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Not Baja, but it could easily apply anywhere. I saw this being discussed at expatforum.com . Several people seemed to think this attack/murder was the result of the victim building his dream home in the midst of poverty.

Apple Valley man beaten to death pursuing his dream in Mexico | StarTribune.com

Originally Posted by DebMer

Not Baja, but it could easily apply anywhere. I saw this being discussed at expatforum.com . Several people seemed to think this attack/murder was the result of the victim building his dream home in the midst of poverty.

Apple Valley man beaten to death pursuing his dream in Mexico | StarTribune.com

Could have happened anywhere? The first part maybe: you trust the people building your 6000 square foot dream house too much and you are brutally killed for a pickup truckload of electronics. But then the Police confiscated Kyle’s vehicles, property and a $30,000 backhoe he bought to build the house. An attorney the parents hired now claims he’s entitled to 30 percent of the estate as payment. Seems like a lot of people taking advantage of grief and distance. One good thing: they did catch the killers because of the house's camera system.

Been "heating up" in Michoacán and Guadalajara

The broad outlines of what happened are plenty close to home/Baja, considering what happened to Ron and Cristina.

When you hire someone, and they become privy to your personal life/details, how do you really know what they're capable of? That they're not at the same time casing the joint for their other job?

Every time I read something like this I get a queasy feeling in my stomach.

I don't live in Baja or another part of Mexico. I worry about native English-speaking, Caucasian-appearance workers here.

Wow! This does hit very close to home. Especially the part about the perps being identified as having been hired to do some work around the house - a very similar story line to what happened to us. The difference is that it appears that he lived in an area that is much more remote than where we live. We have neighbors within sight and their immediate response was what saved our lives and helped the police to catch them.

Since that event we have now become much closer to our neighbors. We have created a community phone book where we all have each others cell phone numbers and we keep in close contact when anybody sees anything that looks out of the ordinary.

I used to hire day workers who would show up out of nowhere who I felt sorry for. They were paid for a few days of basic, unskilled labor. One of our perps was hired that way and we later met his brother who joined him, sharing a trailer on the beach. They would eventually be joined by a cousin who would make up the trio that attacked us.

We now control very tightly who we give access to here at the house. I now leave all the hiring up to Chava who only brings in people that he has known and worked with for a long time. If you look around you, that is exactly what your Mexican neighbors do down here, at least in our area. They simply don't give access to their homes to anybody except family and their very closest friends.

That explains (at least to me) why everybody down here has an outdoor palapa and bathroom. Anybody who shows up will stay and talk outside. If the wife feels comfortable with the idea, she may let the women and small children inside the home to use the indoor bathroom but they too stay mostly outside.

It was a very hard lesson now learned. Thanks DebMer for posting this.

It really angers me to think of what happened to Kyle - it sounds like he had a good heart. Our condolences to his family and friends. May the perps burn in hell.

A very sad thing!

It points out that there is evil in our world. I think that we could find stories (perhaps not published) about people all over the world who are killed in the midst of building or following their dreams.

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

We have created a community phone book where we all have each others cell phone numbers and we keep in close contact when anybody sees anything that looks out of the ordinary.

We now control very tightly who we give access to... If you look around you, that is exactly what your Mexican neighbors do down here... They simply don't give access to their homes to anybody except family and their very closest friends.

We have all our neighbors phone numbers and e-mails too (strangely TelNor assigns phone numbers by neighborhood - so our numbers are all with a few digits of each other, which isn't a smart thing to my mind). The only time we had violence in our Baja house and a truck stolen- was when a man misrepresented himself as a college friend of our nephew to gain entry. Our nephew was having frequent study sessions here with college friends- so we let our guard down. Like Ron said, Mexicans and "Americans" are very different this way. We rarely see our neighbors outside (aside from driving in/out) and most urban yards are totally walled-off. It takes many years living in a Mexican neighborhood before they will accept and trust you- they watch who you interact with and take no chances. It's not anti-social to them, it is necessary for safety and once you live here- you understand. We have people knock on our doors for work every week and I am no longer allowed to deal with them directly- my family says I am too generous and it will bite me, and it has. Mexicans take care of their own families first. That is a full time job that uses all their resources.

