Friends are describing the victim of a gruesome killing aboard a Winnipeg-bound Greyhound bus as a bubbly young man who was returning home from working at a carnival in Edmonton.
Police have not confirmed the identity of the man stabbed to death aboard a bus late Wednesday and beheaded, according to witness accounts, but friends have said it was Tim McLean Jr., 22, of Winnipeg.
RCMP announced Friday morning that they have charged Vince Weiguang Li, 40, of Edmonton with second-degree murder. He is scheduled to appear at the Manitoba provincial court in Portage la Prairie.
Second-degree murder, under the Criminal Code, is commonly defined as unpremeditated murder. First-degree murder refers to a killing that is planned and deliberate, but also when death is caused by sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping and forcible confinement.
In an e-mail to CBC News, friend Jossie Kehler wrote that McLean was loved by everyone, had a bubbly personality and was a ladies' man.
"He has a lot of friends and they all are very upset he's gone, and they would like to say they miss him and he will always be in their hearts," she wrote.
"People say no one's perfect, but Tim, he was," she wrote. "He did nothing bad to anyone."
Hundreds of Facebook users flocked Friday to a tribute group titled R.I.P Tim McLean set up overnight to send their condolences to family and friends as well as express their shock at the grisly story that made international headlines.
"R.I.P Tim McLean, You are loved and you will be missed dearly!" the site description read.
Friends say McLean had taken a job with the Red River Exhibition and then went to work in Edmonton, but had decided to return home.
On McLean's MySpace page, he describes himself as a short, five-foot-five guy, weighing about 125 pounds.
Witnesses described the attacker as a hulking six-foot-tall man in sunglasses who appeared to weigh more than 200 pounds.
Father trying to reach wife
McLean's father, Tim McLean Sr., told CBC News on Thursday night that he was in the process of trying to get confirmation from the police that his son was, in fact, the victim.
He said he was also trying to reach his wife, who is on an Alaskan cruise until next week.
The father said his son had sent him a text message around 7:30 p.m. as the bus was leaving Brandon, the last leg of its journey, to ask if he could come home for the night. Tim McLean Jr. was returning to Winnipeg from Edmonton, where he had been working at an exhibition.
The father told his son that, of course, he could come home, and that was the last contact he had with him.
The RCMP would not confirm the reports of beheading, saying only that a stabbing took place around 8:30 p.m. CT on an eastbound Greyhound bus on the Trans-Canada Highway about 20 kilometres west of Portage la Prairie.
An autopsy was scheduled for Friday at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre.
Witnesses said the victim got on the bus in Edmonton. His attacker came aboard in Brandon and sat away from the victim toward the front of the bus, they said. After a short cigarette break, however, the attacker moved his belongings and chose a seat beside the young man.
Garnet Caton, who was sitting in the seat in front of the victim, said the young man was sleeping with his headphones on when he was attacked.
Caton said he heard a "blood-curdling scream" and turned around to see the attacker holding a large "Rambo" hunting knife above the victim, "continually stabbing him in the chest area."
Passengers fled
"He must have stabbed him 50 times or 60 times," said Caton, who jumped out of his seat when he realized what was happening and began ushering passengers to the front of the bus.
As panicked passengers fled the bus, "the attacker was over top of the victim … continually cutting him. I think the victim was gone at that point," Caton said.
Caton, the driver and a trucker who had stopped at the scene later boarded the vehicle to see if the victim was still alive.
"When we came back on the bus, it was visible at the end of the bus he was cutting the guy's head off and pretty much gutting him up," said Caton.
The attacker ran at them, Caton said, and they ran out of the bus, holding the door shut as he tried to slash at the trio.
When the attacker tried to drive the bus away, the driver disabled the vehicle, Caton said.
"While we were watching the door, he calmly walks up to the front with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us," said Caton.
Another passenger, Cody Olmstead, said: "They did an awesome thing, holding him in there, because if not, what would have happened?"
RCMP crisis negotiators communicated with the suspect for several hours while he was on the bus. Around 1:30 a.m., he attempted to jump from a bus window and was subdued and arrested, RCMP said.
Police cruisers arrived about 10 minutes after the attack began, he estimated, and officers began directing passengers to school buses to take them to a hotel in Brandon.
