Reports suggest slain Canadian had criminal ties
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/11/01/15912451.html
OTTAWA - The hot Mexican sun baked Daniel Dion’s bones for days after he was first discovered.
Concern for property -- not the man -- led a car rental agency to where Dion was broiled in the trunk of a Volkswagen Jetta.
Perhaps fearful of people who leave a man to be stripped to the bones by licking flames, a GPS-company man left the skeleton to the 30-degree heat and Dion’s family in the dark.
Dion’s fates hint at a contract killing, family members say. And Mexican news reports suggest that Dion had strong ties to a world of criminals and politicians.
His Ecopurse company employed more than 2,000 prisoners and in an August IRZA news agency interview, Dion bragged of unfettered access to the prison system.
He also boasted of his connections to powerful politicians, including Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Mexican media report he had faced accusations of influence peddling.
His family believes he fell afoul of professional criminals.
Whatever the truth, Dion’s skeleton remained in the burned out car for days.
As Dion’s family grew worried about his fate, Hertz had grown concerned for its rental car -- a new Jetta retails for about 237,000 pesos or $19,500. The onboard GPS signal had winked out at 10 a.m. on Oct. 24, two days after Dion’s family lost touch with him.
Hertz dispatched GPS-company Encontrack. A staffer found the charred hulk and what may have been human remains in the trunk but Hertz filed no police report and didn’t tell Dion’s family.
It was not until Wednesday that a family member who had flown to Acapulco winkled that information from Hertz representatives. Even then, it took OPP investigators to scrutinize Dion’s credit card history before the family even knew where Dion had booked his final rental.
On Thursday, 33 km north of Chilpancingo, Mexico -- 100 kms northeast of Acapulco -- family finally arrived at the site of Dion’s death.
He was unrecognizable. But the skeleton in the trunk wore his wristwatch.
Mexican authorities will conduct an autopsy to determine how Dion died and, perhaps, to learn if he was alive when the car was set alight.