In getting our house ready for a photo shoot, we hired a neighbor to do some tile work. He brought along his young cousin who lifted a few small items from our house. The neighbor saw the items back at his house and made the kid bring them back and apologize. Like everywhere, once you spend years building a relationship with your neighbor, it becomes important to them and they value it. They don't trust quickly, but they value the relationship once it is established.

Originally Posted by Marty Cortez

The broad outlines of what happened are plenty close to home/Baja, considering what happened to Ron and Cristina.

When you hire someone, and they become privy to your personal life/details, how do you really know what they're capable of? That they're not at the same time casing the joint for their other job?

Every time I read something like this I get a queasy feeling in my stomach.

I don't live in Baja or another part of Mexico. I worry about native English-speaking, Caucasian-appearance workers here.

We have been "ripped off" a few times ........ by workers NOB ....... and they weren't hispanic/latino

What a terrible story. This guy did so many things wrong.......isolation being the worst of his mistakes.
Unfortunately, it seems his murder has released the hounds of opportunity....the police, as well as the attorney hired to assist in the clean up.
It also points to a growing, wide spread attitude here in Mexico, that crimes against foreigners, North Americans particularly, are a tolerable, pardonable offense and these kids will probably be on the streets shortly after the dust settles and someone in charge sees a Peso to be made from their release..

Originally Posted by DENNIS

It also points to a growing, wide spread attitude here in Mexico, that crimes against foreigners, North Americans particularly, are a tolerable, pardonable offense and these kids will probably be on the streets shortly after the dust settles and someone in charge sees a Peso to be made from their release..

When economic times were good and the money and jobs were flowing, everyone seemed to tolerate us just fine. Now jobs in the tourist corridor are scarce, drug addiction is up and so are property crime rates. Bad guys go for the easiest targets especially if that's where the money is. In the past many crime victims went back north asap and rarely filed police reports. Now they report their crimes on the internet when they get home.

I've always heard Mexicans hate us, but my Mexican family has no such prejudice. We live at the beach and everyday Mexicans come here to have a good time with their families- not show off the chip on their shoulder. We see people at their best and behaving with their families. So although I don't doubt there is some brewing level of animosity towards Americans and Canadians- we don't see it much and like it that way.

I was struck by the similarities, too. Really awful. I'm so glad you and your wife came through it. Like you, I hate thinking about this great guy who loved and trusted his "friends" being killed by them.

Did the perps who attacked you end up in jail? If so, was their sentence comparable to the (IMO) extremely light sentence of Kyle's attackers? (Why is it that you can kill in cold blood and ever be allowed to walk the streets ever again????)

Sounds like you have a good system set up now, but I'm sure the experience continues to affect the way you live and think, both in positive and negative ways.

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Wow! This does hit very close to home. Especially the part about the perps being identified as having been hired to do some work around the house - a very similar story line to what happened to us. The difference is that it appears that he lived in an area that is much more remote than where we live. We have neighbors within sight and their immediate response was what saved our lives and helped the police to catch them.

Since that event we have now become much closer to our neighbors. We have created a community phone book where we all have each others cell phone numbers and we keep in close contact when anybody sees anything that looks out of the ordinary.

I used to hire day workers who would show up out of nowhere who I felt sorry for. They were paid for a few days of basic, unskilled labor. One of our perps was hired that way and we later met his brother who joined him, sharing a trailer on the beach. They would eventually be joined by a cousin who would make up the trio that attacked us.

We now control very tightly who we give access to here at the house. I now leave all the hiring up to Chava who only brings in people that he has known and worked with for a long time. If you look around you, that is exactly what your Mexican neighbors do down here, at least in our area. They simply don't give access to their homes to anybody except family and their very closest friends.

That explains (at least to me) why everybody down here has an outdoor palapa and bathroom. Anybody who shows up will stay and talk outside. If the wife feels comfortable with the idea, she may let the women and small children inside the home to use the indoor bathroom but they too stay mostly outside.

It was a very hard lesson now learned. Thanks DebMer for posting this.

It really angers me to think of what happened to Kyle - it sounds like he had a good heart. Our condolences to his family and friends. May the perps burn in hell.

