MOM CLAIMS SLAIN SON CLEARED OF DRUG ACTIVITY

Kamloops - A Kamloops man who was gunned down in Puerto Vallarta last
month has been cleared of any connection to the drug trade, his mother
claimed Monday.

Carol Haughton said a family member spoke to staff at the Canadian
Embassy in Mexico in the days following the murder of her son, Jeffrey
Ivans, and friend Gordon Kendall. The family was told the embassy
investigated the shooting and cleared Ivans any wrongdoing.

"Jeffrey was exonerated of having any ties to organized crime or the
drug trade. That's what the embassy said," said Haughton, adding the
authorities don't know who is behind the shooting. She did not provide
any names of embassy officials.

Ivans and Kendall were shot to death outside a Puerto Vallarta condo
Sept. 27.

Haughton maintained all along that her son was in the wrong place at
the wrong time. She said he went to Mexico to work construction and
had been there a week before the shooting occurred.

She intended to head to Mexico, claim her son's body and question
police about the incident. In the end, authorities sent Ivans' ashes
home. Kendall's remains were also delivered to Kamloops.

Funerals were held for the men at the Cavalry Temple on Saturday.
Haughton said more than 200 people attended her son's service.

"They were both well loved. You bet," she said. "These are boys who
had families that loved them and friends."

Haughton will now try to get her son's pick-up truck and tools sent
home, she said.

According to a news story published on a Puerto Vallarta newspaper's
web page after the shooting, Kendall and Ivans were "executed" by men
looking to "settle accounts." Mexican authorities have said the
circumstances of the shooting suggest both men were targeted.

Ivans has a Canadian criminal record for drug offences. He was
convicted in 2002 of possession of marijuana for the purpose of
trafficking and fined $1,000.

A member of the RCMP's Integrated Gang Task Force said at the time of
the slayings that police in B.C knew Kendall and Ivans.

Sgt. Shinder Kirk said investigators were aware of the men's recent
activities in Mexico, which centred on the drug trade.