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The Murder of Tim McLean
85 Plays1 year ago
A brutal bus killing shocks Canadians and leads to questions regarding convicted killers rejoining society.
Sources:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/please-kill-me-accused-begs-in-court/article657590/
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2009/03/10/hearing-set-for-man
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/greyhound-beheading-10th-anniversary-1.4760074
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/vince-li-could-get-absolute-discharge-1.3968166
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/mother-of-tim-mclean-ends-petition-to-change-law-1.2502104
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Episode Focus
00:00:02
Speaker
Hey, I'm Sierra. And I'm Kaley. And this is True Crime and Punishment. Season two, episode five.
Overview of Tim McLean's Case and Initial Questions
00:00:10
Speaker
Today, Sierra will be telling us about the murder of Tim McLean. Yes, our story today is really disturbing, and it might make you think twice before you take public transportation.
Exploration of Criminal Responsibility and Mental Illness
00:00:22
Speaker
At the very least, it will probably heighten your awareness of your surroundings. If you're like me, the story will also leave you with questions to ponder regarding criminal responsibility.
00:00:32
Speaker
What happens if a defendant is suffering from a mental illness? Should he be considered not criminally responsible? Should he be kept behind bars forever? Or should he receive treatment and later be released? Should society risk giving him a second chance?
00:00:48
Speaker
or by taking an innocent life, has he forfeited his own?
Details of Vince Lee and the Incident
00:00:53
Speaker
Such were the questions surrounding the case of Vince Lee and his unfortunate victim, Tim McLean. Now, before we get into this story, I do want to let you all know we've been experiencing some technical difficulties with echoey audio. We are doing our best to resolve this, but if there's a little bit of that, we apologize ahead of time.
00:01:14
Speaker
Our story today begins on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008, in Erickson, Manitoba, which is in Canada. On that day, a man named Vince Lee was trying to sell his laptop. Darren Beatty, a 15-year-old student, negotiated with Lee, who originally wanted to charge $600 for the laptop. Beatty offered him $50, adding, that's probably enough to get you a bus ticket. The final negotiation was $60 and a bag.
00:01:44
Speaker
I'm not sure if Lee used the money that Beatty gave him specifically to buy a bus ticket, but unfortunately, he did indeed buy a ticket for a Greyhound bus heading to Winnipeg. He boarded the bus around 6 p.m. on July 30th, joining 36 other passengers who were about to go through quite possibly the most harrowing experience of their entire lives.
The Attack on Tim McLean
00:02:07
Speaker
At first, nothing about the trip or about Vince Lee seemed unusual to the passengers. One passenger, Garnet Caton, later told reporters that Lee had seemed, quote, totally normal. But things took a terrifying turn around 9pm near the town of Portage La Prairie. Lee moved from his original seat to sit next to 22-year-old Tim McLean, a Canadian carnival worker who was heading home.
00:02:33
Speaker
McLean was reportedly sleeping and listening to music on an iPod. He never saw what was coming, neither did anyone else for that matter, because it happened so quietly and suddenly. About 20 minutes after he sat down, Vince Lee, without any visible signs of anger, rage, or malice, pulled out what one passenger described as a Rambo knife and began stabbing Tim McLean.
00:02:58
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Mm-hmm. Oh my goodness. Yeah. McLean Screams alerted passengers that there was a problem. Passenger Steven Allison yelled for the driver to stop the bus. Passenger Cody Olmsted later told CBC News, it looked kind of like a scuffle or an argument, you know. And then somebody's like, knife, knife, run. So I was running up the alleyway, slapping people, telling them to get going, move, get off the bus. I got pushed over. Some lady got pushed over.
00:03:27
Speaker
I was just making sure everybody was okay, and we all got off the bus. Stephen Allison later had to reenter the bus to get his wife, who was too frozen by panic, to move. Thankfully, they both made it off the bus without Lee noticing them. He was too intent on his victim.
00:03:44
Speaker
Passenger Cody Olmsted described the stabbing by saying, just everywhere, arms, legs, neck, chest, guts, wherever he could swing it, he got it. Passenger Garnet Caton said he must have stabbed him 50 or 60 times. Caton also told reporters, it was like he was at the beach or something. There was no rage in him. He wasn't swearing or cursing or anything. It was just like he was a robot or something.
00:04:11
Speaker
The passengers made it off the bus, and Cody Alguire, a truck driver, stopped when he saw the crowd of passengers and the driver. He, the driver, and Garnet Caton went back on board. Caton told CBC News, 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.
00:04:32
Speaker
When the men got on board, Lee ran toward them, but they escaped and slammed Lee's arm in the door as he raced up to the front of the bus to follow them. They held the door shut, and the passengers waited for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to arrive. The police did arrive, one article said about 10 minutes after people got off the bus, but they did not board the bus. At this point, McLean was beyond help.
00:04:58
Speaker
Lee carried McLean's severed head to the front of the bus, letting bystanders see it before he dropped it to the floor. It took about four to five hours of waiting before the police apprehended Lee. During those four to five hours, Lee continued to defile McLean's body, even to the point of cannibalizing him. Believe it or not, I'm holding back on some of the details, but it was a brutal and sickening attack and to this day still haunts passengers who escaped the bus.
00:05:29
Speaker
Around 1.38 AM, Lee broke a window to escape the bus. At that time, police took him into custody. He told the officers, I'm sorry, I'm guilty, please kill me. He also made that same request, please kill me, of the judge in his court appearance on August 5th, 2008.
Legal Outcome: Not Criminally Responsible Verdict
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah. In the end, he was found not criminally responsible for his actions. It was later found out that Vince Lee had schizophrenia. He'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He thought he was hearing the voice of God in his head, telling him to kill Tim McLean. He believed that Tim McLean was a source of evil and was going to kill him and hurt other people on the bus.
