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rfmcdonaldThis is an unsurprising ending to the story of Vincent Li, who this summer past murdered and cannibalized a fellow passenger, 22 year old Tim McLean, on a Greyhound bus while in the middle of a schizophrenic episode. (The police phrase "eating the corpse" briefly entered the national lexicon.)
I respect the grief of McLean's family, but I frankly doubt that their attitude is worthwhile. Li wasn't sane at the time and was incapable of being rationally deterred from his act. No one else would be deterred by his act, since it's not exactly as if the murder and cannibalization of passengers by strangers on buses--or even on public transport in general--is common, in Canada at least. If punishing Li with criminal time wouldn't do anything meaningful for him or for the wider community and his act was the product of an untreated disease process, what would be the point?
A man who believed he was following God's orders when he stabbed and beheaded a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba has been found not criminally responsible to the consternation of the victim's loved ones.
Justice John Scurfield said Vince Li's attack on Tim McLean last summer was “grotesque” and “barbaric,” but “strongly suggestive of a mental disorder.”
“He did not appreciate the actions he committed were morally wrong. He believed he was acting in self defence,” Scurfield said Thursday.
Both Crown and defence psychiatrists had testified at Li's trial that he was suffering from schizophrenia and believed God wanted him to kill McLean because the young man was a force of evil.
Li, 40, was charged with second-degree murder but pleaded not guilty.
McLean's mother, Carol deDelley, was upset but not surprised by the verdict.
DeDelley said Li may have been mentally ill when he attacked her son, but the fact remains that a crime was committed.
“He still did it,” she told reporters outside court. “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. Nobody else did that. Just one individual did that.”
DeDelley said the law needs to be changed so someone can be found not psychologically accountable but still criminally responsible for a crime.
I respect the grief of McLean's family, but I frankly doubt that their attitude is worthwhile. Li wasn't sane at the time and was incapable of being rationally deterred from his act. No one else would be deterred by his act, since it's not exactly as if the murder and cannibalization of passengers by strangers on buses--or even on public transport in general--is common, in Canada at least. If punishing Li with criminal time wouldn't do anything meaningful for him or for the wider community and his act was the product of an untreated disease process, what would be the point?
