whoa

Children see man decapitate fellow passenger on Greyhound bus in Canada

• Elana Schor in Washington
• The Guardian,
• Friday August 1 2008
• Article history

It came out of nowhere, passengers on the Canadian Greyhound bus said. A young man was sleeping, head against the window, when the man sitting next to him began stabbing and then decapitating him as other travellers looked on in horror.

The grisly and apparently random evening attack, on a bus bound for Winnipeg, ended with police apprehending the assailant hours later.

The 37 passengers who witnessed the carnage, including several children, were left to relay their shocking tale of the man wearing sunglasses who suddenly pulled out a hunting knife.

"We heard this blood-curdling scream and turned around, and the guy was standing up, stabbing this guy sitting next to him repeatedly, like 40 or 50 times," passenger Garnet Caton told the Canadian press.

"When he was attacking him, he was calm - it was like he was at the beach," added Caton, who was sitting in front of the victim. "There was no rage or anything. He was just like a robot stabbing the guy."

The terrified passengers fled immediately, taking shelter along the side of the road as the bus driver disabled the vehicle so the attacker could not escape.

Caton and the driver soon returned to the vehicle, however, and found the assailant still hacking the young man's body into pieces.

The severed head of the victim, described as in his 20s, was then displayed to the stunned passengers.

"He went back to his seat and brought the head to the front and pretty much displayed it to us like that, and then dropped it on the ground in front of us," Caton said.

The attack took place just after 10pm outside the small town of Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. The bus originated in Edmonton, about 840 miles away from its final destination.

The Canadian mounted police took the passengers to a nearby hotel while they began an investigation.

The identities of the victim and the suspect will not be released pending the notification of family members.

Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh offered condolences to the victim's family.

The company plans to provide the witnesses with any assistance they need, including trauma counselling and transportation.

"The incident was very tragic but was an isolated event," Wambaugh said. "Bus travel has been and remains the safest mode of travel in the country."

The attack left Canadian officials grasping for explanations. Stockwell Day, the public safety minister, said the assailant should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

"This particular incident, as horrific as it is, is obviously extremely rare," Day told the Canadian press. "Certainly the horrific nature of it is probably one-of-a-kind in Canadian history."