Cancun 2006 murder probe ‘a mess’ from start
Crime scene cleaned by hotel staff shortly after Canadian couple was killed in their room
There was no shortage of high-level promises after Dominic and Annunziata (Nancy) Ianiero of Woodbridge were murdered in their room at the five-star Barcelo Mayan Beach Resort in Cancun on Mexico’s Mayan Riviera in 2006.
Within days of the slayings, eight police forces in three countries were said to be involved in the hunt for the killer or killers of Dominic, 59, and Nancy, 55.
Then-prime minister Stephen Harper said he would raise “anything necessary” with Mexican officials to make sure the murder probe was conducted with integrity.
Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Ernesto Derbez promised “a clear and thorough investigation.”
Mexican President Vicente Fox assured Canadians that “Cancun, and all of Mexico, is safe.”
Sixteen years later, there are still no arrests, and promises of a clear and thorough investigation seem long forgotten.
Within days of the murders, Fox dismissed the suggestion that the killings were random, or motivated by robbery. The Mexican president instead suggested the double-murder of the Ianieros was the work of fellow Canadians.
Physical evidence hasn’t been much use, since much of the blood trail was literally mopped up by hotel cleaning staff within hours of the discovery of the bodies on Feb. 20, 2006.
“The crime scene was a mess,” said former Toronto homicide detective Mark Mendelson, now a private investigator. “It’s easy to infer that the investigation was a mess, too.”
Many questions about the murders still centre on a former security guard at the hotel, who left immediately soon after.
Lawyer Eddie Greenspan was hired by the Ianieros’ son Anthony. Greenspan sent a private investigator and a Spanish-speaking lawyer from Toronto down to Mexico to probe the killings.
Greenspan then pointed fingers at a hotel security guard as a potential suspect — he was a former member of an elite force in the Mexican army who was trained to kill with an array of weapons, Greenspan said.
The Ianieros were both killed with single ear-to-ear slices across their necks.
There were no defensive injuries, like what would be expected if a struggle had taken place.
Greenspan also noted that the security guard had called in sick the day of the murders.
Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carrillo, Attorney- General for the state of Quintana Roo, countered by saying the Ministry of National Defence had no record of the security guard ever serving in the armed forces.
Rodriguez maintained the killers were hired by Canadians. Then things got even uglier. Greenspan blasted the Mexican prosecutor for being “an SOB” and “a bald-faced liar” whose priority was protecting the $4-billion tourism industry in the Mayan Riviera, not justice.
The murders took place as the U.S. State Department warned Americans about high crime in resort cities such as Cancun.
Shortly after the murders, Cesar Munoz, editor at the newspaper Novedades in Cancun, told The Canadian Press that he believed Mexican authorities were anxious to rule out the possibility that the killers were Mexican, particularly with spring break looming.
Greenspan argued that the murders were part of a robbery gone wrong.
Others supported the theory, saying that the Ianieros came across as particularly wealthy after arriving at the resort, which might have attracted criminal attention.
Mexican authorities strongly disputed this, arguing that Nancy Ianiero likely opened the door for someone she knew, as there was no evidence a door was forced open.
Within days of the murders, Mexican authorities pointed fingers at two Thunder Bay single mothers who had stayed in a room just down the hall from the Ianieros and who checked out the day of the murders.
One of the women was a doctor and the other worked in palliative care.
No evidence was presented to link them to the crimes and they were never charged.
The accusation that a pair of Thunder Bay health-care workers moonlighted as an international hit team was soundly ridiculed, including on CNN, where they were compared to soccer moms.
Another theory was that the Ianieros were targeted because of the gambling debts of someone connected to the family.
Tom Klatt, a veteran Toronto police homicide investigator and now a private investigator, said he was skeptical about the quick effort to pin the blame on Canadians.
Klatt said it was unfortunate that Greenspan, who died in 2014, got into a war of words with Mexican authorities, but said this might have been inevitable.
“He may have gotten to the point where this was his only option left,” Klatt said.
Klatt, who stressed he is not privy to inside knowledge on the investigation, said Mexican morgues have seen “shocking” numbers of foreign victims of unsolved homicides.
He added that Mexican police are poorly paid and have highly dangerous jobs, especially in tourist zones like Cancun.
Mendelson stayed at the hotel a week before the murders when attending a family wedding.
“It’s a nice resort,” Mendelson said, adding: “I remember seeing security cameras all over the place.”
Despite all of the security cameras, there were no reports of any useful security video surfacing.
Mendelson said he is extremely skeptical the crime will ever be solved.
Oscar Mora of the Mexican Embassy in Ottawa said this month he would have to direct all questions to the Attorney General’s office in the state of Quintana Roo, where the murders were committed, then offered no timeline or prospect of success.
“This is going to take some time,” he said.
The Mexican government was adamant: The Woodbridge couple was targeted, likely by fellow Canadians — to say otherwise would be to suggest Cancun was unsafe