Witness Aboard Greyhound Bus
Account of Tim McLean's Murder by Vince Li
Tim McLean was aboard a Greyhound bus to go home to Winnipeg from Edmonton when he was stabbed and decapitated by 40-year-old Vince Li, who boarded in Brandon. Stephen Allison was also on the bus, and was perhaps the next victim, as Li made eye contact with him a second before he attacked McLean. This is his story.
My wife and I were headed to Winnipeg for school. We had started in the Northwest Territories and changed buses in Edmonton around midnight. I was sitting with my wife in the third row from the back on the driver’s side, right across the aisle from Li.
Li boarded the bus in Brandon between 5 and 7 p.m. I noticed him right away. He seemed like a very weird person, out of place. He seemed paranoid. He’d been sitting at the front and moved to the back after a smoke break between Brandon and Winnipeg, He looked at each person as he was walking, watching. Then he sat across the aisle from my wife and I.
I didn’t mention anything to my wife about my impression of him. Garnet Caton, who was one of the first witnesses interviewed, told the media he heard a bloodcurdling scream from Tim. I heard it as well, but I was already up at the front of the bus andactually saw Li pull out the knife and stab Tim.
I’d been watching Li before it happened. He had a bag, a roll of toilet paper and a two-liter bottle of iced tea. There was definitely something wrong with him. He wanted to take a sip of his iced tea, but needed two hands so he held the roll of toilet paper under his chin. He was rocking back and forth, almost chanting, but it wasn’t English.
Victim Stabbed and Decapitated
Then he went into the bag and pulled out the knife. Coming from a small hunting and fishing community I didn’t think anything of it. He looked at me and then turned and attacked Tim. I got up and yelled, “Everybody get off the bus! Stop the bus! Someone’s being stabbed!” I got up to the front, told the bus driver and he stopped the bus and started ushering everyone off.
I looked back and saw that my wife was still at the back of the bus. There was a mother and a young boy sitting behind her. They were passing the young boy over my wife to his older cousin who was sitting in front of our seat.
The aisle was clogged, so I jumped over several seats to get back to her and put her and the boy’s family in front of me so that I was between them and Li. This whole time Li attacked Tim. Tim knew from the start he was in serious trouble, and he tried to fight back, swinging, trying to throw punches, trying to grab the knife.
Before the attack, I’d talked to Tim briefly – just the normal bus conversation: “Hey, where you headed?” He seemed like a really nice guy…the kind of person you could easily be friends with. He was sleeping, listening to music, resting his head on the window.
I looked back three times: when I went to get my wife, when I got between her and Li, and when I got off the bus. All three times, he was stabbing Tim. I kept telling people, “Keep moving! Don’t stop! Don’t look back!”
Barricading the Doors and the Aftermath
A truck driver had stopped and tried to board the bus to save Tim, but only two steps up Li came running at him with Tim's severed head. The truck driver jumped off the bus and he and the bus driver barricaded the door. The door wouldn’t quite close hydraulically - Li was waving the knife through the door.
I and likely a dozen others saw the head, but I turned my wife away, so she didn’t. Most people had run behind the bus, where there was an overflow bus that had been driving a few minutes behind us. We boarded and barricaded the door until the police got there.
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Comments
I have been deeply saddened by what happened to Tim Mclean. I am in Australia and am trying to find out why no one on the bus helped Tim as soon as the attack started, why everyone just fled off the bus? Are there reports in Canada at the moment that are indicating why??
I just feel so ill over what happened, that not only was Tim unlucky enough to be targeted, but there weren't a bus full of people who tried to help him by storming the perpetrator. I'm a woman, and even we can do something. If I've got a bunch of other women also helping, overpowering the perpetrator is possible.
You hear about so many people who risk their lives everyday to save someone else, and I just find it baffling that everyone just ran. Of course getting the children off was important, but I just can't believe that Tim was so unlucky that there weren't a few people on that bus who quickly banded together and stormed the perpetrator.
To be honest I find the fact that no one tried to help Tim almost as disturbing as his murder. I feel so completely creeped out; I could be anywhere now, in a shop, on a train, a bus, walking down the street with lots of people around me, and if someone decides to stab me, everyone around me will just run. That is so devastating to read that Tim tried to fight back, no one else tried to fight for him, but he tried. I just cannot believe this. If you get any more bits of infomation as the picture of what happens becomes clearer, I would greatly appreciate hearing it!
Thanks again,
Kristin
Hi Kristen. I'm a Canadian living in Canada. I'm sure everyone is abit tramatized by this story and i'm can tell you it's even more creepy that something like this happened in my own country.
I think at the time this happened most people on the bus where asleep, and most people probably didn't even realize what was happening until it was too late cause the stabbing was apparently very rapid. It's hard to say what a persons instinct would be in a situation like this, considering how rare this kind of a situation is. I think very few people in the world can imagine what it would be like. Most witnesses said that it was very dark and hard to see what was going on, and most thought that it was just a drunken fist fight.
