| | |  Americas & Beyond | September 2009 
Canadian Tragedies on Mexican Soil
 Ashley Terry - Global News
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September 28, 2009
The two B.C. men gunned down in the resort town of Puerto Vallarta on Monday are the latest in a string of recent Canadian deaths in Mexico. Global News takes a look at Canadians who have died there over the past several years.
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.
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.
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.
DePrisco
Woodbridge, Ont., resident Adam DePrisco was killed outside an Acapulco nightclub in January 2007. According to local police, DePrisco was the victim of a hit-and-run accident.
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.
DePrisco's family has publicly called for a boycott on travel to Mexico.
Ianiero
Domenic and Nancy Ianiero of Woodbridge Ont, 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.
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