Bus Attack

[diana]

Similarity?

What this man did was very similar to Jack. What does this show us?

[ChrisGeorge]

What this man did was very similar to Jack. What does this show us?

Hi Diana

I beg to disagree. This ill man is unlike Jack in that what he did was more of a blitz attack rather than the planned deliberate stalking in which the Ripper was apparently engaged. The crimes are similar in the horror and the blood that's all.

Chris

[diana]

You are Correct

You are correct about the stalking. I think Mr. Li is a bit more disorganized than Jack. But if you focus on the killing and mutilations I see a lot of similarity.

[kensei]

I have been hearing a lot about this case in the news too where I live and I thought I'd offer some of the thoughts I've been having on it. I know they will take some heat, and I want to say first that I totally understand peoples' emotional reactions to a story like this, especially those of anyone who personally knew the victim. I truly sympathize with those people and my heart goes out to them.

The subject is insanity. Not just "mental problems" or an "emotional disorder" but full blown insanity. It does exist- people with something so wrong in their brain that they cannot stop themselves from doing something horrible. And the brain is a physical organ like any other, which makes a mental illness no different from any other illness. Disease in your lungs, you have trouble breathing. Disease in your brain, you have trouble thinking properly. For some reason this very concept is in question by some health insurance companies who refuse to cover mental illnesses, though that is slowly changing. Medication and other treatments can help the mentally ill, just as with any other kind of disease. But sometimes it is so severe that there is no help, just as some cancers are attacked with every weapon medical science has and the patient dies anyway.

I've been hearing the reactions of the bus victim's family to the verdict, furious, saying Mr. Li is "getting away with murder." They are in such terrible pain, I feel for them more than I can say, and taking issue with them might seem an inexcusable thing to do. But having said that, I still fail to see how Li is getting away with anything just because he will be locked away in a hospital rather than being locked away in a prison. I think that in cases like this it is entirely natural for the family to see the perpetrator as EVIL, and who can blame them? They don't want to hear that he's "not guilty by reason of insanity." (Personally, I think the verdict should read "GUILTY by reason of insanity!") They need to demonize him as part of the venting process of all the terrible emotions they are feeling. They don't want to even consider that he might not have had any control over what he did to their loved one, because that feels like they'd be saying it was all ok. Any understanding of the killer, and hoping that he gets the help he needs, becomes out of the question. He just needs to suffer like they are suffering. Needing him to be a monster in their eyes is the only way they can cope. And again, may blessings of comfort and solace be heaped upon them, for those feelings are all completely understandable. But as mental illness is really a physical illness like any other, and I know this may be the hardest thing in the world to accept... a tragedy like this isn't far removed from someone who isn't supposed to be driving because of a seizure disorder who has an episode and kills someone with their car.

As to the comparisons to JTR, I think Jack was more someone with deep emotional greivances with certain parts of society than he was mentally ill, and I don't believe he ever did anything that was beyond his mental control.

In the end, can we maybe agree on this- that the debate over whether Mr. Li needs to be helped, or needs to be punished, is irrelevant now, because he has been STOPPED.

[Doug Irvine]

Let's hope he doesn't end up like Issei Sagawa. Sagawa shot and killed a dutch girl in France and then ate her. Police asked him why he did it and he said because he wanted to taste human flesh. Sagawa spent five years in a French psychiatric hospital. The French thought it was costing them too much money to keep him incarcerated so they deported him to Japan. The Japanese authorities had him examined and he was found to be sane by them and was released as a free man. He became a media sensation in Japan, doing many T.V. interviews and even writing a book. I find this kind of funny when you juxtapose how they treated a serial cannibal killer who was operating in their country at about the same time.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4156285.ece

[The Grave Maurice]

Li is obviously crazy as a coot and the court arrived at the only possible conclusion. If anyone on this site is ever looking for an example of when the M'Naghten Rules apply, this is it.

[Mayerling]

Actually this case only illustrates the real difficulties of the conception and execution of proper punishment. Proper punishment would be to find another madman who believes God tells him to torture or behead Mr. Li, and telling Mr. Li that before tying him up and letting the second madman at him. But is that fair to an insane person (Li)?

But even if he was cured of the insanity, Li would have a new defense: "I am not the same person who committed this terrible crime. I have my senses now." Oddly enough that was used on the television show "E.R." about seven or eight years back. Noah Wylie and another character are stabbed by a psychotic in the E.R. The other character, a nurse, dies (Wylie, of course, survived). After a terrible period of recovery from his injuries, Wylie is working in the E.R. when the psychotic is brought back in for some other ailment. He is now calmer because he is on his medication. When Wylie confronts about what happened to himself and the dead nurse, the psychotic is very glib - he feels no remorse because he is not the same personality when he is not on the medication.

It is the balancing between punishment and crime that bedevils the criminal law. Not only in homicide or assault or rape cases. What about the huge damage done by a Bernie Mandoff to all his investors (several of whom committed suicide). He will spend (WE THINK) time in prison for this. I say "WE THINK" because of his possibly striking a deal to get out of prison early with the authorities (by giving back the lion share of the money he stole), or because even if he is sent to prison he is in his 70s and will either die early or be released for health reasons.

Jeff

[Sis]

granting Li unsupervised trips to the city

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manito...ipeg-1.2554175

It seems the Manitoba review board has seen fit to grant Vincent Li unsupervised visits from Selkirk Mental Health Centre to Selkirk Manitoba! It was only July 2008 on a greyhound bus that he beheaded and chopped up Tim McLean and consumed some body of Tim’s body parts!

Corrected me if I heard wrong but I was told he had recently just immigrated to Canada when he committed this vile crime. Also that he was aware of his mental instability before immigrating but never informed immigration plus he had stopped taking his medication.
It is my opinion when a person knows they have a mental disability such as schizophrenic and they commit a crime like murder as they stopped taking their medication, the verdict should be “Guilty by reason of insanity”. The time served is according to the crime committed, only difference it is served in mental facility instead of a jail.

Tim’s mother Carol DeDelley has been running a website, where she highlights cases across the country in which people found not criminally responsible for crimes reoffend after being released. http://www.timslaw.ca