| | |  Editorials | Issues | September 2009 
Pair Slain in Mexico Known to Police in B.C.
 Timothy Appleby & Ian Bailey - Globe and Mail
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September 29, 2009
 |  | Gunned down execution-style in resort town of Puerto Vallarta, neither appeared to have major links to gangs. |  | | |
Toronto and Vancouver - Tiny fish swimming in a tank full of piranhas.
That looks to be the likeliest scenario in a blood-soaked double homicide that left two Canadians dead in the sunny Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta.
RCMP sources suggest the shooting deaths of Gordon Douglas Kendall, 37, and Jeffrey Ronald Ivans, thought to be about the same age, almost certainly stemmed from the relentless slaughter in Mexico's intercartel drug war. But the connection may have been peripheral.
Police in B.C. said that while both victims were familiar to Lower Mainland authorities as drug users and perhaps dealers, neither appeared to have major ties to the underworld.
Thus, the most probable explanation for the execution-style deaths of the two men outside their rented poolside condominium Sunday is that they had intruded on to the turf of far more serious players.
The results were gruesome, splashed in grisly detail on the local news website Noticias Puerto Vallarta, which published graphic photographs of the blood-spattered pair, lying in pools of blood beside a vehicle and a gun.
The accompanying story said Mr. Ivans was in the building when the gunfire erupted, and that when he came outside, one of the killers "delivered several bullet holes to the skull."
As the two men lay on the ground, one of the killers walked over and shot them again before they and four accomplices fled in two vehicles, the report said.
Mexican press reports said the two slain men had three vehicles with them when they were killed: A Mercedes-Benz, a white, rented Hummer and a heavy-duty Ford 350 pickup truck registered to Mr. Kendall.
And according to a witness cited by Noticias Puerto Vallarta, Mr. Ivans returned fire before being slain.
Robbery is not believed to have been the motive.
Rather, "These deaths appear to be a matter of settling some scores," said Alberto Lozarno, press attaché at the Mexican embassy in Ottawa, without elaborating.
With its colonial-style buildings and spectacular beaches, Puerto Vallarta lures more than two million visitors a year, and violent incidents are rare.
However, the Pacific Coast tourist town is also an established way-station on the drug pipeline through which Latin American cocaine flows north to the United States and Canada. And a short drive away is Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city and home to many underworld figures.
Mr. Kendall and Mr. Ivans were expatriates from Kamloops who had been living in Mexico for about a year, according to friends who lit up Facebook with photos of the dead pair and tributes to them.
Contacted in Kamloops, the father of Mr. Kendall declined comment on the case except to make a brief statement. "We loved them both and we're going to miss them dearly," he said.
One Mexican press account speculated that, as with two similar deaths in Guadalajara last year, the victims might be associates of the notorious Lower Mainland gang, the United Nations.
Police in B.C. played down that connection - there is small doubt the pair had ventured into perilous territory.
"The drug trade and the drug gangs have a long-standing foundation in the Guadalajara area," said a Toronto-area RCMP drug-squad officer familiar with Mexico.
"A lot of your big drug kingpins vacation in Puerto Vallarta. I've been down there, sitting around the ... pool, and there they all are with their trophy wives and their plastic [credit cards] and their jewellery.
"And you know exactly what it is, it's the boys from Guadalajara, there's a big presence there."
A spokesman for one of the B.C. police agencies that combat gangs confirmed that both Mr. Kendall and Mr. Ivans were known to local police.
"Let's just say they were on police radar, and we cannot get into any investigation which may or may not be ongoing," said Sergeant Shinder Kirk of the B.C. Integrated Gang Task Force.
"We have been aware of these two males and the fact they were involved in the drug trade for quite some time. We are aware of some of their recent activities in Mexico, but we also know there are no known direct links to any well-known organized crime groups or gangs."
Sgt. Kirk said the activities that drew police attention in British Columbia may shock people who knew the men.
"But that's not uncommon. Individuals who are actively involved at various levels lead two lives that are only apparent to people within the circles of those respective lives. "
The case recalls that of Elliot Casteneda and Ahmet (Lou) Kaawach, two other B.C. men gunned down in Mexico last year, Sgt. Kirk said. The two, known members of the United Nations gang, were killed outside a restaurant in Guadalajara. |
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