Bus passenger decapitated in Canada
Friday, 01 Aug 2008 18:19
Police in Canada arrest a man after a bus passenger is decapitated
Police in Canada have arrested a man after a bus passenger was repeatedly stabbed before being decapitated.
Witnesses on the bus claim the victim's head was shown to them by the man before he began disembowelling the body.
While Canadian police have not yet identified the victim, friends have paid tribute to a 22-year-old named Tim McLean on his Facebook and MySpace pages.
In an e-mail to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Jossie Kehler, a friend of Tim McLean, told of her sadness at the incident.
"He has a lot of friends and they are all very upset he's gone, and they would like to say they miss him and he will always be in their hearts," she wrote.
A 40-year-old, who was has yet to be identified, was arrested for the murder near Portage La Prairie, Manitoba.
The Greyhound bus had been travelling overnight between Edmonton and Winnipeg, Manitoba, when the incident occurred.
Police sergeant Steve Colwell said officers caught the man when he smashed a window on the bus and tried to escape.
He added that it was still unclear what provoked the attack.
Fellow passengers claimed the attacker did not appear to know the victim, thought to be a teenager, and wore dark sunglasses throughout the attack despite it being the middle of the night.
The victim is reported to have been stabbed between 50 and 60 times before his head was severed with a 'large knife'.
Eyewitness Garnet Caton told CBC television: "All of a sudden, we all heard this scream, this bloodcurdling scream.
"The attacker was standing up right over the top of the guy with a large hunting knife - a survival, Rambo knife - holding the guy and continually stabbing him... in the chest area."
The bus passengers fled the scene but Mr Caton and the driver returned to see if the victim was still alive.
The man then ran at them and they were forced to hold the bus doors shut to prevent him from reaching them.
"He calmly walks up to the front [of the bus] with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us," Mr Caton said.
"There was no rage in him ... It was just like he was a robot or something."