A British traveller and keen skateboarder shot dead alongside two friends inMexicowas “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, his inquest has heard.
Ben Marshall Corser, 36, from St Just inCornwall, was killed while sitting in the back of a car outside a supermarket in Colima, in western Mexico.
Cornwall coroner’s court heard Corser was taken to hospital unconscious but pronounced dead on arrival.
His father, Andrew Corser, told the hearing in Truro that his son was healthy and had been enjoying a “very happy and sociable time” while travelling in 2022. He said Ben and the two friends he had been living with had gone to the supermarket to buy food when they were killed.
Corser told the court: “We have had no explanation or reason given, no suggestion of robbery, kidnapping or anything else. Police have not passed to us any information apart from the cause of death.
“Apparently there has been a dramatic upsurge of violence in Colima. It is most likely this was a question of Ben, Claudio and Alfredo being tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
A police report read to the inquest referred to the witness statement of a local woman who heard gunshots and threw herself to the ground before seeing a van with the driver’s door open. CCTV cameras were unable to identify the van and the licence plates were not visible, the inquest was told.
A postmortem found Corser, who had first-class degrees in maths and fine art, had been fatally shot in his chest.
Emma Hillson, assistant coroner for Cornwall, concluded that Corser had been unlawfully killed.
She said: “Ben had been travelling in Mexico since January 2022. He had lived in different parts of Mexico, becoming part of the community. He was living with an American-Mexican family, with two other young men, Claudio and Alfredo, in Colima.
“They were skateboarders and Ben joined them in skateboarding. On the evening of 24 May 2022, Ben and Claudio returned to the area on a bus and Alfredo picked them up in the car.
“They travelled along the main boulevard and stopped at a supermarket. While the three were in the car, outside the supermarket, all three of them, including Ben who was sat in the back seat, were shot dead.”
The coroner added: “Three years have now passed since this death. I am satisfied it is unlikely that further information will be forthcoming.”