00:06:22
Speaker
He'd never met Tim McLean, correct? He had never met Tim McLean. No, he knew none of the passengers on this bus. He hadn't even originally been sitting by Tim McLean. Earlier on the trip, he'd been sitting somewhere else, and then after they had a stop and a smoke break, he got back on and moved over to sit by him. But even then, one article said he sat there for about 20 minutes before he started stabbing him. And from what I've read, he never said anything to Tim McLean. He just started stabbing him, and Tim McLean didn't say anything to him.
00:06:51
Speaker
So there was nothing that provoked this attack. And like other passengers noted, the attack was strange because it was so calm. Like it was brutal, but it was very calm. Like he had completely dissociated. But again, he believed he was doing a task from God. Apparently he believed that an alien invasion was coming and he was doing something to prevent it.
00:07:12
Speaker
the whole task from a higher power you hear that a lot when it comes to mental breaks that either people are saying it because they actually have heard some voice telling them to do something or it's a convenient. No one can prove that you didn't hear something in your mind tell you to do something heinous. Yeah.
00:07:31
Speaker
He, because he was deemed not criminally responsible for his actions, he was still charged with second degree murder. Instead of being sent to a regular prison, he was sent to Selkirk Mental Health Center, where he was supposed to receive psychiatric treatment and an assistance to help him deal with his schizophrenia. And he was there for several years. However, in 2017, in February of 2017,
00:08:00
Speaker
Lee received an absolute discharge. According to the article that I looked at, he's still living in Manitoba and trying to reintegrate or reassimilate into society. There were various reactions to this news that he would be put in a mental health facility and then eventually, and also different reactions after he was released.
00:08:25
Speaker
This was an interesting quote that I found from the Crown Attorney Joyce Dolman. After she heard the verdict that he was not going to be held criminally responsible, she told reporters, Mr. Lee is a schizophrenic. Mr. Lee, in my opinion, and in the opinion of the psychiatrists, had no idea that what he was doing was wrong. People who are mentally ill should not be convicted when they don't know what they did was wrong.
00:08:54
Speaker
they need to be treated. I certainly agree that in Mr. Lee's case, he needs to be treated for a very long time. This is before he entered the facility after the initial verdict was passed, and then he was there for several years and seemed to show much improvement, so he has since been released into society.
Vince Lee's Background and Mental Health
00:09:11
Speaker
You might have already said this, but how old was Lee when this happened? He was in his 40s, I think. Yeah.
00:09:20
Speaker
Interesting. He apparently had had a history of some difficulty. He and his wife, which he was married. I knew that she's referred to. She's referred to as his wife. But one article that I said that I saw, excuse me, she's referred to as his wife in multiple places. And he also referred to her as his wife. However, according to some articles, she was a common law wife and also an ex-wife. Like he was not with her at the time he had left, but he still contacted her the day of the murder.
00:09:49
Speaker
They were both Chinese immigrants to Canada. They arrived in 2001, so seven years before the attack. Lee apparently had a difficult time adjusting to life in Canada. He didn't speak very much English. He had multiple jobs.
00:10:04
Speaker
And apparently he also had this issue with schizophrenia. He heard voices but didn't understand why. The articles that I looked at didn't elaborate on how long he had been hearing voices prior to the attack on Tim McLean, but he seems to have had a troubled and difficult history in Canada. Do we know what he contacted his wife about? According to the article, she didn't understand much of the phone calls. Some of it was rambling. He mentioned the Yellow River, talked about China.
00:10:34
Speaker
and told her he would contact her when he was set up. Yeah, so it did not make a lot of sense. But the day before, this was also something interesting. He had taken the bus into Erickson and he was actually there for about 24 hours before he boarded the bus that Tim McLean was on. He had slept on a park bench, stayed outside in the alley of a gas station for most of the time, sold his laptop to that young man.
00:11:00
Speaker
um, and just hung out in that area before getting onto the bus. So I don't know if he was just out of money and he needed that $50 in order to continue his journey or what was going on there. Not everyone seems to really know. So it sounds like he was having some sort of mental health crisis or episode. We want to say it. And it was just not caught before something drastic and terrible happened. Right. We'll have to get into the ins and outs of what is
00:11:30
Speaker
culpability and responsibility when it comes to people with mental health struggles because it's a convoluted topic at best. It really is. And you're not the only one who thinks that.
00:11:44
Speaker
Passengers who escaped from the bus and also Tim McLean's family have different views of the situation and who should be held responsible for different things.
Lawsuits and Family Reactions
00:11:53
Speaker
Some of the passengers filed a lawsuit against Greyhound because of a lack of security measures, which that lawsuit was eventually dropped. Well, I was gonna say when he said they they had a lawsuit against Greyhound, I'm like, well, they can't really control if a crazy man.
00:12:12
Speaker
forgive the term, but someone with a mental health struggle in that moment gets on their vehicle and commits a crime. But he did have a quote unquote, Rambo knife. I don't know if you've ever seen Rambo. That's a pretty big knife. Right. And that's what I was wondering because the articles either use the quote or they just set a knife. So I do not know exactly how big this knife was. Because you can hide a knife.
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah, but you think we're getting on a plane and how much, you know, you have anything that's over the legal liquid limit. You know, I've had my bag stopped because I have books in there that look suspicious, because apparently paper looks like C4 through a scanner. And just the vigilance of that and you think, well, what makes a bus different?
