The family of a Toronto-area couple slain at a Mexican resort last year has filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the tour operator alleging a breach of contract and negligence that "directly caused and contributed" to their deaths. 

The bodies of Dominic Ianiero, 59, and Nancy Ianiero, 56, were found in their five-star Cancun-area hotel room on Feb. 20, 2006. Their throats were slit.

Nancy and Dominic Ianiero were found with their throats slit in a resort near Cancun in February 2006. No arrests have been made.
(CBC)

The couple and more than a dozen family members were at the Playa del Carmen resort for a family wedding.

The lawsuit against tour operator Sunquest Vacations was filed by 16 members of the wedding party — including the Woodbridge, Ont., couple's daughters, Liliana and Nancy — who collectively paid $45,667 for the holiday package.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

The suit alleges the tour operator failed to warn travellers that Mexico posed a higher risk for violent crime than other vacation destinations and misrepresented the state of the resort's security.

The Ianiero family "believed among other things that the hotel would be a safe environment for their wedding holiday," according to the statement of claim filed on Aug. 3 at the Ontario Superior Court in Toronto.

It also alleges the resort's hotel rooms featured ground-floor patio doors that did not properly lock and "showed evidence of tampering from outsiders."

Police 'allowed and encouraged' to treat family as suspects

Sunquest failed to provide appropriate "professional, medical and emotional" support for the plaintiffs following the killings, including ensuring staff members were available to serve as translators for the family as investigators made inquiries, the lawsuit alleges.

After the slayings, Sunquest "allowed and encouraged" the police, resort staff, its own employees and the media to "treat the plaintiffs as if they had committed the murders themselves, rather than supporting the plaintiffs as it was required to do," the statement of claim alleges.  

"[The plaintiffs] were made to suffer frustration, anger and outrage by Sunquest's failure to provide the support reasonably expected and required."

Contacted by CBC News on Wednesday, Sunquest spokeswoman Jill Wykes said the company would not comment on the lawsuit.

The Ianiero case has been riddled with surprising twists and angry exchanges between the family and Mexican officials, but no arrests have been made in the 17 months since the killings.

In May, the Globe and Mail reported the mother of a Mexican resort security guard who disappeared shortly after the killings asked her son to turn himself in to authorities.

Blas Delgado Fajardo, 37, was identified by some as the prime suspect.

His mother, Aurora Fajardo, told the Globe that she believes her son has fled across the border and is living with some of his siblings, who are illegal immigrants in Madera, Calif.