Sleeping passenger beheaded on bus in Canada

1 August 2008

WASHINGTON – A passenger was repeatedly stabbed and then beheaded on a Greyhound Canada bus as horrified travellers watched helplessly, a witness told media Thursday.

The victim was sleeping with his head against the window, when he was attacked by the man sitting beside him.

"There was a blood-curdling scream. I was just reading my book, and all of a sudden I heard it," Garnet Caton, who was sitting in front of the two men, told CNN.

"It was like something between a dog howling and a baby crying. I don’t think it will leave me for a while," said Canton, who shouted out to the 37 passengers on board to leave the bus.

He said the assailant carried a large hunting knife, and continued stabbing his seatmate as the others fled the bus and waited for police on the highway.

Caton claims to have helped bar the bus door so the attacker couldn’t escape.

After the beheading, the attacker "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," Caton told CNN.

"There was no rage in him. It was just like he was a robot or something."

The gruesome murder took place late Wednesday west of Portage la Prairie in Manitoba, but a standoff between the attacker and police lasted into early Thursday. He was eventually taken into custody.

The bus was travelling along the Trans-Canada highway from Edmonton to Winnipeg and was about 45 minutes from its destination when the attack occurred.

[dpa / Expatica]