I grew up in a small city on the Pennsylvania/New York border. A small city where everyone knew each other; where if I stopped at the local soda spot on the way home from school, my mom just called the police station and they had the Main Street patrol officer stop and tell me that my mom was looking for me. Ya can't find that city anywhere, anymore. One of our distant, female relatives was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was in her early twenties. She'd say she heard voices telling her she needed to take her clothes off and run around town naked. The police would grab her and the medical transport would take her to the mental hospital which was about 200 miles away. She stayed there, getting electric shock treatments which were the thing back then, and some medication, until she was what us kids referred to as not crazy. She'd come back to our hometown and she'd be just fine, until---she quit taking her medication. Then she'd be back to running around town naked again. As she got older, she became violent when the police would pick her up to take her to the mental hospital and finally it took 6 officers to hold her down so they medics could give her a shot. And, then finally she quit coming back. The reason I write about this is that yesterday on the way to work there was a talk show on the radio, an interview with Tim McLean's mother. She was being interviewed because it was that time of the year again when her family had to go the parole hearing of Vince Weiguang Li, the man who murdered her son, cut him up, and ate some of him on a Greyhound bus somewhere between Edmonton, Alberta and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Tim McLean didn't know Mr. Li, he was just another passenger on the bus when Mr. Li had a schizophrenic incident. In court Mr. Li stated that voices told him that Tim McLean was a demon that had to be killed, his organs taken out, and parts of McLean were to be eaten. So Li stabbed McLean over 60 times, beheaded him, spread McLean's internal organs around the bus in plastic bags, ate some of his heart, and was eating McLean's nose and ears when police arrived. Now, Mr. Li's wife and the pastor of a church who had helped him immigrate to Canada swore in court that Mr. Li never showed any signs of schizophrenia; not even a moment of anger or the smallest emotional problem. When ask in court if he'd like a lawyer, Mr. Li's answer was to shake his head and quietly say, "please kill me." The judge had Mr. Li undergo psychiatric testing and declared him too mentally ill to stand trial. Thus, Mr. Li has been in a mental institution since this incident. And, Mrs. McLean is sentenced to go to the parole hearings and fight to keep Mr. Li off the streets. When, and if, Mr. Li is ever released, there will be no record of this incident on his record; after all, he was too insane to know right from wrong. I find it impossible to believe that Mr. Li never displayed mental illness or emotional problems before the incident on the bus. Schizophrenia is an organic disease, associated with structural anomalies in the brain; a genetic defect which starts at birth and builds in severity over time. It can not be cured, but can be controlled as long as the patient takes their medication. Once they stop taking the medicine, the symptoms reoccur. The thought that Mr. Li could one day walk out of his hospital room a free man, is not an option, in my opinion. When he walks free and stops taking his medication, it's only a matter of time before he commits the same act or one very similar; and who will be his next victim? I understand that he is mentally ill; but, he can never be cured. He will never be normal. And, the McLean family shouldn't be subjected to reliving their son's death every time the parole board meets, for the rest of their lives. Granting Mr. Li's court room request to kill him, in my opinion, would have been more humane.