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 News from Around the Americas | January 2007 
Ontario Coroner to Examine Deprisco's Remains
 CTV.ca News
| | A man walks past the entrance to the nightclub 'Mandara' near where Adam DePrisco from Woodbridge, Ont. was killed. (AP/Gonzalo Perez) |
The body of Adam DePrisco will be examined by the Ontario Coroner's Office today, as questions continue to mount on how the 19-year-old died while vacationing in Mexico.
But any report by Ontario officials may not have an impact on the Mexican investigation.
Mexican officials claim DePrisco was killed in a hit-and-run after leaving a popular local nightclub drunk last Sunday. But DePrisco's travelling partner, Marco Calabro, says it was far more sinister.
He says his friend was killed after dancing at the club with a local man's girlfriend. Calabro claims DePrisco was kicked out of the club by bouncers, who were followed by locals, and was beaten to death.
"We have been informed that the authorities ... are making every possible effort in order to solve this case," Mauricio Guerrero, a Mexican Embassy official, told CTV Newsnet.
DePrisco's uncle, Sandro Bellio, went to Mexico this week and retrieved the X-rays taken of his nephew. They may prove crucial to determining how DePrisco died.
"There's certainly a pathological difference between someone who has been beaten to death and somebody who has been struck by a motor vehicle," forensic consultant Mark Mendelson told Canada AM on Friday.
"X-rays are one of the medical pieces of evidence that the pathologist will be looking at here in Toronto to see if the types of injuries are consistent," he said.
Mendelson said the Mexican investigation should not have been a difficult one.
"This is not CSI stuff," he said. "This is a pretty basic investigation that's taking place here... if people are saying that he was hit by a car then I would be demanding to see those statements and to see the friends I can evidence and the witness recounts of that incident that show that the evidence takes you to a hit-and-run accident."
There should also be statements from witnesses who said he was beaten, Mendelson said.
"There should be evidence to support that theory... If that's the case, then the second autopsy conducted here in Toronto should support and be confirmatory to those witness statements... this is not rocket science."
Calabro's version of events have been supported by a city official, the Associated Press reported earlier this week. The official, who asked not to be identified for his protection, said witnesses had seen night club staff and taxi drivers beating DePrisco.
Calabro told Canada AM earlier this week that local officials moved in quickly to clean up the scene.
"Right when they lifted Adam's body, they came with the water trucks and just washed away everything, washed away all the blood. They were throwing stuff off the mountain, and this is with my own eyes, I saw this," he said.
"And then in the newspaper, they were telling me that Mexican officials are saying that it never happened. This was seconds after they lifted up his body."
In another strange twist, Calabro is also claiming that his hotel room was robbed while his friend lay in hospital.
"My camera, my camcorder, everything was gone," said Calabro. "The police don't care -- I did report it to them, but they didn't jot that down."
DePrisco's death comes nearly a year after the murders of Dominic and Nancy Ianiero, also from the Toronto area, in Cancun. Critics have accused Mexican authorities of trying to cover up the truth in an effort to protect the tourism industry. |
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