victim's family angry-I'm angry, too!
WINNIPEG - 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, devastating the victim's loved ones.
Justice John Scurfield said Vince Li's attack on Tim McLean last summer was "barbaric," but the law makes allowances for those with severe mental illnesses.
"These grotesque acts are appalling," Scurfield said Thursday. "However, the acts themselves and the context in which they were committed are strongly suggestive of a mental disorder.
"He did not appreciate the act he committed was morally wrong. He believed he was acting in self defence and that he had been commanded by God to do so."
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. His DNA will be put on file but he won't have a criminal record.
He is to appear before a criminal review board within 90 days to determine how he will be institutionalized. His mental health will be reviewed every year to determine if he can be released into the community.
"That does not mean that he should go free," Scurfield said in his decision. "The public needs to know that when a person is found not criminally responsible, it does not automatically follow that a person will be released into the community ... People who are found not criminally responsible but who continue to pose a danger to the community may be kept in a locked institution for the rest of their lives."
That was cold comfort to McLean's mother, Carol deDelley.
Li may be mentally ill, but the fact remains that he killed her son in the most brutal possible way, she said.
"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 will fall to the family to attend Li's annual reviews and try to ensure he never be allowed on the streets again. The law needs to be changed so someone can be found not psychologically accountable but still criminally responsible for a crime, she said.
She also took a shot at Canadian immigration policies which she said allowed Li, who was born in China, into the country with a mental illness in the first place.
But both Crown prosecutors and Li's defence lawyers said justice was done.
"The evidence was so overwhelming that he was not criminally responsible," said Crown lawyer Joyce Dalmyn. "I had an obligation to bring that to the court's attention and the family understand and respect that."
The review board will do its job "properly" in determining if Li is ever fit for release, she added.
Such boards look at police reports and transcripts of previous judicial hearings and also hear evidence from treating psychiatrists, who testify about a patient's current mental condition, treatment and prognosis. Crown and defence lawyers get the opportunity to ask questions.
The board must carefully consider whether a patient could function in society or would pose a risk to the public. Members take into account a patient's insight into the illness as well as into what happened.
"Mr. Li will get help," said his lawyer, Alan Libman. "The Canadian public can be assured that the review board will take into consideration the protection of the public. Mr. Li advised me after court that he's going to work with his treatment team because it's his desire to get better."
Scurfield's decision brings an end to a trial that lasted barely two days and only heard from the two psychiatrists, both of whom testified that Li is mentally ill and didn't realize killing McLean was wrong.
McLean's family dismissed the trial as a "rubber stamp" that allowed Li to get away with murder. They are vowing to turn their attention to fighting the law that allows people who are found not criminally responsible to be released once they are deemed well, without serving a minimum sentence in jail.
That Li killed the 22-year-old carnival worker - brutally stabbing him dozens of times, beheading him and then mutilating his body - was never in question at the trial.
An agreed statement of facts read in court detailed how Li sat next to McLean after he gave him a smile and asked how he was doing. It was after McLean closed his eyes to listen to music on his headphones that Li said he heard the voice of God.
"Suddenly the sunshine came in the bus and the voice said, 'Quick. Hurry up. Kill him and then you'll be safe,"' Li told one of his psychiatrists. "It was so quick, such an angry voice, and I had to do what it said. I was told that if I didn't listen to the voice, I would die immediately."
Li ignored other horrified passengers as he repeatedly stabbed the young man, who unsuccessfully fought for his life.
When the bus pulled over near Portage la Prairie, Man., Li was engrossed with stabbing and mutilating McLean's body. Passengers fled the bus and stood outside.
Li tried numerous times to leave the vehicle but was locked inside and continued methodically carving up McLean's body. Police said body parts were found throughout the bus in plastic bags, although part of his heart and both eyes were never found and were presumed to have been eaten by Li.
The victim's ear, nose and tongue were found in Li's pocket.
God told him to cut up McLean and scatter his body parts around the bus, Li said.
"God told me to do it. Otherwise it would come back to life very quick and kill me. So I cut it up to make sure he couldn't come back to life ... God told me to cut off his head, so I did."
Li tried to escape from the bus through a window and was taken into custody.
After that, with blood smeared on his face from the attack, he politely apologized to police and pleaded with officers to take his life.
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