We (also NOB, in Southern California) keep an eye on people who come to the door to sell stuff or offer services. We've seen the neighbor's yard guy eying my husband's motorcycle through the chain link fence, so we keep it locked. Glad for locks, security screens and threatening dogs. Even so, there are no guarantees.

A friend caught a man at her young daughter's window. (Providentially, the daughter had a head cold and couldn't sleep lying down, so she was on the couch in the living room.) My friend grabbed her gun and told him that if he entered, she'd shoot. The man broke the glass and came in anyway. Her husband heard noise and came in, took the gun from her and subdued the guy until the police came. The man didn't seem to think the woman would pull the trigger. I think he had to have been on drugs as well, to be willing to break the window and go through the glass into a room with an armed woman. Oh, and their dogs were in the other room - missed the whole thing.

Crime has been going up in my city for the past decade or so. We learned that parolees were being assigned to live here upon release from jail! With the economic crisis, break-ins, panhandling, robberies and prostitution have skyrocketed. Plenty of abandoned homes, crumbled businesses and blighted properties have exacerbated the problem. I don't have a gun yet (and California's Nazi gun laws make it nearly impossible to use them for self-defense except in the home), but I bought pepper spray, plan to buy some bear spray, and have considered an idea that I've read about locally - buying wasp spray to keep in the house. Apparently wasp spray shoots up to 25 feet and will blind the person on the receiving end for life if they don't get medical help.

Originally Posted by wessongroup

We have been "ripped off" a few times ........ by workers NOB ....... and they weren't hispanic/latino

They are in prison and the legal process is still underway. We expect for the judge to pass sentence later this year. I agree that such criminals deserve to be locked up with the keys thrown away IMHO.

The experience has and continues to affect us greatly. We are much more aware of our surroundings today, who we approach and how we talk to them, keeping all strangers at arms distance and always with one eye looking around, no matter where we are except in the safe confines of our home.

But there have been some very positive outcomes as well; we truly believe we were given a second chance at life. Cristina and I both now have a much deeper appreciation for everything around us and our relationship has now grown even stronger. We stop and notice the little, seemingly insignificant things that we were often in too much of a hurry to see before. Spring wildflowers, the call of the coyotes in the early morning and just watching the dogs run in the surf down on the beach below. Life is such a beautiful gift.

And our lives are so much richer now...

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

They are in prison and the legal process is still underway. We expect for the judge to pass sentence later this year. I agree that such criminals deserve to be locked up with the keys thrown away IMHO.

The experience has and continues to affect us greatly. We are much more aware of our surroundings today, who we approach and how we talk to them, keeping all strangers at arms distance and always with one eye looking around, no matter where we are except in the safe confines of our home.

But there have been some very positive outcomes as well; we truly believe we were given a second chance at life. Cristina and I both now have a much deeper appreciation for everything around us and our relationship has now grown even stronger. We stop and notice the little, seemingly insignificant things that we were often in too much of a hurry to see before. Spring wildflowers, the call of the coyotes in the early morning and just watching the dogs run in the surf down on the beach below. Life is such a beautiful gift.

And our lives are so much richer now...

HERE! HERE!

Beauty from ashes. I'm glad your life has been enriched. Every experience becomes what we make it, I imagine.

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

They are in prison and the legal process is still underway. We expect for the judge to pass sentence later this year. I agree that such criminals deserve to be locked up with the keys thrown away IMHO.

The experience has and continues to affect us greatly. We are much more aware of our surroundings today, who we approach and how we talk to them, keeping all strangers at arms distance and always with one eye looking around, no matter where we are except in the safe confines of our home.

But there have been some very positive outcomes as well; we truly believe we were given a second chance at life. Cristina and I both now have a much deeper appreciation for everything around us and our relationship has now grown even stronger. We stop and notice the little, seemingly insignificant things that we were often in too much of a hurry to see before. Spring wildflowers, the call of the coyotes in the early morning and just watching the dogs run in the surf down on the beach below. Life is such a beautiful gift.

And our lives are so much richer now...

Originally Posted by DebMer

Beauty from ashes. I'm glad your life has been enriched. Every experience becomes what we make it, I imagine.