A reader said she was shocked by the brevity of this item in this morning’s paper:
Bus killing: Greyhound has scrapped an ad campaign that extolled the relaxing upside of bus travel after one of its passengers was accused of beheading and cannibalizing another traveler last week.

The lack of details made her doubt whether the attack ever occurred. If it had, the newspaper and other media surely would have made a big deal of it.

She was unaware that two previous items on the attack had appeared in the paper. But those were almost as short.

Today’s story appeared in the world digest report, which consists of stories edited into briefs. It appeared under the heading of “briefly,” with four other really brief briefs.

All three stories that have appeared in the Post-Dispatch ran as world digest items. The first was the longest of the three:

“Police find no motive over beheading on bus”

A 40-year-old man who witnesses said stabbed and beheaded his seat mate on a Greyhound bus in Canada made his first court appearance Friday, while police offered no motive for the attack Wednesday against the 22-year-old carnival worker.

Vince Weiguang Li, of Edmonton, Alberta, has been charged with second-degree murder. Authorities say he has no criminal record. He declined to speak in court, nodding when asked if he preferred not to say anything.

What appeared today was edited from the Associated Press story below. Was our wire desk editor excessive in trimming details? (The newspaper has a finite news hole; each detail that gets in means something gets left out of another story.)

Greyhound has scrapped an ad campaign that extolled the relaxing upside of bus travel after one of its passengers was accused of beheading and cannibalizing another traveler.

The ad’s tag line was “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of ‘bus rage.’”

Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said Wednesday a billboard and some tunnel posters near a bus terminal in Toronto are still up and would be removed later in the day.

“Greyhound knows how important it is to get these removed and we are doing everything possible,” Wambaugh said. “This is something that we immediately asked to be done last week, realizing that these could be offensive.”

Vince Weiguang Li, who immigrated to Canada from China in 2004, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old carnival worker Tim McLean. He has yet to enter a plea.

Thirty-seven passengers were aboard the Greyhound from Edmonton, Alberta, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, as it traveled at night along a desolate stretch of the TransCanada Highway about 12 miles from Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. Witnesses said Li attacked McLean unprovoked, stabbing him dozens of times.

As horrified passengers fled the bus, Li severed McLean’s head, displaying it to some of the passengers outside the bus, witnesses said.

A police officer at the scene reported seeing the attacker hacking off pieces of the victim’s body and eating them, according to a police report.

Wambaugh said the ads only appeared in Canada and that some in Ontario and western Canada have already been removed. About 20,000 inserts of the Greyhound ads were scheduled to be put into an Alberta Summer Games handbook but they stopped the presses.