B.C. friends remember slain bus passenger as 'always smiling'
Last Updated: Friday, August 1, 2008 | 9:11 PM PT
CBC News
Tim McLean, shown in a photo taken from his MySpace page, was heading home to Winnipeg when he became the victim of a horrific slaying on a Greyhound bus. A young man brutally killed aboard a Greyhound bus travelling through Manitoba overnight Thursday had spent two summers working in Vancouver and was talking about plans to move to B.C., friends said.
Police have not confirmed the identity of the man stabbed to death, and then beheaded according to witnesses, but court documents name him as Timothy McLean, 22, of Winnipeg. Friends have also confirmed McLean was the victim.
RCMP have said only that a stabbing took place around 8:30 p.m. CT on an eastbound Greyhound bus on the Trans-Canada Highway about 20 kilometres west of Portage la Prairie.
'To take away that life, you're taking away a little bit of everybody's life.'— Teisha Ryley, friend of Tim McLean in Vancouver
McLean's friends in Vancouver told CBC News on Friday that he planned to arrive in the city in mid-August to work again this year at the annual Pacific National Exhibition.
"I worked with him in 2006 at the PNE and last summer at the PNE," Teisha Ryley said.
The PNE is one of the biggest summer events in B.C. and employs the largest number of youth in the province. The fair runs this year from Aug. 16 to Sept. 1.
Ryley said the horror of what happened still hasn't sunk in.
Trisa, left, and Teisha Ryley say Tim McLean was always smiling and would get the attention of all the girls. (CBC) "I didn't know who it was. I was disgusted to hear that and then this morning to know that it was somebody that I worked with and it was somebody that I was close with, I was really sick to my stomach," she said.
She said McLean manned the darts and the rollerball game at the PNE last year.
"He was always smiling. He loved little kids and he would always get the attention from, of course, all the girls," Ryley said.
Another friend McLean met first in Edmonton and then in Vancouver said because McLean was short every one called him "little Timmy."
On McLean's MySpace page, under the name JoKAwiLd, he describes himself as five-foot-five, weighing about 125 pounds.
"He wanted to move out here. He kept telling us, 'Only three more weeks until I get to see you guys,'" said Trisa, who declined to give her last name.
Trisa said she worked with McLean at the Calgary Stampede in July of last year and then at the PNE in Vancouver later in the summer.
"If I was in a bad mood and didn't get much sleep because we worked long hours, he would just walk up and brighten the mood every day," Trisa said.
The pair said that when the PNE starts this year his friends will be holding a memorial.
"To take away that life you're taking away a little bit of everybody's life," Ryley said of McLean.
RCMP announced Friday morning that they had charged Vince Weiguang Li, 40, with second-degree murder. Police said he has no previous criminal record.
