Canadians’ lives cut short in Mexico

After five people from our country were killed in a powerful explosion at a Cancun resort on November 14, Global News reviews other high-profile deaths of Canadians in Mexico.

DANIEL DION

Ottawa-area businessman Daniel Dion disappeared October 22 during a business trip to Mexico. Days later, family members found the 51-year-old’s body stuffed in the trunk of a torched rental car about 115 kilometres northeast of Acapulco, near Chilpancingo, where Dion had been expected for a business meeting.

Dion’s relatives decided to investigate his disappearance themselves after being dissatisfied with the efforts of police and the Canadian consulate.

Dion’s family and an armed police escort tracked down his charred rental vehicle using GPS. “The Mexican police helped us somewhat but it was our family that found him,” said Alexandra Dion, the victim’s 27-year-old daughter.

“At least we found him. If he had just stayed missing, there would have been questions for years.”

Dion’s family says it will have to wait until January or February 2011 for a Mexican laboratory to officially identify his remains.

About a month after Dion’s death, Mexican police arrested Hector Juan Figueroa, 46, in connection with the case.

Prosecutors say Figueroa, was a friend of the victim’s, and even allowed Dion to stay at an apartment belonging to Figueroa’s mother.

Mexican national news agency Notimex reports Figueroa told police he arrived home to find Dion drinking alcohol in the early morning hours of October 23.

Figueroa alleges that Dion began to hit him, and Figueroa fatally struck his friend in the head in self-defence.

GIANNINA DI ROBERTO

Giannina Di Roberto, a 19-year-old from Kitchener, Ontario, was on vacation with her boyfriend in Cancun earlier this year. On September 10, Di Roberto died after falling from a seventh floor balcony.

At the time, witnesses said they heard the couple arguing for about a half-hour. The incident was later ruled an accident.

KENNETH KLOWAK

Kenneth Klowak of Mansfield, Ont., just started a working vacation on June 9. Reports say the 43-year-old was a passenger in an SUV outside a restaurant in northeastern Mexico, when a gunman climbed onto the vehicle’s roof and started opening fire. Klowak and the driver were shot.

However, Robert Klowak, the victim’s cousin, says his family still has not been given any official account of what happened. "We’re still in the dark," he said.

RENEE WATHELET

Renee Wathelet was discovered on Sept. 17, 2009, in her apartment on Isla Mujeres near Cancun, Mexico, after being stabbed more than two dozen times and having her throat cut. The 60-year-old retired investment counsellor split her time between Montreal and Mexico.

She wrote one final entry in her popular online journal the day she was killed: "I look at the sun emerging gently from the clouds, before beginning my morning walk, from sand to the rocks, the rocks to the sand… I try to imagine the beauty … I take the time to take the time."

Local police arrested a 24-year-old Monterrey man named Jose Joaquin Palacios Garaza in connection with the death after the man was seen by Wathelet’s neighbours with a bloody knife.

TANYA HASTINGS & KEVIN SUPPES

Tragedy struck a Calgary couple visiting its new time-share condo in Acapulco, Mexico. Kevin Suppes, 42, and his common-law wife, Tanya Hastings, 37, both drowned on November 24, 2008 after reportedly being swept up in a riptide.

The couple had looked forward to the break after months of renovations on their house, Hastings’s mother said.

Witnesses said Suppes and Hastings were either in or near the water on Acapulco Beach when they were swept away from shore together. Some nearby fishermen saw them struggling and tried to help, but were unable to rescue them.

The couple’s bodies later washed onto the beach, where a resort doctor tried unsuccessfully to revive them.

BOUABAL BOUNTHAVORN

Vancouver-area resident Bouabal Bounthavorn, 29, died after three men appeared at the door of his room at the Hotel Riu in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and shot him in the head three times on May 15, 2008.

The victim’s 24-year-old girlfriend, Masha Heikali, of Burnaby, B.C., was shot in the foot before the gunmen fled. The incident was reportedly a botched robbery, and two men have been charged.

