U.S. Resort Owner Slain In Mexico -- Cuernavaca's Expatriate Community Stunned By Friend's Death

MEXICO CITY - Foreigners living in the resort town of Cuernavaca reacted with shock this week to the brutal slaying of an American hotel owner.

William Markely Nixon III, a 60-year-old architect who came to Mexico about six years ago from Beverly Hills, appeared to have been killed late Monday or early Tuesday, the Morelos state attorney general's office said. Nixon was stabbed 35 times in the neck and chest, authorities said.

His body was found Tuesday in the sprawling hacienda, Rancho Cuernavaca, that he had turned into a multimillion-dollar hotel. Authorities say no motive had been detemined.

Cuernavaca, known as the "City of Eternal Spring" for its mild year-round weather, is 50 miles south of Mexico City.

Nixon moved in Cuernavaca's top social circles, renting his ranch for parties and donating the premises for charity events, including efforts to help blind children and to support animal shelters and the arts.

"It's just too horrible for words because this man was dearly beloved by everyone who knew him," said Juli Lynne Charlot, an American who had known Nixon since he arrived in Cuernavaca.

"He took this old hacienda and turned it into a showplace in Mexico. He was just a wonderful, handsome, elegant Southern gentleman," said Charlot.

Claudia Ortega, an expatriate from New York and neighbor of Nixon's, said the American community "was very sad because he was a gift from God, always collecting money for charities. No one ever thought such a thing would happen to him."

The killing occurred at a time when the expatriate community in Cuernavaca has been coping with a three-year wave of kidnappings. Some of Nixon's friends speculated that he may have been killed while resisting an attempt to abduct him.

Morelos Gov. Jorge Carrillo Olea is fighting to stay in office after federal authorities placed his top law-enforcement officials under house arrest last month as part of a federal investigation into the kidnappings.

The commander of the state's anti-kidnapping unit faces kidnapping and homicide charges after he was caught in January disposing of a man's body in the bordering state of Guerrero, authorities said.

Citizens groups have documented 350 kidnappings since 1995.