Gruesome crime shocks Greek isle
By Malcolm Brabant
BBC News, Athens

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Police on the Greek island of Santorini have shot and injured a knifeman who decapitated his girlfriend and walked around the streets with her head.

Terrified residents of the popular tourist island barricaded themselves into their homes and called the police.

The suspect, 35, was shot during a dramatic car chase in which he crashed into a motorbike and badly injured the rider and pillion passenger.

The crime is one of the most gruesome in Greece in recent memory.

Ricochet

The man reportedly beheaded his girlfriend, a teacher in her mid-to-late 20s, in the village of Vourvoulos, close to the island's capital, Thira, and then paraded with the head.

Speaking on Greek television, the local sub-prefect said the man attacked officers who tried to arrest him and slashed one policeman in the face.

The man threw the head into a patrol car and then stole a police jeep and tried to get away.

But after 400m the suspect slammed into a motorbike carrying two female doctors.

They were thrown into the air and badly hurt.

The police then opened fire and hit the alleged knifeman five times.

According to one eyewitness, one police bullet ricocheted off the road and hit a woman in the leg and jaw.

The suspect is said to have a history of jealousy and domestic violence.

The authorities say they are organising a military aircraft to fly the man and some of those he injured to undergo emergency surgery in Athens

The daughter of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Ka., told CTV.ca she and several other church members will go to Winnipeg on Saturday to demonstrate against what she described as McLean's "filthy way of life." Shirley Phelps-Roper said his life was emblematic of Canada's moral decay.

"God handed us a gift," Phelps-Roper said in a phone interview on Thursday.

She said McLean deserved his death by beheading on a Greyhound Bus last week.

"(His death was) supremely unemotional. You got God shaking in rage. There is no emotional component ... He was a rebel against God. He was taught to be a rebel by his parents. He came from a rebel country ... They brought this wrath upon his head. And it sucks to be him and it sucks to be them," Phelps-Roper said.

She said his brutal murder was a sign from God.

"You gotta connect the dots, people ... from your idols to your filthy way of life," she said.

"Here's what I know. He is dead and God does not do that to people that serve in his truth."

Phelps-Roper described McLean -- who she had never met -- in an insulting, insensitive and graphic manner. Her crudest descriptions of the 22-year-old are not printed.

"I haven't met him personally, but he has nothing going on," she said dismissively.

"(His life) was all about him. Blah, blah, blah ... He was a rebel ... I don't need to know anything else ... I don't need to know the minutia. Everything you need to know is right there."

The Westboro Baptist church has gained notoriety in recent years for setting up protest pickets at the funerals of U.S. soldiers who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Church members claim the deaths are part of God's wrath against Americans for turning their back on his teachings. They have repeatedly called the U.S. a "fag" nation, a phrase Phelps-Roper used repeatedly to describe Canada.

Phelps-Roper said she does not mind that her family is reviled by the majority of Americans. She claimed she rejoices when people say they despise and hate her family.

"I say, 'cha ching.' That goes in our bank. God gives us tokens of his love," she said.

Phelps-Roper said members of the Westboro Baptist Church, which numbers about "70 souls," is comprised mainly of a single extended family.

McLean was killed on July 30 after being stabbed repeatedly on a Greyhound bus by a complete stranger. He was then beheaded.

Vince Li, 40, has been charged with second-degree murder. A psychiatric evaluation has been ordered for Li.