CHRISTOPHER MORIN

Christopher James Morin was vacationing in Mexico when he fell off a four-storey balcony at the Costa Maya Barcelo in Cancun on November 22, 2007.

Mexican authorities say the 30-year-old from Okotoks, Alberta committed suicide. Police made that conclusion after finding Morin’s diary, which apparently indicated he was depressed. But Morin’s longtime girlfriend, Tiffany Ennis, said there were no signs Morin was suicidal.

“He was so excited. He put his foot in the ocean and he was going to go surfing the next day,” recalled Ennis, who also said she received a late night text message from Morin talking about his plans, just mere hours before his death.

The next morning, hotel staff found Morin’s body lying on a tiled patio beneath his room.

Joseph Clayton, a friend who was vacationing with Morin, reportedly told police the pair had been drinking early that morning. Clayton told police he went to bed at 3.00 AM, and didn’t find out until after he awoke hours later that Morin had died. Police questioned Clayton and ruled him out as a suspect.

Mexican authorities told the Calgary Herald that Morin’s blood had traces of cocaine, marijuana and alcohol.

Morin died from head trauma as a result of the fall, the Novedades de Quintana Roo newspaper reported.

JEFF TOEWS

Jeff Toews, a 34-year-old man from Grande Prairie, Alberta, died after falling from a balcony at the Moon Palace Golf and Spa Resort in Cancun in May 2007.

Mexican authorities blamed his injuries on a fall from the second storey of the resort after Toews returned from partying at a Mexican night club. But his family believes he was brutally beaten, possibly by Mexican security guards at the resort.

Toews was found severely injured and clinically brain dead. His family brought him back to Alberta before deciding to donate his organs and remove him from life support.

MICHAEL KIM

Michael Kim was described as "one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet." The 23-year-old Ottawa area father was on a spring break vacation in Cancun with two friends when he drowned on March 21, 2007.

Mexican police didn’t find Kim’s body until the next day. He was likely swept away by a strong current in the waters off the resort.

His best friend, Michael Lambe, described Kim as "one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet."

GLIFFORD GLASIER

On January 17, 2007, Glifford Glasier died of injuries he suffered in a hit and run in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The 67-year-old from Chatham, Ontario, was vacationing with his wife Janette Lerch, 54. She was seriously injured in the incident.

ADAM DePRISCO

Woodbridge, Ontario, resident Adam DePrisco was killed outside an Acapulco nightclub on January 8, 2007. According to local police, DePrisco was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. A Canadian autopsy later found evidence that

But Marco Calabro, who travelled to Mexico with DePrisco, said his friend was targeted and beaten after being thrown out of the bar for dancing with a local man’s girlfriend. An Acapulco city official also said DePrisco was beaten in the street.

Days later, Ontario coroners found evidence that DePrisco could have been hit with a car, not beaten to death.

DePrisco’s family has publicly called for a boycott on travel to Mexico.

DOMENIC AND NANCY IANIERO

Domenic and Nancy Ianiero of Woodbridge, Ontario, were found murdered with their throats slashed in February 2006, at a resort near Playa del Carmen in the Mayan Riviera.

The couple was in Mexico for their daughter’s wedding, along with more than a dozen other family members. In the following months, dozens of individuals emerged as suspects, including two women from Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Kimberly Kim and Cheryl Everall were vacationing at the resort where the couple was murdered, and departed the morning after their deaths. The women did not learn they were suspects in the case until returning to Canada.

Kim and Everall were finally cleared in July 2009, when an arrest warrant was issued for Blas Delgado Fajardo, a security guard at the resort who disappeared the day the couple was killed.

Members of the Ianiero family have criticized Mexican authorities over their handling of the case and conflicting statements made to the media.

With files from the Calgary Herald, Windsor Star, Postmedia News and the Canadian Press