00:13:00
Speaker
Right, exactly. And I was doing some digging thinking, well, what kind of security measures does Greyhound have? And I guess a couple of their stations from what I saw do have like metal screening, but not all of them. McLean's dad,
00:13:14
Speaker
Tim McLean Sr. and his family filed a lawsuit also against Greyhound. And Tim McLean Sr. said, Greyhound does not want to back down on anything, I guess, because they're a big company and they figure they can do that. We don't believe it's right. Right from day one, we received condolences and thank yous and so sorrys from everybody from Transport Canada, from the RCMP, from the media. Everybody except Greyhound acknowledged their condolences.
00:13:40
Speaker
And to this day, Greyhound still has not acknowledged any condolences or anything or done right by our son.
00:13:46
Speaker
That was what he told a news station. Which I understand wanting condolences. And I think it's a bad look for the company not to say, we are so sorry for your loss. I don't necessarily think that they should come out and say, we are responsible for this because that sets a tricky legal precedent. But it is in very bad taste, in my opinion, my uneducated opinion to not at least express sympathy for the family of the victim. Yeah, that's what I thought too. I don't think
00:14:13
Speaker
And I mean, obviously I did not live through that experience that the other passengers did, but I don't know how you can hold the bus company responsible for it. It would be good to have greater security measures, probably, just to make sure weapons of things are not taken on a bus. Yeah. But I don't think that they're necessarily responsible. Right. And that was kind of where I was questioning
00:14:40
Speaker
well, and the lawsuit so far, they have come to nothing. Which kind of makes sense, because again, you can't really hold the company responsible. The company did respond to the incident, not by directly contacting the family or expressing their condolences, but at the time, they had scrapped an ad campaign that talked about how worry-free bus traveling was, and the one line in the ad said,
00:15:07
Speaker
There's a reason you've never heard of bus rage. Yes. Yeah, timing. Good timing. The representative from the company said that the campaign was over before the stabbing occurred, but they made sure that all of those signs were gone after it. So I guess that was their response to the incident. But again, Vince Lee didn't show any signs of rage. He believed that he had been told to kill Tim and he was just mechanically carrying out what the voices in his head told him to do.
00:15:38
Speaker
Now, oh yeah, go ahead. It's just so brutal. He decapitated him and showed his head to passengers. Yeah. So I can see why, I don't know, even for me, it seems difficult to think that that was all just mental illness, but you also think why else would you do that? Right.
00:16:06
Speaker
And it was very brutal. And it is something that his family, especially, they don't like the idea of Vince Lee being released. I should note, Vince Lee has changed his name since the time of the incident. He now goes by Will Lee Baker. So some more recent articles will refer to him as Baker because that's the name that he chose. I don't know why he changed his name. Maybe it's a kind of distance himself from it. At the end of this episode or toward the end, we're actually going to look at an interview.
00:16:34
Speaker
that somebody conducted with him about the incident and about that history. It does seem that he has shown remorse for what happened and to some extent that the treatment was successful in turning his condition around.
00:16:52
Speaker
But even then, the family of Tim McLean does not like the idea of Vince Lee not being held criminally responsible for his actions and for the death of their son. And his mother, Carol D. Deli, shared some very heartbreaking quotes with the media. And I'd like to give a couple of those about what she said. Because especially when you think about losing your son and in such a brutal way,
00:17:22
Speaker
Um, she said, she describes the grieving process by explaining nothing changed for everybody else. The traffic still went, the sun still shown, and it was so maddening to me that the whole world didn't just stop. Mine did. It stopped and it took a long time to really want to get up every day. I was given a few reasons to feel that way to want to get up. 10 of them in total now, and they all call me granny.
00:17:50
Speaker
Oh, I was like, Oh, that's so sweet. And one of those who calls her granny is actually the son of Tim McLean. He was born about five months later on December 21st, 2008. So although Carol did lose her son, she was able to see her grandson. And she described him as a gift from God sent by my son to give me a reason to get up every day and to take care of. So there was some
00:18:20
Speaker
blessing that still came out even with all of these terrible things happening. But these events and the way that Vince Lee was charged and how he was declared not criminally responsible really challenged Carol.
Debate on Justice System for Mentally Ill Offenders
00:18:35
Speaker
She took up kind of a fight against this to change that law. She wants to change the law regarding NCR cases.
00:18:44
Speaker
And she said a few things about Vince Lee. She said, quote, Vince Lee got help. Good for him. Maybe he's feeling better today. My son's still dead. What if he chooses not to take his medications? We know what he's capable of. And she also has said she disagrees with the way that Canada views not criminally responsible cases.
00:19:06
Speaker
Apparently, the not criminally responsible designation has been a fundamental principle of Canada's justice system since the year 1992. The accused persons must have the capacity to understand that what they did was wrong. Otherwise, they cannot be found guilty of an offense. But oh, yeah, go ahead. No, I've seen that where it's like they don't understand the charge. So they can't be guilty because they don't understand it.
00:19:33
Speaker
Right. But she does not agree with that law. And she said, quote, a killer is a killer. If you take a life, you forfeit your freedom for the rest of your life. The only thing that should change with a mentally ill killer is that they should serve their sentence in a place where they can also receive treatment. What are your thoughts on that? I was I was thinking about that because I am more inclined.
00:20:02
Speaker
to agree with her because if you take an innocent life, there's no... In my view, you take an innocent life, you forfeit yours and reparation for that act. That's part of what the justice system is. If you steal from someone, you're supposed to make reparations and replace what you have stolen. If you steal a life,
00:20:24
Speaker
you forfeit your own. And just because someone doesn't understand what they're doing, it's still wrong. And it's also still dangerous. Like with Vince Lee, no one saw him about to snap. He just snapped. There was no rage. There was no motive that you can see. I mean, other than what he explains later as hearing the voices telling him to do it. And like she pointed out, what if he were to stop taking his medication? You're putting society at risk for the sake of someone who has already
00:20:54
Speaker
taken an innocent life. So I don't see why we should potentially penalize society to give somebody else another chance if they've done something as serious as killing somebody. I understand that mentality and I understand where that thought is coming from, but I feel like it gets into dangerous territory when you
00:21:17
Speaker
have someone who suffered a psychotic break and truly does not understand their actions. What good is locking them in an institution for the rest of their life? And would you say it's fair to move them from an institution to prison once they come back to their right mind because they didn't commit the act when they were in their right mind? I do think that there should definitely be some monitoring for the rest of your life.