I think my first instinct would be to get the bus stopped, cause until then more lives are at risk considering there is nowhere else to go on a enclosed moving bus.
Vince Li was apparently a very big man, said to be well over 200 pounds. I think if i were Tim I would understand why no one came to my rescue and be greatful that i was the only one hurt (maybe that's a canadian thing), but i would have also fought back aswell.
Just remember, these people were on a bus, in the dark, at night and aside from maybe one person, the rest of the people didn't know what was happening till it was too late. I think the one person who saw what was happening the quickest did the right thing.
NICK
I must say Kristen, your comment is very harsh, and lacks empathy for the people involved. I don't really understand why your comment asks for the answer to an impossibly rhetorical question.
The people on the bus did not know what was happening, and the one guy who saw what was happening was well aware of the more vulnerable people surrounding him, and tried to alert everyone to leave harms way. Seriously, do you realize how quickly the victim would have suffered life-ending injuries? More than one stab wound is hard to survive in the middle of nowhere, let alone multiple stab wounds to the torso. THE GUY HAD A HUGE KNIFE! You talk a big talk, but you know damn well you would not have tried a damn thing, and that is reasonable.
I would absolutely admire anyone brave enough to stand in the way of a very large man with a very large knife, but that just is not sensible. The guy could have got his hand hacked off. The psycho was focused in on his already dead victim, and a physical distraction might have caused him to swing wildly in to the crowd of people trying to flee, causing further panic, not allowing speedy escape. Doesn't sound better to me. Would you rather have seen a headline that read "3 killed, many injured in Bus Attack"?
My heart goes out to the family of the victim, but the witnesses are also victims, and not cowards. Please have some respect. Honestly, you can't know much about human nature in history if you expected people to act much different. We are lucky the psycho only killed one person, and will spend his life in jail.
You claim to hear stories every day about people risking their lives to save others. That should tell you there are plenty of good people around, but don't judge what you do not understand. Unless you are there, it is hard to know. Every situation is unique.
Amen! I it is harsh and it shows alot of ignorance and a lack of intellegence.
Reading this story made me sick to my stomach. I agree with Kristin.
This situation is exposing a tragedy and I am sure all the people who survived are experiencing a fair bit of vicarious trauma for witnessing something so horrific and my heart and sympathy is surely with them, to an extent. There was certainly a case of bystander effect at work here. Whereas, there were a number of people on the bus who could have potentially helped but there was a great diffusion of responsibility. People developed excuses in their mind "I'm a woman", "I have to save my family" "He's dead anyways" and people got themselves to safety and literally watched a fellow human being decapitated. Somehow I highly doubt Tim planned to be a human sacrifice so others could flee to safety and breathe collective sighs of relief.
No, I was not on the bus.
No, I cannot fully comprehend the horrendous situation.
But we must ask ourselves, did Tim need a relative on that bus for people to care about his life? Wasn't he worth even attempting to save? I don’t ask these questions to place blame or cast judgement, but rather to remind us to the reality that as human beings we orient ourselves in societies, collectives to help each other. While I don’t have all the answers, I know no one believes in their heart that this was the “right thing”.
To the author.. My god. How could you have witnessed this, and not grabbed his arms from behind him, knocked him out, or ANYTHING?! This is cowardice at its best, and it actually makes me cringe, wince, and think. I'm only fourteen, I probably wouldn't have had a chance at stopping Mr. Li. If I was a full-grown adult, I would have undoubtedly tried to stop him, and encourage other members of the bus to do so.
How? How could you watch this man be stabbed to death without doing anything? I don't believe in a God, but if there was one, I'm sure it would be very, very disappointing.
It is not the fault of the passangers for not doing anything, it is the fault of they medical system in Canada. He suffers from schizophrenia, a mental illness, his family was trying to keep him on his medications. Li comes from an asian culture that shuns mental illness. There is no one who is evil there are only people who are ill, who's actions at times are horrendous. Li was deemed not guilty this week by a court judge, he will go to a mental lock up institution and he will recieive the medication to get him reballanced, he will never leave that facility. I feel bad for the family of the victim but also Li's wife and family. How is the mental health care in your country? One out of a hundred born will develope schizophrenia, offer those around you with support. It often affects people with very brilliant minds who contain great potential only to be stricken in their prime early adult years. The illness affects men more than women. Men often are shunned by others when they seek help within their social support, and then do not get treatment till something bad happens or they commit suiside out of the inner pain they are feeling. In USA that equates to 3,300,000 that suffer with the illness that Li has. He didn't get the support, look what happened.
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I think it is the most horrific thing to happen.I will NEVER forget Tim or what he suffered.I hope they never ever let him out!!!!!!EVER..
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