A 19-year-old Ontario woman died on Friday after falling off a balcony at a hotel in Cancun.
Giannina Di Roberto fell from the seventh floor of the Riu Caribe hotel early Friday morning. She was vacationing at the resort with her boyfriend, also from Canada.
Gaspar Buenfil Caballero, director of the government department that investigates homicides, said Sunday that there is an ongoing investigation into the death but the indication at this point is that it was a suicide.
“The boyfriend was detained for 48 hours but after all the investigations... we found that he wasn’t responsible for any crime,” Buenfil Caballero said in a phone interview from Cancun.
“It was an self-inflicted accident... For the moment, we think it’s a suicide.”
Buenfil Caballero said although the boyfriend is not considered a suspect, they have asked him to stay in Mexico while the investigation continues, although he said there is no legal obligation that he remain.
“We’ll work on this as fast as possible with him so that he can return to his country,” Buenfil Caballero said.
A person who answered the phone at a household with the victim’s last name in Kitchener, Ont., asked the family’s privacy be respected. A friend of Di Roberto’s also pleaded for privacy.
This is not the first time a Canadian has died after falling off a hotel balcony in Mexico.
Josh Iwasiuk of Selkirk, Man. died in January 2008 after Mexican police said he fell from a balcony 10 stories high. The family however, questioned the autopsy results at the time.
In November 2007, Chris Morin, 30, of Okotoks,, fell from a fourth-floor balcony in Cancun and died.