Vince Lee's Remorse and Reflection
00:21:40
Speaker
to make sure that you haven't decided just to stop taking your medication or skip out on treatment. I just think it's a very gray area. It's difficult for me to say that something that is done unintentionally should suffer the same consequence as something that is done with intention.
00:22:00
Speaker
Well, it was done with intention. It was just done without understanding. That's true without the same knowledge, but it was not intended in the same way as someone who chooses to commit a murder with the sake of committing a murder. So it's not like a planned or rage killing. It wasn't something that someone in their right mind would do.
00:22:25
Speaker
So it's just, I don't know. I feel the same way about people who accidentally, like who don't drive safely and cause an accident. Um, where I do believe there should be punishment, but I don't think it's the same as if you intended to, um, harm someone. So I think it's just a very nuanced thing. I don't disagree that he shouldn't be penalized for it, but I also don't think that him staying in
00:22:57
Speaker
A mental institution is going to cause any good for anyone, especially if he's medicated and okay. Well, the thing is with me, like, he's medicated and okay now, but could that ever change? What if he stops taking the medication? What if he forgets to take it? What if it stops working? Like, there are so many variables and he's proven from the past that, you know,
00:23:21
Speaker
I just think it's a big risk to innocent people to let someone who's done something and has shown that they weren't able to control themselves. It's a risk to let them back out.
00:23:33
Speaker
not everyone shares my opinion. There's an interview that I want you to read. I printed it out. That was with Chris Somerville. He's the CEO of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada. He was very involved with Vince Lee's recovery and speaking with him and talking to him throughout the years as he received treatment. And he had an interview with Vince Lee at the Selkirk Mental Health Center.
00:23:59
Speaker
Interesting. I'm going to bring that over to you. So just kind of read through that and then maybe pull out some of the things that you find interesting or things from it. But I will say as you're looking through that, the article, this interview really did
00:24:14
Speaker
make me feel conflicted because you can see that this man has a lot of remorse, or at least it appears that he has a lot of remorse for what happened. And from all the reports, he did recover a lot with the medication. He seems to be very normal. There were favorable reviews from his review board and from Mr. Somerville and these people who interacted with him. He seemed to show a lot of recovery and a lot of improvement.
00:24:47
Speaker
There's a quote here from Chris Summerville in the beginning of the article that says, I have been visiting Lee on an average of once every two months since his remand to Selkirk Mental Health Center four years ago. I've decided that Mr. Lee's story needs to be told to add a human touch to a horrible tragedy. What we have here are two victims and two families who are victims of untreated, uncontrolled psychosis.
00:25:12
Speaker
Before I do any interview regarding the Greyhound Bus tragedy, I always ask myself, what if it had been my 25-year-old daughter? My sympathy to Ms. Delaney, or Timothy McLean's mom, and her family are real. And yet I also ask, what if it had been my son who had killed Timothy McLean in such a ghastly and grotesque fashion? Which I think that's a fair point to put yourself in the victim's shoes. And then also the accused. I do think it's a fair point.
00:25:40
Speaker
My problem or my question, I guess I should say, is the role of our justice system. Because you've heard the phrase justice is blind. Justice is something, is it something that is supposed to be impartial, where we carry out laws and there's an action and there's a consequence for the action?
00:26:01
Speaker
I think that is too black and white and that nuance is very important because you can say this person has killed someone and that person has killed someone but that person might have killed someone because someone who was making foolish choices ran in front of their car and they struck them with their car because of someone else's action and that person might have shot his wife because he was crazy.
00:26:21
Speaker
So I feel like if you look at it from just black and white, and that's an oversimplification, you run the risk of an impartial and unfair justice system. I think nuance needs to be taken into account. I think that's why we have the justice system that we have. You have trial lawyers and you have different options for different crimes and different levels of intensity. It's why you're tried by a judge and there's also a jury made of your peers to judge your actions. So I think
00:26:49
Speaker
I think if we were to just do everything in a black and white fashion, we would find ourselves in a much more almost dystopian kind of world. But I digress. Don't agree with everything he's saying because here he says, I think the media has been more favorable to the McLean family. Yes, because their son is the one who was stabbed several times. Was it like a hundred times? Did we get to that yet? Oh yeah. He was, he had at least a hundred injuries on his body.
00:27:17
Speaker
and he was mutilated and then cannibalized cannibalized and um disrespect of a corpse is there's a reason that's another charge because that is subhuman behavior says mr lee was soft spoken using simple english as english is not his first language his answers were rather direct and succinct revealing him as a person revealing a person who has given much contemplation to this tragedy and his guilt i do not like the fact that his guilt is in quotes because even though i feel like i don't know i think
00:27:49
Speaker
I tend to take an almost too empathetic view, which is as big of a problem as looking at things in black and white because I feel like it's very easy for me to feel sympathy for people. Sorry, excuse me. Bless you. So I think Sierra and I make a good team because she's very logical where I can be overly emotional about some things. So anyway, I'll keep reading. Background in China. He was a computer engineer in China.
00:28:19
Speaker
He could not find a job in Canada. He worked at McDonald's, meat and foods, and at Grant Memorial Baptist Church. Yep, at Grant Memorial Baptist Church.
