Woman returns to Canada after home invaded in Mexico
‘It was heartbreaking but better than being shot,’ says Melnychuk, 28
A Saskatoon woman whose home was invaded by a group of seven people in Playa del Carmen, Mexico in January has returned to Canada.
Melissa Melnychuk, 28, arrived in Saskatoon the week before last, after making the decision to sign over her Mexican home, a condo unit, to her ex.
“It was heartbreaking, but better than being shot,” she said in an interview last Tuesday.
On Jan. 26, Melnychuk says she awoke to hear her dog barking and someone outside told her there was a carbon dioxide leak. When she opened her windows to ventilate the house and went outside with her dog, she says she was dragged away from the house while a group of armed people went inside. She recounted her ordeal to the StarPhoenix, including being thrown to the floor and an attempt to stun her with a Taser.
In an interview Feb. 27, Melnychuk explained she went back into the home because a female friend was staying in the spare room.
Melnychuk is hearing impaired and says she has experienced loud ringing in her right ear since the incident. She said it has not improved and sounds like a wind turbine.
The house was the subject of a legal dispute between her and an ex-fiancé, a Canadian citizen also living in Canada. He had previously filed legal action claiming she broke into the house, that he didn’t know her and that she dispossessed him of his home, she said. If convicted, she would face jail time in Mexico.
She provided bank records to the StarPhoenix for an account listed under her name and that of her ex-fiancé, with a branch in Saskatoon. Melnychuk said they previously signed a contract stating she had 50 per cent ownership of their property and that she would have full rights to the house, but he later denied his signature was authentic.
“I just have so much clear evidence that I own this property and that I’ve always lived there,” she said.
Her lawyer had gathered witnesses for a court hearing, including her neighbours and the devel- oper, to verify what she was saying, Melnychuk said. They were prepared to go to court and confident of a victory — until the incident at the home.
Two men and one woman were still at the scene when police arrived and were taken into custody. A Quintana Roo state prosecutor later dropped the case, however.
Before the end of February, she decided to give up the house.
“I realized I wasn’t going to stay in the house anyways because I was terrified of it,” Melnychuk said, adding she thinks she could get her share of the home’s value through a Canadian court process.
“So really, there was no benefit to staying in the house anymore. So I decided, ‘OK, I’m going to leave the house.’”
On the advice of her lawyer, she agreed to give up the house in exchange for her ex-fiancé dropping the charges in Mexico, she said. When her lawyer brought her the documents to sign, he was joined one of the men involved in the January incident, she said.
When she asked what the man was doing there, he told her he was acting as her ex-fiancé’s lawyer and held his power of attorney, Melnychuk said.
The same man’s name also appears in the police report Melnychuk previously provided to the StarPhoenix. It names him as one of the people taken into custody at the scene of the reported home invasion.
Melnychuk said she went to the Mexican state prosecutor’s office with her lawyer and the man to have the charges against her dropped. “And I had to sit with that man for two hours,” she said. “He couldn’t look at me. I just stared (at) him in the face. He couldn’t even look at me, and at one point he started crying.”
Melnychuk said she will now stay with family while planning the rest of her future. She and her ex-fiancé are scheduled to appear in front of a Canadian judge in November.