An emigrant from Quebec, Mexico has been experiencing a nightmare since late March. His life was turned upside down after he was robbed, beaten, raped and left to die by a group of Puerto Vallarta criminals.
After five years in the Jalisco area, Patrick Larochelle had his habits and daily life in downtown Puerto Vallarta. There he lived for years with his partner Enrique Mucino in an apartment.
Photo courtesy of Patrick Larochelle
One fine afternoon on March 23, Mr. Larochelle went to a bar which he frequented. There he claims to have been drugged with GHB by local people.
“It’s very vague for me until 7 p.m.,” he says. My spouse explained to me that when I got back from the bar we had an argument about some nonsense and that I left. The problem is that I can’t see anything in the dark. I cannot and never do go out at night, not even to go to the supermarket. When I came to my senses, I was standing at a bus stop and was about to get on. Everything has changed here.”
waking nightmare
A delivery truck stopped at the side of the road. In a scenario worthy of a movie, four men got out and dragged Patrick Larochelle into the vehicle. Recognizing the same people who drugged him, he then robbed him at the local bar, taking his passport, computer and phone.
“Obviously they knew what they were doing because they disabled the Google tracking feature in my phone. They have also disabled my computer tracking. These people were not present at their first kidnapping and had planned their coup.
The native of Palmarolle would like to forget the following hours in Abitibi. His captors beat him before having non-consensual sex on a number of occasions, with his body bound for most of the night. He was then knocked out by a severe blow to the head.
His captors were so violent in their repeated attacks that Patrick Larochelle lost a tooth upon returning home. Photo courtesy of Patrick Larochelle
“I woke up because the garbage bag they left me in was stuck to my face when I was breathing,” Patrick Larochelle recalls painfully. I was totally devastated, had a headache and was completely naked in the middle of nowhere. They thought I was dead and sometimes I think I’d rather have been.
A lighthouse at night
About a week after the events that shaped his mind and body for a lifetime, the 47-year-old Quebecer received strange text from a Mexican woman. In the exchange Le Journal was able to obtain, the lady claims to work at the bar where it all started and says she has all of Mr Larochelle’s belongings in her hands, with photographs to go with them.
Screenshot provided by Patrick Larochelle and translated using Google Lens
Concerned for her fate and in case she gets caught with stolen gear, the waitress pulled her ears to meet whoever she was trying to help somewhere safe.
“She felt guilty about what people were doing around her and she wanted to help me. He is an incredible person who has shown great empathy.”
The police found out about the brewing exchange and arrested the young woman in the days that followed. She was finally released a little later.
Patrick Larochelle has since left Puerto Vallarta for Cancún with his wife and essentials, on the recommendation of the local Canadian consulate, fearing reprisals. Worried, his family and friends begged him to return home. The expatriate refuses out of love for the man “without whom he would no longer be here today”.
Patrick Larochelle and “the man of his life”, the Mexican architect Enrique Mucino, in Cancún. Photo courtesy of Patrick Larochelle
“Enrique is my guardian angel,” he says. Since what happened to me, he put aside his passion, his work as an architect, to help me. He’s the one paying all of our expenses because I don’t have a penny. It would be so much easier, but he’s the man of my life and I can’t leave him here after everything he’s done for me.
“A Travesty of Justice”
In the hours following his 2pm kidnapping, Patrick Larochelle was received by investigators from Fiscalia – the police department of the Attorney General of Mexico State – who took over the file from the Metropolitan Police.
It was her husband Enrique Mucino who reported her disappearance on the night of March 23-24. According to an official document seen by Le Journal, authorities refused to speak directly to Mr Larochelle to further the investigation, reiterating that “he must undergo a psychological evaluation before being considered a credible witness”.
“The only time I was able to talk to them was when they had to put me through an intimidating cinema-style interrogation,” says the Quebecer. They yelled at me, banged on the table and tried to lure me into a trap. It was a traumatic experience.”
The Mexican state police never wanted to do business with him again after that. Any discussion related to the file must be made through his spouse according to another official form with the seal of Fiscalia.
When asked by Le Journal, the Mexican authorities refrained from commenting, contenting themselves with the answer that “the investigation is still ongoing”.
crossing the desert
After Patrick Larochelle made the official complaint, he asked to see a coroner as soon as possible for blood tests to check for potential HIV infection and to confirm that he had in fact been sexually abused.
“They made it clear to me that there was no qualified coroner in the area to examine me for several weeks. I’ve never worried so much in my life,” breathes the man, who has been living in Mexico for five years, full of emotion.
It was more than two weeks before a doctor could examine him and prescribe 28 days of post-exposure treatment to prevent him from contracting AIDS.
Even after this prescription, Mr. Larochelle never received the result of the screening, which caused him great concern throughout the duration of the treatment. On June 5, he finally breathed a sigh of relief when his test came back negative.
“I feel alive again, it’s a tremendous burden that’s on our shoulders and like it or not, it’s affecting the couple too.” take your hand,” he concludes.