00:28:30
Speaker
Do you have a spirituality? I believe in Jesus Christ, he is my savior. I try to follow God. Okay. Okay. We might cut this out because it's a bit of a digression from the topic. I struggle when people try and blame God for things. God, okay. How do I say this? People say like, well, God told someone to, well, he told, he think, okay. I know he said, God told me to kill this man.
00:28:59
Speaker
Well, hold on. Keep reading because he kind of explains that a little bit more after Somerville asks him, when did you begin to experience schizophrenia? So he does not blame it directly on God. Yes. But I like to say as a Christian that if anyone ever tells you that God told them to hurt someone or kill someone or be violent to someone, that is not God speaking. God is very clear that that is not something he will ask his people to do.
00:29:26
Speaker
Anyway, read the scripture. I began to experience schizophrenia in 2004. I didn't know what it was. I know. I now know what it is. I began to hear voices that no one people do not hear. I thought I heard the voice of God telling me to write down my journey. The voice told me I was the third story of the Bible, that I was the second coming of Jesus. Ooh, that's bad. Yeah. I was to save people from a space alien attack.
00:29:56
Speaker
That's why I traveled all around the country. Ah, begins to make sense. I don't know where he got that from the Bible, though, because that's not there. And that has nothing to do with the second coming of Jesus. Yes. And I don't believe in aliens because I think God would have told somebody. That's another thing. There have been a couple of people who have that I believe are mentally ill who think that aliens are coming and that God is sending aliens to wipe us out.
00:30:23
Speaker
but he thought aliens were coming. He did not know it was schizophrenia. So did he know, because this happened in 2008, this is back in 2004, so did he know from 2004 to 2008 that he had schizophrenia?
00:30:41
Speaker
Right. He didn't know that that's what he had. I think after he was taken into custody and evaluated and everything, then they're like, oh, you're hearing voices. And then he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. See, that's, I could get into that later. But I find that if he, if he had known that he had a mental illness, that he was not taken care of, then I would say that he's more culpable and should spend more time in prison. Because it's the same idea of someone who is going to get drunk or high and then get behind the wheel.
00:31:09
Speaker
You made the choice to imbibe those substances. You've made the choice not to medicate yourself against this illness. And then you've suffered the repercussions of that. But if you don't know, uh, I don't know, back to the aliens. He bought a knife at Canadian Tire to protect himself from the aliens.
00:31:31
Speaker
This is a direct quote from this article. It says, I was really scared. I remember cutting off his head. I believed he was an alien. The voices told me to kill him, that he would kill me or others. I do not believe this now. It was totally wrong. It was my fault. I sinned, but it was the schizophrenia. He says it's painful to think about the incident. He was asked, how do you feel about what happened? He said, I feel nervous. I feel painful. I'm embarrassed. It was wrong.
00:32:01
Speaker
Um, he's asked, what would you say to miss Delaney and Tim and Cleen's family? He said, I'm really sorry for what I did. If I could talk to her directly, I would do anything for their family. I would ask forgiveness, but I know it would be hard to accept. He's asked if he thinks he's getting better. He says, yes. He talks about his medication that he takes every day. He is glad to take it. He doesn't hear any of the voices anymore.
00:32:24
Speaker
He's asked, how do we know you will take your medication when you get out on your own? Lee says, I would be glad to be under a treatment order because medication helps me. It is very important. I don't want to do what I did ever again. He is directly asked, how does it make you feel that most people do not think you should get a pass to walk around in Selkirk? Do you understand their fear? Lee says, I understand people are scared because of my behavior. And on the Greyhound bus, I am not a risk for anybody. I don't believe in aliens. I do not hear.
00:32:54
Speaker
I don't hear voices. I would call my doctor if I heard voices again. Yes, I understand their fear." So he's very understanding. Yeah. And he's very clear that what he did was wrong and doesn't do it again, which is why I was feeling conflicted reading this interview. Because again, my initial thing is, well, they've already done it once. Somebody has lost their life. It's a risk to put them in society. Whoa. So keep them in. But you can see, at least from this,
00:33:22
Speaker
He seems to sincerely regret it and to have been like he's more mentally there now. Well, he's asked, some say the RCMP should have killed you that night. Lee says, I should have been killed at that time. I still believe that, but I am thankful that the RCMP didn't. Yeah. And again, he did ask them, please kill me.
00:33:47
Speaker
which tells me too that even at the time he knew that what he was doing was wrong because he said, I'm guilty, please kill me. So even at that time, even though he was doing with schizophrenia and he didn't realize that that's what it was, he still knew that what he had done was wrong and was worthy of death.
00:34:09
Speaker
they get on the bus. Did he let them off? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you which part, when the three guys came on or when the police got there. When the police got there because I know they're at a standstill for several hours. They did not actually get on the bus. He broke out of a window and then they apprehended him. Was he trying to get away from them or had his like delusions slipped? I know. I think he was going to run
00:34:33
Speaker
but they were surrounding the bus. Fair point if you know that you're guilty. Let's see. He asked, what is schizophrenia? And Lee does say that it is having delusions or hearing voices and that you don't know what is real. He said, I need to take medication on time. Again, this is where I'm like, so many variables could happen and maybe even variables that aren't in his control.
00:35:02
Speaker
He's asked, do you believe you should be under a treatment order? He says, I should be here. I should be under a treatment order. And then he's asked, if you ever got out of Selkirk Mental Health Center, what would you do? He says, I hope to leave one day, but I have to make sure it wouldn't happen again. That there would be no voices. I would change my name to be anonymous, but I would still be in touch with my doctor.
00:35:30
Speaker
And then he's asked, what do you think of Tim's law that any mentally insane person who kills someone would never be released? He said, I don't think so that that should happen. Mental illness is an illness. It is treatable. My schizophrenia is not the real me, but it is an illness. And again, there's human empathy for that. Yeah. But again, he's not in there because of his mental illness. He's in there because he killed someone. But he killed someone because of his mental illness.
