Suspect sold laptop to Erickson boy

Vince Li, the accused in the Greyhound bus beheading of Tim McLean appears in a Portage La Prairie court on Tuesday, August 5, 2008. (John Woods / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Some thought he was just a traveler passing through town -- a man who had missed the bus on his way to the next stop.

But to others in the small town of Erickson, Vince Weiguang Li, the man accused in the Greyhound bus beheading of Tim McLean, gave off bad vibes.

People in Erickson are now talking about the stranger who spent the day in the their town - the day before a savage on a Greyhound bus left a 22-year-old man decapitated, and Vince Li charged with the murder.

Fifteen year-old Darren Beatty met Li when he was in town.

The man was selling his computer for $600. Beatty eventually agreed to pay him just $60.

"[He was] really relaxed with his bags sitting up against him," the teen told CTV News. "Nobody around here wants to buy a laptop from somebody for $600, so when I told him $60, and I got it, I was pretty excited."

But the excitement soon faded.

When the RCMP showed up at his house, the boy realized he had bought the laptop from the accused killer in an internationally infamous crime.

His mother's reaction was, of course, obvious.

"I was horrified," said Dorothy Beatty. "I was shocked. It could've been him (Darren)."

Investigators asked Darren how the man acted -- was he angry or agitated?

"Darren said no," said Dorothy. "He just seemed like a normal nice kind of guy."

Police seized Beatty's new laptop as evidence.

Other people in the community near Riding Mountain, like David Dauphanais, came away with a different impression.

"I had a bad feeling about it," he said. "So I came down and checked the store around three o'clock in the morning, and this gentleman was sitting there in front of the Co-op -- just sitting straight upright -- at three in the morning."

Beatty said e-mails on the computer were written in Chinese, so they tried to use an internet translator to read them.

One e-mail talked about the beauty of his new country, but also of guilt in leaving his homeland years before.

Li appeared in court on Tuesday in Portage la Prairie, where a judge ordered Li undergo a psychiatric evaluation. That process will start Thursday.

None of the allegations against Li have been proven in court and he still has not entered a plea to the charge against him. His next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 8.

With a full report from CTV's Kelly Dehn.