EDMONTON – On the eve of the funeral for their son, who was beheaded last week as he slept a Greyhound Bus, the parents of Tim McLean are breaking their silence.
“I hope, however the funeral goes down, it’s done with respect to Tim, that we are allowed to lay him to rest,” said Tim Dedelly, McLean’s stepfather, in a telephone interview. He said the days since learning of Tim’s death have been a blur.
“We’re trying to deal what happened here. We haven’t even had a chance to mourn yet,” he said.
McLean’s mother, Carol Dedelly, said she’s frustrated by much of what has been written and said about her 22-year-old son’s death – from sensational headlines and gory details to bogus claims about the circumstances of the unprovoked killing.
Those would include some of McLean’s friends, who justice officials say “cooked up” a story that suggested McLean was travelling with a female friend from Edmonton, and that she spent time chatting with Li before the attack. Although the friend does exist, she never was on the bus and the story was false.
Dedelly also feels some people have been critical of the family’s silence while so many others have been grieving publicly.
“I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth. And I need to honour my son in this way (by speaking out),” she said.
McLean was known as a “free spirit” with a big heart and passion for travelling the country while working at various summer fairs and carnivals.
The couple said they are taking a “wait-and-see” approach to the case against Vincent Li, the 40-year-old Chinese immigrant accused of randomly attacking, stabbing and decapitating McLean in front of three dozen other passengers and stunned RCMP officers.
“A psychological report hasn’t even been done yet (on Li),” said Tim Dedelly.
They will be following the court proceedings closely but don’t want to make any comments on Li at this time.
Get daily National news
New details are slowly emerging about Li’s recent past.
His employer, Vincent Augert, told the Winnipeg Free Press on Thursday how Li’s erratic behaviour at a recent company picnic might have been a disturbing sign of things to come.
Li was one of about 250 newspaper carriers who showed up for the annual summer thank-you event on June 29 – just a month before the bus attack on McLean.
Augert said he caught Li standing alone near a newspaper vending machine that was being used as a target for a children’s game that day.
Li was hunched over, a blank look on his face, tilting his head and staring through the glass into the empty machine.
“It was very strange. He was looking at it the way you’d expect a three-year-old would do,” Augert recalled Thursday. “I went up to him and said “˜Vince, it’s just a newspaper vending machine. You know, you put money in it and get papers.’ “
Li continued to display a childlike wonderment. Augert moved on, greeting others at the party, while Li quietly slipped away and left shortly after.
Was it a sign of a serious mental illness, which some who knew Li have suggested he was suffering from, and may have contributed to the deadly unprovoked attack?
Augert said the incident was the first time he started wondering about Li’s mental health. Until then, he’d been a model employee known for being efficient, well-dressed and able to juggle multiple paper routes without confusion.
“He was a good guy. I respected him, he respected me,” said Augert.
Li was suffering marital problems, which some former acquaintances believe are connected to his refusal to get help for mental problems that may include paranoid schizophrenia. Li left his wife in Winnipeg about two years ago and bolted for Edmonton.
The woman recently followed him west and they’d been living together.
Now there’s growing speculation that Li may have been suffering financial problems. He reportedly sold a laptop computer to a western Manitoba teen last week for $60 in an attempt to get money for bus fare.
Several patrons of an Edmonton casino said Wednesday that Li was often seen gambling at the establishment – usually playing card games.
Meanwhile, outraged Winnipeg residents rallied Thursday to protect McLean’s family from a posse of radical U.S. religious protesters planning to portray Tim McLean’s death as God’s wrath.
Earlier this week, the Westboro Baptist Church – an organization branded as a hate group and infamous for protesting the funerals of slain American soldiers – announced they would picket McLean’s funeral to let Canadians know that his decapitation was God’s response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and adultery.
But Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the church’s founder, Fred Phelps, said a small group of protesters was stopped at the Canada-U.S. border Thursday afternoon.
“They won’t let us in, but we have a group that will cross in another spot,” she said. “They’ll have to strip-search everyone who crosses that border or they won’t know who we are. They’ll have to see the WBC (Westboro Baptist Church) tattoo on our butts.”
Winnipeg NDP MP Pat Martin said his office was flooded with phone calls Thursday from angry Winnipeggers.
“These people (from Westboro) are almost as crazy as the murderer,” he said. “If they are here to disrupt the social order, that constitutes grounds to deny them entry. There is no redeeming virtue in the message they are bringing.”
According to Martin, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day’s office sent an alert to border patrol to “look out” for people with signs and pamphlets that fit the hateful messages the church promotes, and to keep them out of the country.
“In the opinion of his office, coming up here with the message they’re articulating constitutes hate speech,” said Martin.
Li’s background is now being scrutinized by police, justice officials and a Winnipeg psychologist ordered by the court to complete a forensic assessment over the next month. There will also be plenty of focus on his years spent in China before immigrating to Canada in 2001.
RCMP are still tight-lipped about reports from Li’s wife that he spent four days in an unidentified psychiatric facility.
Li returns to court Sept. 8 on a charge of second-degree murder.
With files from Paul Gackle, Winnipeg Free Press
Comments