00:36:02
Speaker
yeah but again i don't know this is where i'm torn because you have the action i don't know it's it's a very difficult thing to to say um because you can you can essentially go around in circles well he killed someone even though he had he had a mental illness but not everyone's mental illness kills somebody but he wouldn't have killed would he have killed someone had he not had a mental illness and
00:36:30
Speaker
I don't know. Part of me is like, what if there was an option for them to be independent in society, but they still stay in a mental facility or they're still closely monitored enough that if they were to start slipping, it would be noticeable more quickly before someone was in danger. Like they have. They live in the facility and then someone goes with them into society or? I guess, or they can go into society. Clearly he's functioning in society.
00:36:59
Speaker
He's been released since what, 2017 or 18? 17. He's not reoffended. So I don't know. It's interesting. Oh, Kaylee.
00:37:17
Speaker
Read what he said under the question, how would you know you were getting sick again? I was literally saying, hearing voices stopping my medication and starting to believe in aliens. God would not tell me to do something bad. And that is true. As a Christian, one of the things
00:37:32
Speaker
There used to be this kind of gotcha, I'm not getting into liberal versus conservative politics. That's not my deal. This is not a politics podcast. But I remember when I was a teenager, there was this question that I saw, I think on Twitter or something, where it was, I will ask Christians when I meet them because they were an atheist. And I don't really like when people try to bully other people for their beliefs, regardless of what they believe. There's one thing to be said about fair discourse and discussing your beliefs respectfully.
00:38:01
Speaker
and then trying to bait someone into being angry or admitting that their belief system is flawed. I feel like that's unkind. But the question was, I ask Christians, if God told you to kill me, would you do it? And then they're forced to evaluate that they're either A, I think the exact phrase is they're not completely suckered by their religion or that they would kill someone for their religion.
00:38:30
Speaker
And this is a change that we can probably edit out. But Christianity, one of the core beliefs of that is that God would not ask you to do something wrong and God says murder is wrong. Right. And you can go into the semantics of the Bible and specific instances of the Bible, but it's not a justifiable homicide to just kill someone for your own reasons. And God will never tell you to kill someone in his name. Yeah. That ain't how it works.
00:38:55
Speaker
And historically, Christians, when things were done against them, like, for example, thinking back to Rome, they didn't fight back. There were so many people slaughtered in the Colosseum and stuff because they just wouldn't fight back. Yep. So if anyone ever kills someone and says, oh, God told me to do it or I'm doing it for my religion, that isn't how God tells you to operate within the bounds of your religion. And that should always be shamed and should always, always, always, every Christian should always say, that is wrong. That is not what God tells you to do. And that is my thoughts on that.
00:39:27
Speaker
And he says, mine thus saith the Lord. Um, let's see. How do you feel about what you are reading in the newspapers? Lee says, I don't read the papers because I don't want to be reminded of what happened on the Greyhound bus because it was so bad and wrong. He's asked, are you happy? He simply says, no. He's asked, will you ever be happy? He said, no, I can never forget the Greyhound bus.
00:39:49
Speaker
He has then asked any final thoughts. Lee says, I would like to say to Tim McLean's mother, I am sorry for killing your son. I am sorry for the pain I have caused. I wish I could reduce that pain. Wow. Somerville offered this, this is verbatim from the article. Somerville, or the interviewer, offered this take on his May 19 meeting with Lee. As we ended the interview, I could see the moisture in Mr. Lee's eyes. It is remarkable the insight Mr. Lee has.
00:40:16
Speaker
It is even more remarkable the positive effects of the medication up to 25% of people who will have a psychotic break with reality will never experience another psychotic episode. Which me reading that up to 25%. So that still leaves 75% who could. Yeah, that's still not the greatest number.
00:40:36
Speaker
But I also was a little bothered by this because it felt like and maybe it was just the way they wrote the article or the way Somerville was like communicating with the news. But I felt like at the end of the day, it kind of turned into this ad for like the success of the treatment at the health center and the success of education and schizophrenia is not a bad thing, which again, none of that was ever the point. The point was how do you handle someone who's killed somebody?
00:41:01
Speaker
I think they're differently because they've had a mental illness, but I feel like he kind of used it as a success story for Oh, look at how well this treatment is working. And oh, not all schizophrenics are bad. I think there was a couple of different takes I think the interviewers take versus
00:41:15
Speaker
the articles take is a bit different, but another part of this says up to 65% will experience a degree of recovery in order to live a meaningful life, or meaning, to live a meaning life. 10% will take their life by suicide due to the losses associated with schizophrenia. Of the 300,000 people in Canada who live with some form of schizophrenia, the vast majority leave quiet, law-abiding lives hoping for some quality of life. People living with schizophrenia are more likely to be victims of violence rather than being perpetrators of violence.
00:41:44
Speaker
Schizophrenia is treatable for recovery as possible. Which I think there's two arguments. One is that you cannot recover from this. And what any other is, even if you've recovered, how do you deserve to be punished? Right. And that's where I'm conflicted on. And again, I think it's a case by case basis. If someone has a history of mental illness, and then they have a psychotic break because they refuse to stay on top of their medication, and then they have a psychotic break.
00:42:14
Speaker
I would say, I would say you knew that was going to happen. But at the same time, people with mental illnesses don't like to take their medication because half the time when they're on the medication, they talk themselves into being like, Oh, I don't need this anymore. I'm fine. So, and then I think whatever somebody with a mental illness does something like this, there's a sphere of other people who have the same mental illness that they will forever be lumped in with that person.
