Beheader’s mental condition in his Winnipeg years was worse than previously reported

Paul Nachman and I, pooling our efforts, have found no new substantive information on the Web tonight about the background of Vince Weiguang Li. The prominent conservative publications and blogs have still not touched the story. Even Michelle Malkin has not touched it. Almost all the links turned up in a Google search for **vince li beheaded muslim**, or even, more generally, just for **vince li beheaded**, are to obscure blogs. The only new thing we found was an expansion on what Li’s friends in Winnipeg had told the National Post in an August 2 article that I had linked and discussed here. The fuller picture of LI’s days in Winnipeg is in an August 3 article in the Winnipeg Free Press by Mike McIntyre and James Turner, which Mr. Nachman found linked at the Wikipedia article on the murder of Tim McLean. As I was reading the Winnipeg Free Press piece, I thought it was strangely similar to the National Post article, yet also markedly different. Then I realized that the WFP piece is a more pointed and revealing version of the same article that was published in the NP, which is also by McIntyre and Turner. Apparently McIntyre and Turner write for both the CanWest News service, to which the NP subscribes, and directly for the WFP.

In the NP version, Li is described as a “lost soul,” who sometimes imagines that people are out to get him. In the WFP version, Li is described as suffering ffrom “mental illness,” as schizophrenic,” and in a state of “constant paranoia.” Troubles in his marriage are mentioned that were left out of the NP version.

Below are excerpts from the two articles showing the much more vivid and pointed statements in the Winnipeg Free Press article. First, the National Post:

Life appeared to be very good for the new Canadian.

Yet, those who got to know Vince Weiguang Li well soon saw something else.

“He was kind of a lost soul. It was as if he was always looking for something,” a member of a Winnipeg family that befriended Li—even having him over for Christmas dinner two years ago—told the Winnipeg Free Press on Saturday in an exclusive interview.

The woman and her family agreed to come forward with their story, but have requested anonymity, not wanting to be deluged by other news media covering a story that has made headlines around the world….

They say Li was troubled, in their opinion, but refused repeated offers to see a doctor and get help.

The family friend who works in the mental-health field said it was obvious Li was struggling.

“He needed help, but he just wouldn’t get it,” she said.

And there were the unannounced bus trips that would catch his wife by surprise—such as the time he hopped on a Greyhound headed to The Pas, Man., later explaining he wanted to look at some land he was thinking about buying.

“I don’t think he actually had any money,” the woman said.

She recalls an unusual conversation with Li shortly after he got a traffic ticket in Winnipeg.

“He started talking about how ‘they were after me, there was nothing there,’ ” the woman said.

Li and his wife Anna found a home near downtown Winnipeg shortly after coming to Canada.

He was hired as a forklift driver, while she began working several waitressing jobs at Chinese food restaurants in the city….

The woman who spoke with the Winnipeg Free Press said her father and stepmother took a liking to the couple, and began having them over for dinner and, eventually, for visits to their cottage.

“He was always a little bit quiet, kind of reserved. I think that’s because he was self-conscious about his English,” she said.

However, Li eventually warmed up to the family.

“We’d play cards together, Dominos, games like that,” she said.

However, things changed about two years ago when Li suddenly left his wife and went to Edmonton.

She stayed behind in Winnipeg—continuing to work various jobs—but recently went to Edmonton, where Li had apparently found work delivering newspapers and flyers.

Now here are the equivalent passages in the Winnipeg Free Press article. I’ve bolded the new material that does not appear in the National Post:

On the outside, life appeared to be very good for the new Canadian.

Yet those who got to know Vince Weiguang Li well soon recognized that beneath his friendly, polite exterior lurked something very troubling.

“He was kind of a lost soul. It was as if he was always looking for something,” a member of a Winnipeg family which befriended Li—even having him over for Christmas dinner two years ago—told the Free Press Saturday in an exclusive interview….

They say Li was clearly battling mental illness, but refused repeated offers to see a doctor and get help.

“I think, in their culture, (the issue of mental illness) is kind of frowned upon,” the woman said. She works in the mental health field and said it was obvious Li was struggling.

“He was definitely schizophrenic, probably paranoid schizophrenic,” she said. “He needed help but he just wouldn’t get it.”

There was the constant paranoia, a feeling that he was always being watched and that others might be out to get him.

There were his bizarre, rambling stories that seemed to come out of nowhere.

And there were the unannounced bus trips that would catch his wife by surprise—such as the time he hopped on a Greyhound headed to The Pas, later explaining that he wanted to look at some land he was thinking about buying.

“I don’t think he actually had any money. This was probably just a symptom of his disease,” the woman said.

She recalls an unusual conversation with Li shortly after he got a red-light ticket in Winnipeg. “He started talking about how ‘they were after me, there was nothing there,’ ” the woman said.

Li’s illness soon began taking a toll on his marriage….

However, things took a turn about two years ago when Li suddenly left his wife and went to Edmonton. The woman said it’s clear Li’s wife was frustrated by her husband’s erratic behaviour.

She stayed behind in Winnipeg—continuing to work various jobs—but recently moved to Edmonton where Li had apparently found work delivering newspapers and flyers.

Members of Grant Memorial church had recently spoken with Li, apparently concerned about how he and his wife were doing.

However, nobody predicted things would reach such a crisis point and climax in one of the country’s grisliest murder cases.

The woman predicts Li will finally now get the help he needs—far too late for the victim and everyone else impacted by the crime.

“There’s no way he’s going behind bars. He’s going to end up in a mental health facility,” she predicted.

One wonders why the National Post would have left out so many vivid observations. You would think that any mainstream media organ would want to make Li look as troubled as possible, so as to deflect attention from the Muslim angle. Or maybe the Post, as a Canadian liberal said to me, is really anti-Muslim, and so it played down the mental illness angle so as not to discredit the Muslim angle.

I repeat what I’ve said before: Since the Canadian police are going to do everything they can to cover up any possible Islamic connection to Li, and since the mainstream media, at least in the U.S., are not only uninterested in the Muslim angle but in the story itself, and since even the reporters who interviewed Li’s acquaintances in Winnipeg apparently didn’t ask about his background, including his religious background, the only way to get to the truth is for independent journalists to investigate Li’s activities and contacts in Edmonton, as well as learn something about his life in China.

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Laura G. writes:

Isn’t today the day there is an arraignment or whatever the Canadians do to start charges? Maybe something useful will start to trickle out. Me, I would be wondering where he learned those handy beheading skills (it is not all that easy to whack off a human head … it is very well attached), how many other students were in his class, where that class was held, and where the others are just now. Maybe the Canadians don’t think like that, though. In any case, keep at it. This is the most Technicolor crime in a long time, copy-catters can’t be far behind, and alarm can’t be bottled up for much longer. Frankly, it crossed my mind to wonder if the attackers in St Paul had been contemplating some similar fun. It is a certainty that if the Canadians minimize the event and fail to follow it to its source there will be more. I wonder if there has been a drop of passenger use of the buses? Or trains?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 05, 2008 02:02 AM | Send