Family of Niagara man murdered in Cuba searching for answers
Daughter says John Panoutsopoulos was outgoing, generous
Retired Niagara businessman John Panoutsopoulos loved Cuba. The culture, the people, especially the beaches and sun.
He travelled there so often and stayed so long, for months at a time, he and his family joked that one day he would move there for good and die of old age.
“He spoke the language, he was tanned, he almost looked like a Cuban, too, so he would fit right in,” said his daughter, Alicia Demi Panos.
“He loved it there.”
Now, she and her brothers are waiting to have his ashes sent back from the Caribbean island and wondering, why would anyone want to murder their 70-year-old dad?
Before he retired a few years ago, Panoutsopoulos owned several businesses across Niagara. A shoe store, and the Red Onion, Charcoal Pit, Andiamo Ristorante and Freighters restaurants.
“He was probably one of the most outgoing people you could ever meet,” said Panos, who lives in London, Ont., of the Niagara-on-the-lake man.
He was, she said, someone “more focused on the food and having some wine with some locals and just making people laugh.”
Since February 2020, he had been staying in Guanabo, a beach community about 20 kilometres
east of Havana, in a rented two-bedroom apartment five minutes from the water.
He had travelled alone, as usual, and planned to return to Canada last spring but decided instead to wait out COVID-19 in Cuba.
The last time Panos spoke with him was on a Saturday in early December.
A couple of days later, a friend of her father called her. Worried when he couldn’t reach Panoutsopoulos, he contacted his landlord who found him dead inside his apartment.
Information was sparse — “He died where he was happiest, that’s how I was looking at it in the beginning,” Panos said.
A week later, she heard from Global Affairs Canada. It told her Panoutsopoulos’s death, believed to have occurred sometime between Dec. 12 and 15, was being investigated by Cuban authorities “because there were signs of violence.”
“Basically, they believed he was murdered.”
But the more she learned, the less clear things became.
“All I know at this time is that he suffered a violent death, and the cause was asphyxiation,” she said. “I know his belongings were not stolen — his wallet, his phone, his jewelry, that was all still in the room.”
She learned four locals had confessed.
But confessed to what? Panos said she hasn’t been told, nor have her brothers — Kosta, a nephew whom Panout
sopoulos adopted after his own sister was murdered, and Christopher. No one has seen a report from police in Cuba.
Her dad was an experienced traveller, she said, not one to fall in with the wrong crowd. Had he somehow ruffled some feathers there? Was it supposed to be a robbery but went wrong?
She doesn’t know.
If there is a trial in Cuba, and if she would be allowed to sit in, she will.
Panos said her dad always wanted his ashes to be scattered in the waters there.
“It’s been two months and the first month, I’m not going to lie, it was probably the worst month of my life,” she said.
Panoutsopoulos’s friends still call, looking for answers, but she doesn’t have much to offer.
Cuba is known as a safe destination for tourists. Panos said neither she nor her father ever worried for his safety.
But she is watching the case of another Canadian who was killed there recently, a Quebec woman found dead outside her Varadero hotel last November. A suspect was arrested.
“I don’t know how many other deaths have occurred and if the media is aware of it,” said Panos.
“I think people should be aware that this has happened, especially to a 70-year-old man who was friendly and meant no harm.”
A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada would only say the government offers its condolences, and “consular services are being provided to the victim’s family.”
“Consular officials are in contact with local authorities to gather additional information.”