00:42:45
Speaker
So I think there's also some pushback to say this is not the reality for everyone with schizophrenia. So let's try and defend this person. So other people with schizophrenia don't have to suffer any of the effects of this person's actions. So I don't know. Well, that's where we go out of the realm of justice and we go into the court of just public opinion. Yeah, it's a sensitive issue because I think it'd be completely insensitive of me to say, well, it doesn't really matter. He should be.
00:43:15
Speaker
If he's recovered, he should just be allowed to go free because Tim McLean did lose his life. Yeah. In one article I was reading, someone was saying that it's a very sad story, but that the justice system shouldn't be used just so that the victim's families can have vengeance, which I agree. The justice system is not about vengeance, but it is supposed to be about justice and about actions and consequences. And if you commit this act,
00:43:44
Speaker
A consequence of equal weight needs to happen to you. But like you said, there is also nuance. Like somebody accidentally running into someone with their car is different than somebody who purposefully plows into someone to kill them. Right. But that is also why we have different things about, you know, done with intent or done without intent. And this act was done with intent. And at the time he said, I'm guilty.
00:44:07
Speaker
Please kill me." So like he knew it was wrong, but he also, from what we can tell, was not entirely in control of himself. So it is hard. Yeah, I think a consequence of equal weight is going to have to go back to the action, not the result, if that makes any sense.
00:44:32
Speaker
Where was your action intentional homicide? Or was it unintentional homicide? And I think it's easy for me to say it because I'm not related to Tim McLean in any way or part of that situation. But sometimes justice is not fair. And it would be easier to enact vengeance and say, well, you took this from me, therefore,
00:45:02
Speaker
you should be locked up for the rest of your life because of this. So it's hard to balance what the appropriate course of action is. And I don't think, quite frankly, I don't think I'm education enough to say what I think should be done. Part of me feels like it's unfair that he took a life and is now free to live his life. But I think part of his consequence is that clearly he will suffer with that for the rest of his life. Yeah.
00:45:31
Speaker
And even though he changed his name, a news outlet gave his new name. So like it's not complete anonymity either unless he changed it again. So people can still find out who he is. So I don't know. Carol Didelli, the one, she was trying to get changes to the no, not criminally responsible laws. Her thing, Tim's law that she was trying to get signatures for did not go through.
00:45:57
Speaker
She wasn't able to get enough support for it. So as of right now in Canada, none of that has changed. So regardless of people's views on it, it will still stay the same where if they cannot be deemed to have understood what they did, like they're not held criminally responsible for it. I think this is something that'll just have to be left in all his hands. But it's always going to be an interesting question or a good question of where does mental illness play.
00:46:23
Speaker
in the scope of culpability so at what point do you say no that doesn't fly you still get to have this consequence even though you weren't mentally cognizant or you weren't understanding your actions at the time yeah and at what point does understanding of your actions kick in because this is stupid and i cannot remember what show it was on it was
00:46:51
Speaker
a law show where this teacher, let's just say she was doing something very wrong during a psychotic, like a mental break, and she'd come out of it and she wouldn't act from those thoughts and she was in her right mind. In the court case, she was not found guilty for what she did while she was under like the mental break. But she was found guilty because between those mental breaks, she knew what she'd done was wrong. And she hid it. Okay. She was found
00:47:19
Speaker
culpable of the fact that when she was in her right mind, she understood and she went out of her way to cover that. Right. And if you know that you're doing stuff that's wrong and you can't control it, like you need to come clean and get help, otherwise you're just going to keep hurting people. Right. So, yeah. Hmm. I don't think we're going to be able to come to a clean sort of agreement with each other because I don't think either of us have an answer or like a solid answer, but we think he's right.
00:47:49
Speaker
I lean, but we do lean in different directions. I lean more toward it's not worth the risk to society. I lean more toward that it's better to go with some form of empathy. And if someone can reform, let them reform. But you're right. The risk for society could be great, especially if someone's going to be offended. So. Yeah. So I don't know. But that is the story of Tim McLean and Vince Lee.
00:48:18
Speaker
And the things that came out from that will have links down to this interview and to other articles where information can be found down below. Any other thoughts about this case? Condolences to his family. I can't imagine what his mother said about grief is very. Yeah, that was very well said. I've lost some people in my life and that feeling of the world stopping for you and then having to watch everyone else keep walking.
00:48:49
Speaker
especially when it's a completely unexpected loss like that. I felt that the sympathy I feel for her is just so high and good for her that she's able to
00:49:05
Speaker
to move forward and try and push through laws that she thinks are right. Even if I don't know, I agree with what she's pushing for, but she's sounds like she was a good mom and she's raising her son's child. Yeah, she has custody of him. She's taking care of him. And I'm glad that they have that, that he did have a son. So there's kind of that.
00:49:27
Speaker
not full healing, but some healing, some comfort. I guess I should say not healing as much as comfort after everything that happened. Yeah. So, and I just hope. Yeah, and hope.
00:49:45
Speaker
for Vincent Lee, may he never be a fan, may he stay on those medications and quite frankly, may his actions want him because even if I don't think he should be locked up forever for it, I do think that that is a weight he should carry. So, well that wraps up Tim McClan. You should say that's your case. It's fine. Moving.
00:50:12
Speaker
Into the last part of the show where we focus on things that are a little more not crime related. You have an interesting story for us. Oh my goodness. If you're not like, if you're just here for the crime, you can leave now. But, uh, we took a little break for the holidays, which was nice. My travel home for the holidays is always a bit disjointed because I live, well, I live where I live. And then I fly to where my parents live. And then we fly, or then we drive to where my mom's parents live.
