie, except it is real. What a sickfreak!!!! Category 5's idea of punishment is too easy.

[Category 5]

That's just really scary! It sounds something right off of a horror movie, except it is real. What a sickfreak!!!! Category 5's idea of punishment is too easy.

You're right, it is.

[Ptarmigan]

It's even more disturbing.

Police: Canada killer ate victim's flesh aboard bus

[lurkey]

Here is an eyewitness account

Video is at the bottom. . .

From Canadian TV - longer account