Bus beheading cannibal in court

A man suspected of beheading a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus in Canada has appeared in court in Manitoba charged with the killing.

Vince Weiguang Li, 40, is accused of second-degree murder. The motive for the attack is not known. Mr Li said nothing in court but nodded when asked if he was exercising his right to remain silent. Police have not yet formally identified the victim but friends have named him as 22-year old Tim McLean. Mr Li, of Edmonton, Alberta, remained silent throughout the hearing in Portage la Prairie. Police have offered no motive for the attack and prosecutors have requested a psychiatric assessment. Mr Li will appear in court again on Tuesday after having an opportunity to speak to a lawyer. – bbc

Apparently, this behavior was not something Li regularly engaged in.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Li, who worked as a newspaper carrier in Edmonton, has no known criminal record. Li’s employer, Vincent Augert, told the Edmonton Journal that Li had delivered papers until Monday. He said that Li told him recently that he had a job interview in Winnipeg. Augert said Li’s immediate supervisor described him as a “nice guy.”

“There was no rage or anything. He was just like a robot stabbing the guy,” Caton said. …. The attacker turned toward them and the three men quickly left the bus, blocking the door as the attacker slashed at them through an opening. Caton said the driver disabled the vehicle after the attacker tried to drive it away. As the three guarded the door with a crow bar and a hammer, the attacker went back to the body and calmly came to the front of the bus to show off the head, Caton said.

Li Killed and ate his victim.

…The passengers said the alleged killer started stabbing his 20-year victim without any provocation. The young victim, who was listening to music on headphones, was reportedly stabbed 40 to 50 times as other passengers scrambled to get out of the bus. A passenger, who was sitting in front of the victim, told Canadian TV that once he realized what was going on he screamed: “Stop the bus, somebody’s getting stabbed, everyone get the hell off.” He said as soon as the driver stopped the bus, the passengers fled the bus, except the killer who kept stabbing his victim calmly. A little later, he said, he and a few other passengers came back to help the victim. “We returned to the back of the bus to find that the person who was stabbing the person in the neck had now sawed off the head of the victim.” … Police negotiated with the killer – who reportedly cut the victim’s body into many pieces and cannibalized it – to surrender. He was overpowered six hours later when he jumped out of the vehicle ad tried to escape in the dead of the night. – newindpress

Video from an eyewitness on the bus here.

Updates: Bus beheading suspect pleads ‘Please kill me’

… When asked again by the judge after the recess if he wanted a lawyer, Li shook his head and then quietly said “please kill me,” The Canadian Press reported. … A church pastor, Tom Castor, who helped hire Li soon after he immigrated in 2004 with his wife, Anna, said the man never showed any sign of anger or emotional problems when he worked there as a custodian. – ap

Too freaky. It’s like a mind control psychological operation to get the death penalty in Canada. I hope they do a psych eval on him soon. What does his wife, Anna Li, have to say about him?

Greyhound has scrapped an ad campaign that extolled the peaceful, worry-free upside of bus travel following the beheading of a passenger near Winnipeg. The punch line of the ad was “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of ‘bus rage.”‘ Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh says the company feels the ad, launched last year, could be offensive and that it is no longer appropriate. – cpress

9/11 Anthrax Attacks: FBI Fingers US Government Contractor, now dead.

The world learned yesterday that the FBI thinks the source of the Anthrax used in the attacks just after 9/11 was an elite U.S. Army bioweapons laboratory in Fort Detrick. The person who did it was part of the team investigating it.

Ivins also helped the FBI analyze samples from the very same 2001 anthrax attacks for which The Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him, according to the paper. One US official told the Associated Press that prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty.- csmonitor

The culprit received the highest US military honor for a civilian years after the attacks.

The anthrax attacks were an inside job. There is no escaping that fact.

Well, okay, but the Anthrax attacks and Ivins were not connected to 9/11, right? Um… Are you sitting down…

Ivins, a biodefense expert, and his officemate were deeply involved in Operation Noble Eagle — the government’s response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed almost 3,000 Americans and the anthrax attacks that killed five more less than a month later. – USAtoday

Recall that the Anthrax attacker sent his letters on 9/11 and attempted to frame Arab terrorists with fake letters. So, someone helping the government investigate the attacks of 9/11 did the attacks… on 9/11. Look at the dates on the anthrax letters.

If Ivins acted alone, then the case is solved. If not, expect some more random terror events or beheadings or something to keep people terrorized.

Update: Another scientist is suspected

Update: Beheading, with new twist: eating parts of the victim. Totally calm. Vince Weiguang Li was supposedly completely calm as he attacked.

A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation. …

Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also helped the FBI analyze the powdery material recovered from one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to a U.S. senator’s office in Washington.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital after ingesting a massive dose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine, said a friend and colleague, who declined to be identified out of concern that he would be harassed by the FBI.

… The anthrax mailings killed five people, crippled national mail service, shut down a Senate office building and spread fear of further terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. The extraordinary turn of events followed the government’s payment in June of a settlement valued at $5.82 million to a former government scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, who was long targeted as the FBI’s chief suspect despite a lack of any evidence that he had ever possessed anthrax. The payout to Hatfill, a highly unusual development that all but exonerated him in the mailings, was an essential step to clear the way for prosecuting Ivins, according to lawyers familiar with the matter.

Federal investigators moved away from Hatfill — for years the only publicly identified “person of interest” — and ultimately concluded that Ivins was the culprit [ emphasis added ] after FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III changed leadership of the investigation in late 2006. The FBI’s new top investigators — Vincent B. Lisi and Edward W. Montooth — instructed agents to reexamine leads or potential suspects that may have received insufficient attention. Moreover, significant progress was made in analyzing genetic properties of the anthrax powder recovered from letters addressed to two senators.

The renewed efforts led the FBI back to USAMRIID, where agents first questioned scientists in December 2001, a few weeks after the fatal mailings. – read the rest on LAT.

From years ago posted on a web site called WhatReallyHappened:

Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was observed entering the [Fort Detrick] lab building at night was Langford’s predecessor, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at Fort Detrick. A surveillance camera recorded Zack being let in at 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1992, apparently by Dr. Marian Rippy, a lab pathologist and close friend of Zack’s, according to a report filed by a security guard. [ctnow] – wrh

The FBI believes the Anthrax used in the attacks came from a US military source, they name Ivins. But … if he did it, why? To drum up business bioweapons research? To “test” his vaccine? For motive, police look at who was attacked and when.

The pattern of the mailings of the Anthrax letters was also suspicious. Congress got their Anthrax letters just in time for the vote on the disingenuously named USA Patriot Act (aka the anti-terror bill) which the terrorized Senators voted into law without bothering to read. How convenient for the bill’s sponsors that there was a terror attack on the Congress just when Congress was about to vote on the anti-terror bill. Eerie timing, isn’t it?

It wasn’t just Congress. Recall that a tabloid that showed the Bush daughters drunk was attacked. One person fingers Bush. Also see this. The most believable story would be that Ivins was a Bush fanatic who read these newspapers, held a grudge, and sent the Anthrax as a way to defend his president. Same with the reason he, acting alone or with one or two others, sought to help Bush get the Patriot Act passed with attacks on members of Congress.