Canadian accused of killing Peruvian medicine woman lynched in Amazon

 

LIMA (Reuters) - A Canadian man was lynched in the Peruvian Amazon after residents of a remote village accused him of killing an 81-year-old medicine woman a day earlier, a spokesman for the attorney general's office said on Sunday.

 

Olivia Arevalo, a traditional healer of the Shipibo-Conibo tribe, was shot twice and died on Thursday near her home in the Amazonian region of Ucayali, said Ricardo Palma Jimenez, the head of a group of prosecutors in Ucayali.

 

Some villagers had blamed Arevalo's murder on Sebastian Paul Woodroffe, a 41-year-old Canadian citizen who lived in the region and who was believed to have been one of her clients, said Jimenez.

 

Police found Woodroffe's body buried about 1 km (0.6 mile)from Arevalo's home on Saturday, after a cellphone video recording of the Friday lynching was shared on social media, said Jimenez.

 

The video shows a man groaning in a puddle near a thatched-roof structure as another man puts a rope around his neck and drags him with others looking on.

 

Jimenez said prosecutors were exploring several hypotheses related to Arevalo's murder and that it was too early to name suspects in the case. No arrests had been made yet related to Woodroffe's death, he added.

 

"We will not rest until both murders, of the indigenous woman as well as the Canadian man, are solved," said Jimenez in a phone interview.

 

Jimenez said the man in the video was Woodroffe and that an autopsy of his body showed he died by strangulation after receiving several blows across his body.

 

Arevalo's murder had prompted outrage in Peru following other unsolved murders of indigenous activists who had repeatedly faced death threats related to efforts to keep illegal loggers and oil palm growers off native lands.

 

Policing is scant over much of the Peruvian Andes and Amazon and villagers in far-flung provinces often punish suspected criminals according to local customs and without the involvement of state police and prosecutors.

 

"Canada extends its deepest condolences following the reported assassination of‎ Olivia Arévalo Lomas, an Indigenous elder and human rights defender," Global Affairs Canada, which manages Canadian foreign relations, said in a statement.

 

"We are also aware that a Canadian ‎was killed in a related incident. Consular services are being provided to the family of the Canadian," it added.

 

(Reporting by Mitra Taj; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-04-23

Stupid canuck, involved with a culture he can't possibly comprehend... Oh, wait

 

"We will not rest until both murders, of the indigenous woman as well as the Canadian man, are solved,"

 

The second one is pretty much solved already.

It's called "community policing". Hope they got the right perp

6 minutes ago, Emster23 said:

It's called "community policing". Hope they got the right perp

Probably not.

 

But they did get to kill an outsider something that they had probably been considering for some time.Community policing was all the rage back in the days of the Ox-Bow incident.

15 minutes ago, car720 said:

hang em high.

Maybe this guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time but it sounds like loggers trying to force out locals and the locals have responded.

Right..a one man logging team.

 

1 hour ago, Odysseus123 said:

Right..a one man logging team.

 

We take lumber jacking serious in Canada.

2 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

We take lumber jacking serious in Canada.

I find the levity somewhat disturbing altho' I am not having a go at you.

 

This guy was lynched and his death filmed and posted on social media.

 

Hopefully the authorities will be able to get at the truth but I somehow doubt it.

What an odd story.  If the guy murdered an elderly woman (which I doubt), then you'd think he'd get out of Dodge as fast as possible.  Superstition, ww, causes much misery.  

This is a lot different, but it brought to mind an odd occurrence.  When I was in my late-20's, I drove into Mexico, solo.  I was about 2/3 the way to Guatemala, when I stopped at a large plaza in a small pueblo.  There were indigenous people with face paint dancing in the middle of a large group of onlookers.   I surmised they were indigenous because they were smaller stature, and had traditional clothes.  The alpha male in the dancing group noticed me taking still photos with my camera.  He immediately stopped dancing and approached me, demanding my camera.  I didn't give it to him, but instead backed away, while resisting a dozen hands clenching my clothes and body, while the natives moaned loudly at me.  I backed over to a policeman's booth, and that ended the 12 minutes of discomfort.  

Back on topic; RIP to the deceased and condolences to his family.

Edited April 23, 20188 yr by evadgib

I see nothing wrong.  RIP anyway to the Canadian. To others visiting foreign lands, respect their culture and country.

13 hours ago, car720 said:

it is a HI profession..  

Do  they still put on women's clothing and hang around in bars

8 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

I see nothing wrong.  RIP anyway to the Canadian. To others visiting foreign lands, respect their culture and country.

You see nothing wrong with murdering someone and posting the film on social media?

 

On the supposition that they murdered (unproven and unsubstantiated) someone else?

 

Or that your life is ended in squalor,terror and misery just so some denizen of the dark internet can post the lumberjack song about you?

 

How do you know that he was not respecting their culture?

 

Stockholm Syndrome at its very worse.

Edited April 23, 20188 yr by Odysseus123

they'll never get away with it now. thaivisa sleuths are onto it from the other side of the planet just a matter of time before they will be able to post the case closed notice now

Poor guy ,in the full version he is severely injured and can be heard crying out "mommy" and mom as he tries to stop some guy from placing a noose around his neck

Just now, InMyShadow said:

Poor guy ,in the full version he is severely injured and can be heard crying out "mommy" and mom as he tries to stop some guy from placing a noose around his neck

You are being human and responding in a human way.

 

The other pro-lynching red neck crackers on this thread should be ashamed of themselves.

19 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

We take lumber jacking serious in Canada.

Yes, seems you do.........

 

https://youtu.be/89LfQUlcNFk

On 23/04/2018 at 8:46 AM, Emster23 said:

It's called "community policing". Hope they got the right perp

If not can he appeal