Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GUNNED DOWN AS HE SAT IN CAR BACKSEAT
‘Wrong time, wrong place’ shooting of Ben in Mexico
BY ADAM ASPINALL
A BRITON has been shot dead in a car during a trip to Mexico.
Ben Corser, 37, and two friends were preparing to go into a supermarket when they were targeted. All three died.
His heartbroken family said he was in “the wrong place at the wrong time”.
Software engineer Ben, from Cornwall, had been travelling around Mexico since January.
He was staying with a family near Colima city on the central Pacific coast and teamed up for skateboarding with
Claudio and Alfredo, two young men in the household.
On May 24 he and
Claudio returned by bus from Guadalajara and
Alfredo picked them up in his car. Ben was in the back.
The gunman struck after they stopped at a city centre store to buy groceries.
In a statement from their home in St Just, near Penzance, parents Andrew Corser, a former head teacher, and Lorraine Downes said: “We have had no explanation, no reasons.
“There was no suggestion of robbery, kidnapping or anything else. There had been a dramatic upsurge in Colima in the last few weeks although this was not directed at tourists.
“It is most likely that this was a question of Ben being tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The statement, issued together with Ben’s brother Tom, said the family was completely devastated. It added: “Ben had a breadth that is rare today. He held first-class degrees in both fine art and mathematics.
“He was an artist, a poet, a computer user, maker, coder and programmer, a skateboarder, a sea swimmer, a wild camper, a festival-goer, an actor, a yoga lover, a photographer, a music maker, a dancer.
“He was just so much fun to be with because he lived in the moment.”
Ben’s body is being returned to Cornwall for a funeral in St Just.
He becomes the second Briton to be shot and killed in Mexico in less than three months. Chris Cleave, 54, was driving through Playa del Carmen in Cancun when he was attacked in March. adam.aspinall@mirror.co.uk