Mexican police suspect robbery was motive in brutal beating that killed Canadian artist
Marcia Dworkin, 72, died Tuesday, never regaining consciousness after a Sept. 16 beating at her home in San Miguel de Allende, a town favoured by expatriates.
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Marcia Dworkin is remembered by numerous friends in Canada and Mexico as a free-spirited, creative and generous person who loved living in San Miguel de Allende, a central Mexican town much favoured by American and Canadian expatriates.
COURTESY ATENCION SAN MIGUEL
Marcia Dworkin is remembered by numerous friends in Canada and Mexico as a free-spirited, creative and generous person who loved living in San Miguel de Allende, a central Mexican town much favoured by American and Canadian expatriates.
By: Jacques Gallant Staff Reporter, Published on Fri Sep 27 2013
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About four days before she was fatally attacked, Marcia Dworkin hosted a group of friends in her San Miguel de Allende home to share information that could prove helpful during an emergency.
?Unfortunately, we did not act quickly enough for it to benefit her when she needed it,? said Libby Shipman, her friend who lives across the street.
Police in the central Mexican city, where thousands of Canadian and American expatriates reside, told the 72-year-old Toronto artist?s family that their mother was found in her courtyard on the morning of Monday, Sept. 16.
Dworkin?s face had been badly beaten and her clothes were soaking wet as a result of the rain that weekend, said Irene Pagan, another neighbour and longtime friend. Pagan arrived at the scene when she spotted the ambulance.
?I thought she had tripped, but then when I walked up and saw her face, it was like a scene out of Law & Order,? she said.
It remains unclear how long Dworkin had been there. Friends told the Star that she lived alone and was discovered unconscious by her housekeeper.
She was initially taken to the local hospital. Her son, Ian, a university professor in Michigan, and one of her daughters travelled to Mexico on Sept. 18. They arranged to have Dworkin transported by air ambulance back to Ontario, where she died in a Kingston hospital this past Tuesday.
As far as her son is aware, Dworkin, who was placed in a medically induced coma in Mexico, never regained consciousness.
San Miguel de Allende police confirmed that a case regarding Dworkin has been opened, but refused to disclose any information to the Star, citing privacy reasons. In an interview with the local bilingual newspaper, Atencion San Miguel, the district attorney said that investigators are treating the incident as a possible ?mugging or robbery.?
Ian Dworkin told the Star that Kingston police have opened a homicide investigation. The Star was unable to confirm this with the police.
The family has planned her funeral for Sunday in Toronto, and is accepting donations for the Kingston General Hospital?s trauma unit, as well as to fund projects at Shalom San Miguel de Allende, the Jewish community centre of which Dworkin was a member.
The gathering at her home in early September was just one example of Dworkin?s tireless volunteer work and involvement with the expat community.
Members want to know how a woman described as popular, free-spirited, creative and generous ? who continued to paint and show her work in galleries despite her diminishing sight ? ended up beaten and left for dead.
Dworkin had been splitting her time between Mexico and Toronto for the past 16 years, said her son. The large artistic community is what attracted her. Her neighbourhood of about 20 homes has been described as isolated.
San Miguel de Allende is not known for the kind of drug-related violence that has plagued other regions of Mexico. Residents say robberies are fairly common ? Dworkin herself had been mugged several years ago ? but murders are rarer.
At least five other expats have been killed under suspicious circumstances in the town over the past three years, including another Canadian, 64-year-old Judith Baylis of Ottawa, found stabbed 21 times in her San Miguel de Allende suburban home in 2011.
Dworkin had recently sold her car because of her glaucoma and was in the midst of selling her home as well. Friends said she had planned to rent accommodations closer to the centre of the city.
In a 2012 Atencion article, the mother of three and grandmother of nine was described as an oil painter and mixed media artist, who showed her work in her home studio. She hosted a weekly figure-drawing group and was a go-to person for groups seeking artwork for charity auctions.
?She was a wonderful, fun-loving, energetic woman who always took the time to pay a compliment to everyone,? said her friend, Teresa Leon.
Another friend, Leni Garetson, remembered Dworkin as someone who was always up for anything ? including a road trip once across Mexico in Garetson?s tiny Subaru, when they came close to running out of gas in the middle of a desert area.
Residents are concerned the culprits in Dworkin?s death may never be found. They don?t want San Miguel de Allende to be seen as a violent place to live, a label so often attached to other Mexican towns, but rather the kind of city Dworkin herself described in a 2011 Atencion article.
?San Miguel has the perfect environment for being an artist ? the beautiful sky, the continuous sunshine, the supportive community with its meeting of minds,? she said at the time. ?I have travelled a great deal and always look at places with an artist?s eye. But I cannot imagine living anywhere else.?
