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Friday, August 1, 2008

And You Thought Your Last Trip on Greyhound Was a Drag…

posted by on August 1 at 13:57 PM

night-road-2.jpg

Canadian police today identified the 40-year-old man who witnesses say stabbed and decapitated a fellow Greyhound bus passenger Wednesday night on a remote stretch of highway.
Reports from the scene of the ostensibly random attack describe Li as boarding the bus, which was en route to Winnipeg, without incident. After pulling out a hunting knife and stabbing McLean as many as 40 or 50 times, witnesses said, Li displayed the victim’s severed head to horrified passengers who had already fled the bus.

It’s the remote stretch of highway that elevates this story from the (sadly) forgettable violence of cities to something memorably grotesque and macabre.

The countryside is shocked by any violence. Cities are only shocked by gruesome violence.

But gruesome violence in the countryside? That’s the most shocking of all.

The rest of the story, with even more horrible eyewitness details, here.

RSS icon Comments

1

Motherfucker ATE pieces of the kid.

Posted by max solomon | August 1, 2008 2:05 PM
2

Except the bus was en route between two cities. So really this horror could be said to belong to 3 places.

Posted by Kal | August 1, 2008 2:13 PM
3

Do you ghostwrite for chaz?

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 1, 2008 2:25 PM
4

Anyone going to stand up and make the claim that we need to ban knives? I mean c'mon! Those damn blades are dangerous. If only all knives in the world would have been banned.

Or maybe Canada needs to prohibit the possession of knives, and this fellow would have obeyed the law and left his knife at home. Right?

I mean we can't expect anyone to have any personal responsibilty for their own actions right?

C'mon! This is about the tool used! Let's keep the focus here!

Posted by Reality Check | August 1, 2008 2:27 PM
5

Why didn't the other passengers intervene after the first or second stab?

Posted by WTF | August 1, 2008 2:27 PM
6

I love this story. Greyhound Gothic.

Except it's real.

Shit.

Posted by it'smarkmitchell | August 1, 2008 2:30 PM
7

@5- I think it's wrong to judge the passengers. Obviously, they acted in a way which they thought best for the situation, and judging them for any heroism you think they should have displayed does not help anyone. This is especially true because we don't know exactly what happened.

Posted by ams | August 1, 2008 2:34 PM
8

A paranoid schizophrenic?

Posted by raindrop | August 1, 2008 2:35 PM
9

@4,

With the exception of the unfortunate victim, the rest of the passengers are lucky he only had a knife. If he'd have had a gun, they might all be dead.

This is exactly why semi-automatic weapons should be illegal, or at least a lot harder to get. Horrible as this was, there is a limit to what a crazy guy with knife can do. A crazy guy with a AK-47 or a Mac-10 can do a whole lot more mayhem.

Posted by Reverse Polarity | August 1, 2008 2:37 PM
10

I call for banning Greyhound buses. And Canadians. Both obviously dangerous.

Posted by jcricket | August 1, 2008 2:39 PM
11

Weirdly, traveling by bus is still orders of magnitude safer than driving.

Posted by lorax | August 1, 2008 2:40 PM
12
Posted by brian | August 1, 2008 2:48 PM
13

Savage slogged this yesterday.

Posted by TIny Dancer | August 1, 2008 2:50 PM
14

I guess fuel prices aren't so bad, after all.

Posted by NapoleonXIV | August 1, 2008 2:51 PM
15

The amazing thing, to me anyway, is that stuff like this is rare. I mean, you've got 4.5 billion people in the world and 4.49999999999 billion of them have enough inner restraint that I can safely walk down the street.

Maybe some alien culture out there lacks this kind of "don't harm other humans" meme and it is all out chaos.

But then again... I'm kinda weird like that. I still find it amazing that I can get in a car and drive from my garage to the southern tip of the continent and back.

Posted by crk on bellevue ave | August 1, 2008 2:56 PM
16

how many is 4.49999999999 billion?

Posted by infrequent | August 1, 2008 3:02 PM
17

4,499,999,999,990

Posted by crk on bellevue ave | August 1, 2008 3:04 PM
18
Posted by Gloria | August 1, 2008 3:07 PM
19

OK -- if he was back there feasting on his victim and displayed the head to the other passengers, you've got to give him credit for great theatrics.

Sucks for the victim, of course, but victims are a dime a dozen.

Posted by it'smarkmitchell | August 1, 2008 3:08 PM
20

third time this has been on slog in 24 hours?

Posted by counting | August 1, 2008 3:09 PM
21
The company plans to provide the witnesses with any assistance they need, including trauma counselling and transportation.
Posted by Dominic Holden | August 1, 2008 3:30 PM
22

thank you jesus, one less juggalo!

Posted by jim bexley-speed | August 1, 2008 3:52 PM
23

@20 Some things are so gross, they cannot be Slogged enough.

Posted by Brendan Kiley | August 1, 2008 4:15 PM
24

@15,

We're a lot closer to 7 billion these days. Try to keep up.

Posted by keshmeshi | August 1, 2008 4:19 PM
25

You want gruesome violence in the countryside? The gold standard is "In Cold Blood."

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | August 1, 2008 5:05 PM
26

I'm sorry JTC, but those murders did not include SNACKING ON THE VICTIM.

Cannibalism always ups the ante.

Posted by it'smarkmitchell | August 1, 2008 5:55 PM
27
It’s the remote stretch of highway that elevates this story from the (sadly) forgettable violence of cities to something memorably grotesque and macabre.

No, I'm sorry, it's really not. The thing that elevates it to something memorably grotesque and macabre is the severed head being displayed.

Posted by Judah | August 1, 2008 7:52 PM
28

god, that's SO no country for old men feeling.

Posted by catnextdoor | August 2, 2008 12:58 AM
29

@ 25: Dude cut off someone's head and showed it to people. WAY worse than In Cold Blood.

Posted by Mike in MO | August 2, 2008 1:59 PM

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