Tim McLean was sleeping against the bus window when Vince Li pulled out a knife and began stabbing him because the voice of God purportedly told him the 22-year-old stranger was a "force of evil" and an alien who needed to be destroyed.
CBC News/YouTubeVince Li, the man who killed Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus in 2008.
In July 2008, Vince Li gruesomely murdered a fellow bus passenger named Tim McLean. The two men had never met before, and nothing occurred between them during the ride that would have prompted such an extreme crime.
Li didn’t stop at murder, however: He stabbed, beheaded, and cannibalized McLean. The other passengers and the driver fled, watching from outside of the bus in horror as Li went on a bloody rampage. They locked him inside the vehicle so that he couldn’t escape, and the police eventually arrested him after an hours-long standoff.
In the wake of this disturbing incident, there were many questions to be answered. Who was Vince Li? Why had he killed Tim McLean? And why had he consumed McLean’s flesh?
Vince Li’s attorneys argued that mental illness was to blame. Li had been hearing voices in his head. He believed they were messages from God, and he said they told him to kill McLean. Although Li was ultimately found not criminally responsible for the horrific crime, there was no erasing the impact it had on the loved ones of his victim — or the passengers who witnessed it.
The Brutal Killing Of Tim McLean
On July 30, 2008, Tim McLean boarded Greyhound bus 1170 bound for Winnipeg, Canada. The 22-year-old carnival barker had just finished working at a fair in Alberta and was returning home for the off-season.
Just before 6 p.m., 40-year-old Vince Li boarded the bus in Erickson, Manitoba. He initially sat in the front, but after a subsequent rest stop in Brandon at 7 p.m., Li made his way to the back and took the seat directly next to Tim McLean.
McLean was leaning against the window with his headphones on, so he didn’t notice when Li pulled out a large knife. Even though Li had never spoken a word to McLean, he began viciously stabbing him in the neck, chest, and torso.
Law&Crime Network/YouTubeTim McLean was just 22 years old when he was murdered by Vince Li.
As the other 35 passengers realized what was going on, panic ensued. Stephen Allison, who was sitting directly across from Li and McLean, heard a scream and looked over to see the knife plunging into McLean’s neck. He yelled at the driver to pull over, and everyone rushed off the bus.
Bernie Scyrup was driving a second bus just behind the Greyhound. When he saw the vehicle stop on the side of the road, he pulled over as well, and he stepped aboard bus 1170 to see what was happening.
“The young man was probably gone long before I got there,” Scyrup told The Globe and Mail in 2009. “I was right there. I done everything I could.”
A truck driver named Chris Alguire was also passing by the scene, and he stopped to see if he could help. When he heard someone was being stabbed, he grabbed a weapon and stood outside the doors of the bus so that Li couldn’t escape. “I was ready to break every bone in his body,” Alguire told The Globe and Mail.
For the next four hours, the horrified passengers watched the carnage unfold inside the bus.
Vince Li: Killer And Cannibal
After killing Tim McLean, Li decapitated him and displayed his severed head through the window. He also began slicing off pieces of the young man’s body.
By 9 p.m., the police had arrived and were in a standoff with Vince Li. According to the Winnipeg Free Press, Li muttered that he had “to stay on this bus forever” and refused to get off.
This lasted for several hours, but around 1 a.m., the killer tried to jump through a broken window to escape. Officers detained him and boarded the Greyhound to investigate.
What they found would haunt them.
Li had McLean’s ears, tongue, and nose in his pockets. Other body parts were scattered across the bus, but investigators never found his eyes or parts of his heart. They believe Li ate them.
Law&Crime Network/YouTubeA police officer negotiates with Vince Li, seen here in the driver’s seat of the Greyhound bus.
So, who was Vince Li?
He immigrated to Canada from China in 2001, and he became a citizen five years later. Soon after moving to the country, he converted to Christianity, reportedly because he heard the “voice of God” talking to him. Li claimed that God told him he was the “second coming of Jesus” and was put on Earth to save people from an alien invasion.
By June 2008, Li’s mental health was deteriorating rapidly. Just a month before the killing of Tim McLean, Li was fired from his job at Walmart after a disagreement with another employee. Then, days before the incident, he left the apartment he shared with his ex-wife after writing her a note that simply read: “I’m gone. Don’t look for me. I wish you were happy.”
Then came the murder of Tim McLean on July 30.
At his trial in March 2009, Vince Li pleaded not criminally responsible due to mental illness. Li clearly suffered from delusions, and this formed the basis of the defense argument. In fact, when Li was informed that he had indeed consumed bits of McLean’s flesh, he was horrified at the news. In court, he said he was “really sorry” for what he had done.
A psychiatrist testified that Li was schizophrenic, and a judge accepted the diagnosis, ordering the killer to a mental health facility rather than prison.
However, despite the gruesomeness of his crimes, Li would be released eight years later.
Where Is Vince Li Now?
Following his trial, Vince Li was sent to a high-security mental health center in Manitoba. After a year, he was allowed to walk outside on the grounds with supervision, and in May 2011, he was deemed a “model patient.”
By May 2012, Li had earned supervised visits to the nearby town of Selkirk. Over the next five years, Li’s privileges were expanded further. By 2015, he could take day trips to Winnipeg unsupervised, and in 2017, he was granted an absolute discharge from the facility. He was no longer considered to be a safety threat to the public. Vince Li changed his name to Will Baker, and today, he lives as a free man.
Andrew Francis Wallace/The Toronto Star via Getty ImagesGreyhound cancelled a new marketing campaign based on the friendliness of the bus system following the killing of Tim McLean.
Not everyone agreed with this decision, especially Tim McLean’s mother, Carol de Delley. In a statement to APTN News at the time, she said, “Vince Li committed one of the most horrific murders in Canadian history and has faded back into society. My son is still dead.”
De Delley criticized the process that allowed Li and other criminals like him to reintegrate into society. “[T]he crazed killer turned patient could potentially be working with children, the elderly, and the vulnerable, because they have no criminal record,” she said. “Vince Li changed his name to Will Baker and may well have changed it again. We have no idea where he is, he is not required to report anywhere or to treat his lifelong illness.”
So far, Li has not reoffended or committed any other violent crimes. Still, his story is an interesting case study on rehabilitation and mental health. Should someone like Vince Li be reintegrated into normal society if he has successfully undergone treatment — or should he be kept under watch for the rest of his life?
After reading about Vince Li and the murder of Tim McLean, go inside the story of Issei Sagawa, the Japanese man who cannibalized a Dutch woman in the ’80s and was never convicted. Then, learn about the Russian cannibal couple who killed and ate over 30 people.
