Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.
This was a terrible and most odd story. What is the world coming to?
Terrified passengers on a Greyhound Canada bus travelling on the
Trans-Canada Highway stood by helpless Thursday as a man repeatedly stabbed and then beheaded a young fellow passenger.The attack shocked the other 35
passengers on board, some of which were children, including one just six years
old, as it appeared to spring from nowhere.
The man responsible appeared normal
and had been sharing a cup of tea at a stop prior to going into a stabbing
frenzy. He had boarded the bus about an hour before the attack.The youth
attacked, who appeared to witnesses to be about 19, was sleeping at the time. It
is not known if the two knew each other, but first indications are that it was a
random attack.The Greyhound bus was driving west of Portage la Prairie, in
Manitoba on Wednesday night when the attack occurred.'There was a bloodcurdling
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 Canadian TV network, CBC.
'It was like something between a dog howling and a baby crying, I guess you
could say,' Caton said. 'I don't think it will leave me for a while.'
The bus jerked to a halt when the stabbing commenced. Passengers then fled the bus before returning to block the exit of the attacker. A truck driver stopped and
lent assistance.Caton, the bus driver, and the trucker re-boarded the bus to
check on the victim."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," Caton
told CBC.The attacker ran at them, Caton said, and they ran out of the bus,
holding the door shut as he tried to slash at the trio.When the attacker tried
to drive the bus away, the driver disabled the vehicle, he said."While we were
watching the door, he 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,"
said Caton.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police crisis teams, including negotiators,
negotiated with the suspect, believed to be a 40-year-old man, for several hours
while he was on the bus. Around 1:30am he attempted to jump from a bus window
and was subdued and arrested, the RCMP said.The man is now in the custody of the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Manitoba, an RCNP spokesman said. The spokesman
said he had yet to be charged.The bus was travelling from Edmonton, Alberta, to
Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was about 45 minutes from its destination when the
attack occurred, Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh in Dallas, Texas
said.Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said that like most
Canadians, he was horrified to hear witness accounts of the homicide."The
horrific nature of it is probably one of a kind in Canadian history," he told
reporters late Thursday morning in Levis, Que.Greyhound Canada is the largest
provider of intercity bus transportation in Canada, serving nearly 700
communities and facilitating 1,000 daily departures across the country.