00:50:42
Speaker
We see a bunch of family, so my Christmas break is always a bunch of driving or flying. And I hate flying. I specifically hate takeoff and landing, but I have an anxious spirit. And I just don't like it. So whenever I travel anywhere, I always have the spirit of I'm going to panic about this. And usually by the time I'm in the air on a plane, I'm OK. But when I was flying home,
00:51:12
Speaker
I was flying back home from my parents house and I was really anxious the entire way. And then I got on the plane and usually when we level out, my anxiety disappears. For some reason that day it did not, which after about being in the air for about 20 minutes, I had just gotten, you know, like my diet coke from the
00:51:38
Speaker
What are you calling this? Like the stewardess, the flight attendant. I just got in my like pack of cookies and Diet Coke and the pilot said over the air, like the intercom, we'd heard a message about turbulence a few minutes before. And then the pilot came over the intercom and said, um, please take your seats. And like, oh crap. And the plane did shake a little bit, but the next thing I know, there's like the smell in the air of like burning rubber.
00:52:09
Speaker
and then the oxygen mask dropped down from the plane like the red plane thing in its speaker just starts telling us all to don our oxygen masks and then like it just kept moving the same thing over and over and it's just like
00:52:26
Speaker
You know, put on, I can't remember what it was, it was like, put on your oxygen mask, like, secure yours when we're helping others. Put on your oxygen mask. And I was on this plane and I expected, for some reason, my first thought was, oh, this is an error. But then I turned around and like everyone's scrambling to get their mask on. And I turned and the flight attendant is just sitting there chilling, wearing hers, also looking very concerned. And so,
00:52:55
Speaker
We end up wearing the oxygen mask for about 20 minutes and then I look out the window and the plane starts to tilt very violently and we're going down fairly quickly. It didn't feel like a crash, but it definitely felt like an extremely rapid descent. And so I just thought, I'm going to die. This is it. I do not get to go into the new year, dead on New Year's Eve.
00:53:22
Speaker
They forgot it in this way. Didn't have gotten on this plane. And the entire plane smelled like burnt rubber. As after about 20 minutes of wearing the masks, they tell us the pilot comes over the loudspeaker and says, we have dropped below 10,000 feet. You can now take off your oxygen masks. We hope to have more information for you soon. So essentially the rapid plane tilting.
00:53:48
Speaker
They were trying to get below an altitude where we did not have to wear the masks anymore. But essentially they told us a door sensor had gone off. Um, and then I read an article after the fact where we were having cabin pressure issues, which I forgot to include this part. Before the mask dropped down, my ears started to pop so severely badly. Like it hurt very badly and I had a pretty good pain tolerance, but I thought my eardrum had exploded.
00:54:18
Speaker
That's nice. But it's because we were losing cabin pressure. So that day, I found out. And then we had to circle the airport before we could land. It's like a quote unquote burn fuel. And I'm like, good, sir. I think we're all going to die. I look over in the lady and say, the sweet old lady, I'm sitting next to the plane who had offered me a piece of gum. She is reading a devotional on her phone and like, this is it.
00:54:44
Speaker
So go out reading her devotion and I'll be praying. Like I'm going to open my eyes mid prayer and I'm like, Oh, there's Jesus. But drama aside, we made a safe landing. Um, and then we're stranded in an airport for several hours and then we just get back on another freaking plane and fly to our final destination. But that would have been like, no, thanks. I'm walking.
00:55:08
Speaker
For the rest of my life. Had I not been like seven hours away from where I needed to go, I think it was 11 hours. It was pretty far. I would have just rented a car and been like, I'm driving. Ridiculous. Cause I picked an early flight so I could get back home on the 31st, have an entire afternoon to like grocery shop, get my stuff together. And then I had the first off of work. So.
00:55:34
Speaker
terrible but you made it back that was my positive uplifting thought huh uplifting because my plane wouldn't fly get it thought for the week was um airline travel is not my friend anymore because i'm like a week later that alaskan airline plane like plane had a door get ripped off so i don't know what how well they're doing to these planes but fix them they broken
00:55:58
Speaker
Anyway. That was a terrible way to tell that story. No, that was entertaining. Dramatic. What is your positive uplifting thought for the day? I didn't really do official New Year's resolutions this year. I just had like one, which was my church does this Bible reading plan, and I've always started it and never finished it. So I'm like, this year is the year I finish it. And so far, I have been on track. Now granted, it's only two weeks.
00:56:27
Speaker
Into the new year, but I have not given up yet. So I'm like, hey, this is pretty good I've had to do some ketchup days, but I've been staying on track and I was like man It's so nice just have one teeny tiny goal because then I'm like I can fit that one I don't need to have all these resolutions. Just one little one. There you go. So I like that That's good
00:56:50
Speaker
We're starting off our new year with a plethora of decisions that need to be made. Yeah, I'm avoiding all of the big decisions in my life. I need just one little resolution. This is something that's going to feel like an accomplishment every day. That's a good plan. Yeah. Yeah, the future is very ambiguous right now, which is both exciting and terrifying. I love ambiguity. But we're going to do our best to give you a semi consistent
00:57:16
Speaker
upload because that's what we do best is semi-consistency. We're very good at that. Next week will be my case and we'll be going over the kidney Genovese case and that is a case that is well known because
00:57:37
Speaker
It is one of the first cases that really got into what is the bystander effect. So it's very, very, it's a tragic story, but it's a very, very interesting thing to look at in like how it started the bystander effect and how that's been referenced for years and how the fact has been referenced maybe down to actually bad journalism instead of actual bystander effect. Interesting. We'll get into all that next week.
00:58:06
Speaker
All right. I'm looking for it. Well, obviously it's going to be sad, but I am looking forward to talking about the bystander effect and all of those things. Not so much the case itself. Okay. Well, hopefully next week we'll have more we can agree on. Until then, be aware. Take care. And we'll see you next week. Goodbye. Bye.