Mike on Crime

By Jennifer Ditchburn and Russ Morgan (CP) – It’s happened again: a Canadian on vacation in Mexico has been grievously injured and his family says he’s been brutally beaten, but Mexican authorities have a different story.

Jeff Toews, 34, of Grande Prairie, Alta., is on life support and not expected to survive, his brother Murray Toews said from his bedside at a local hospital.

“He received serious head injuries, four blows to the head and he’s been beat very bad on his back,” Murray Toews said in a telephone interview.

But the same Mexican prosecutor at the centre of the controversial case of a Toronto couple murdered at a Mexican resort last year denies Toews was beaten. He said the Canadian fell from a second floor.

The victim’s family is accusing Mexican authorities of covering up a crime.

Toews’ parents flew down Monday night to be with him. He was found early that day by security guards on the grounds of the Moon Palace Golf and Spa Resort in Cancun.

Jeff Toews was on a seven-day vacation with his wife, Natalie, and nine other couples from northern Alberta.

On Sunday night, the group had been at the resort’s Andromeda nightclub into the wee hours. Jeff Toews was going back and forth between his room and the club over the course of the evening, but after one pit stop, he didn’t return. A security guard alerted his wife that something had gone wrong.

His twin brother, Gregg Toews, rushed to the scene and administered CPR until an ambulance arrived. Jeff Toews is now in a medically induced coma to reduce swelling of the brain.

“It’s unthinkable how somebody could do this to somebody,” said Murray Toews. Jeff Toews has a three-year-old son who was staying with family in Grande Prairie.

While the family says he was the victim of beating, possibly by the security guards who claimed to have found him, the top prosecutor for the state of Quintana Roo says there is no evidence of foul play.

Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carrillo – who has been overseeing the case of Domenic and Nancy Ianiero of Woodbridge, Ont., who were murdered at another Mexican resort last year – said it was an accident.

“He wasn’t beaten. He fell from a second storey of the hotel where he was staying,” Rodriguez y Carrillo said in an interview. “That’s the report that we have from the security guard from the hotel, and the report we’re getting from the hospital too.”

The prosecutor later said that Jeff Toews was “running to a second floor, lost control and fell.” He said he did not know if the hotel had video surveillance of its grounds.

Murray Toews said his brother had never been on the second floor, and the family believes he was being pursued at the time he was injured by security guards.

“It’s all a big coverup,” said Murray Toews.

Toews is the latest case of a Canadian injured or killed in violent acts in Mexico.

Last February, the Ianieros were found with their throats slit at a resort near Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

The murder has still not been solved, and the family lawyer has accused Rodriguez y Carrillo of botching the case and outright lying about the details.

In January, Adam DePrisco, 19, also of Woodbridge, was killed outside an Acapulco nightclub. A Mexican doctor blamed the teen’s death on a hit-and-run driver, but his family and friends believe he was beaten to death.

Last month, two Canadians were injured when a gunman fired into the lobby of a hotel in Acapulco, Mexico.

A million Canadians visit Mexico every year, which has seen a surge in drug-related violence.

“It’s business as usual at this Moon Palace,” Murray Toews said. “They’re, you know, playing typical tourism crap.”

“It happened not long ago here to some other Canadians. Nobody seen nothing; no witnesses, of course. There’s been no co-operation with my family … no one’s been down to check with my family.”

He added that staff at the hotel had been of no assistance to the family, but they had received help from Canadian officials at the consulate in Cancun.

An RCMP officer stationed in Mexico City was also scheduled to visit the family.

In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay says the government is waiting for the results of a local police investigation before deciding its next move.