Security upgrades allow Li to go for walk

"TuavDan" said
Mentally fucked or not! To spend all this extra money on him, what a waste. He only needs a 10 X 10 cage to walk around. Have the family's needs in dealing with this, been taken care of! Sorry, but lets prevent something like this from happening again (lock hom up again, for good and feed him his medicines.

The couple immigrated to Canada in 2001. Li and Ana's new life in Canada was typical of the kind of experience many immigrants face -- over-educated and under-employed. Despite having a post-secondary education, Li was never able to find more than menial jobs. Over a four-year period, Li worked at a McDonald's restaurant, then at a warehouse as a general labourer. He would eventually take a position as a custodian at Grant Memorial Baptist Church, where he also worshipped.

In 2004, Li's life began to take a turn for the worse. Li told psychiatrists he began to hear voices. Ana noted that in the summer of 2004, Li would go several days without sleep or food. "He cried a lot and told me he saw God and I thought he was so tired so I bought him sleeping pills from Shoppers Drug Mart but that didn't work too well."

Ana said Li admitted he was hearing voices. Li recalled that in those early days of his illness, the voices provided him with "direction and guidance." Friends urged her to get Li to a doctor as soon as possible but Ana said Li was stubborn and fearful of Western medicine. "When he doesn't agree with people, he doesn't listen, even to me, and I'm important in his life."

Stress on the marriage culminated in the spring of 2005 and the couple separated in March. Shortly after that event, Li moved to Thompson.
Li would later claim that he left for the north because he wanted to buy land, but upon arriving in Thompson, he realized he had no money and took a job. Over the next four months, he worked at the Thompson Wal-Mart performing overnight maintenance.

He returned to Winnipeg in June 2005, where he pumped gas for Domo and worked part time at Tim Hortons. It was during this period that he suffered his first mental breakdown.

In September 2005, again without warning, Li set off for Toronto. "I thought it would be easy to find a job in Toronto," Li recalled. "I failed to find a job, then God's voice told me to go back to Winnipeg. I'm not sure if God's voice told me to walk back, so I started walking on the highway; I threw out my luggage after God told me to do that."

Ana would receive a call from police in September 2005 indicating that Li had been picked up walking along Highway 427 north of Toronto, completely disoriented and appearing as if he had not eaten or slept in several days. He was taken to a psychiatric facility in west Toronto. Doctors suggested Li remain in the facility for at least a month for a full psychiatric assessment.

The circumstances surrounding Li's release from the Toronto hospital are unclear. Li claimed he "escaped" and there is no discharge note on his chart. It is now believed he refused treatment and left against the advice of his doctor. He was prescribed medication for his condition, but he was never formally diagnosed with a mental disorder.

Upon his return from Toronto, Ana said Li "looked horrible, so skinny, like a homeless person." Li asked Ana to buy him a one-way ticket to China.

In China, Li's parents sent him to a physician who, his father recalled, declared that he was fit. Despite this, his father indicated Li was irritable and combative. Li could not find steady work in China because it seemed he could not do any one job for more than a few days. Ana would rejoin Li in China for a short time, but only to divorce him. She later returned to Canada.

Li would return to Canada about one month after his wife, taking up residence in Toronto. Ana received several emotional calls from her ex-husband, in which he expressed great sadness at the dissolution of their marriage. He also complained he couldn't find work. She invited him to live with her, which he did.

Less than a year later, however, Li moved to Edmonton. Ana told psychiatrists that several weeks after he went West, she learned he had not been able to find a job and had been living in his car. She sent him money and then moved to be with him in July 2007. During this period, Ana said Li seemed reasonably happy, working at Wal-Mart and delivering newspapers.

In the summer of 2008, his state of mind rapidly deteriorated. Li purchased a plane ticket and returned to China to see his family but stayed only one day. Li's father said his son claimed to be visiting to "find a wife."

Back in Edmonton, Li continued his descent into mental anguish. In late July 2008, returning home from a graveyard shift, Ana found a note from Li: "Don't look for me. I wish you were happy." Ana was not initially worried. "When he felt stressed, he went somewhere for a few days and then came back."

Two days later, Li called Ana to tell her he was leaving again, which angered her. "I thought we were a couple, the most important people in each other's lives, and even though I'm also not a people person, I opened up to him and didn't have any secrets from him, but he didn't open up to me and I was so mad and thought, 'why do I always have to be here waiting for you?' I asked him what he wanted and he said he'd call me after he settled down, nothing else."

Later that morning, Ana went to the parking lot of her apartment building and saw Li's car. "I panicked, because he loves his car and always took it with him when he went away for a few days, so I had a bad feeling and thought something would happen."

On July 30, Ana was contacted by the RCMP just before her night shift started and told that Li had been arrested in Manitoba.