The Guadalajara Reporter

Canadian couple murdered in Ajijic

A Canadian couple was found murdered in their La Floresta home early Sunday, February 9. Based on evidence found at the scene, police presume that the probable motive of the crime was a robbery gone wrong.

While the quiet residential subdivision located just east of central Ajijic has been plagued by multiple break-ins and attempted burglaries over the past year, most of the incidents have occurred when residents were absent from their homes. This is the first case involving physical violence.

Although authorities have not yet released the names of the victims, close friends identified the pair as Nina Discombe, 67, and Edward Kular, 84.

The double homicide was discovered by Juan Carlos Berra, an employee of the pair, when he arrived shortly after 10 a.m. to deliver a jug of chlorine for their pool.  He told the Reporter that he became alarmed when he found both the entrance gate and front door ajar.  Looking inside he saw Kular’s body sprawled face-down in a pool of blood on the living room floor and immediately dialed the emergency hotline 066 on his cell phone.

Chapala police were the first authorities to respond to the call and secure the premises at Camino Real 11. Officials from Chapala’s Ministerio Publico district attorney’s office (MP) and local Policia Investigadora detectives followed soon afterwards.  Crime scene investigators from the Instituto Jalisciense de Ciencias Forenses (IJCF) finally appeared around 3:30 p.m.

Chapala Police Chief Ramon del Arco reports that the home had been ransacked top to bottom. Kular’s green Dodge Caravan, bearing Ontario tags BABCHI, was missing from driveway. At this juncture in the investigation it’s too early to tell what other belongings were stolen.

Kular was found semi-nude, dressed only in his underwear. Discombe’s body was lying nearby, also face down and attired in a blood-stained robe. A bloody kitchen butcher knife was reportedly retrieved from the scene.

Officers found a window to a separate room of the residence had been smashed from the outside. However, after the IJCF team began nosing around at a vacant house next door, they discovered a ladder propped up against a wall adjacent to the roof of the victims’ home, indicating that as the perpetrators’ most likely point of entry..

The crime scene investigators hauled several dozen evidence bags out of the premises after spending more than three hours inside.  At 6:45 p.m. they finally loaded up the two corpses in an IJCF van for transport to the morgue where autopsies will be carried out.

Chapala MP agent Miguel Ortega Carrillo told this newspaper that Jalisco Attorney General Luis Carlos Nájera Gutierrez has been fully apprised of the crime and investigation of the case is now in the hands of the state’s homicide division in Guadalajara.

More news reports to follow later in the day.