Family Says Man Was Slain in Mexico : Investigations: Authorities originally believed Mario Amado killed himself while in custody. But a second autopsy raises doubts.

The death of a North Hollywood man in police custody in Mexico is being investigated by Mexican authorities as a possible murder instead of suicide, as police originally classed the death, U.S. and Mexican government officials said Thursday.

But the investigation into the death of Mario Amado, 29, could be hampered by differences in the countries’ legal systems--differences that raise or lower expectations of what investigators will or will not find and how long it will take them to reach conclusions, officials of both governments acknowledged.

The case now turns on a second autopsy that casts doubt on official police reports that Amado hanged himself with his sweater from a window bar in a jail in the Baja California town of Rosarito on June 6, less than an hour after police arrested him at a beachfront condominium, alleging that he had beaten his girlfriend.

Dr. Richard Siegler, a Los Angeles pathologist hired by Amado’s family, concluded after his autopsy June 12 that the presence of three cups of blood in the liver capsule--which he said was also noted previously by a Mexican coroner--is “strong evidence for a blow to the upper abdomen. Such a blow and the resulting hemorrhage would likely produce shock, during which time the victim would not likely have been able to hang himself.”

This constitutes “new evidence,” which can, under Mexican law, prompt authorities to reopen the investigation, wrote Edwin P. Cubbison, U.S. consul general in Tijuana, in a July 30 memo to Rep. Howard L. Berman, (D-Panorama City), who represents the district where Amado’s family lives.

The results of the second autopsy were submitted to Mexican federal authorities this month, said Amado’s brother, Joe Amado, 49, of Van Nuys.

He and his family say that Siegler’s autopsy reinforces their belief that Mario Amado did not take his own life. “I suspect he was beaten to death, and they finished him off by choking him,” Amado contends.

For his part, Luis Ortega Ramirez, director of security for the city of Tijuana, said in June that three law enforcement agencies investigated the death. “The medical report shows no signs of violence,” he said. “The death resulted from asphyxiation.”

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City had protested in June to Mexican federal officials, complaining that local police did not notify the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana about Amado’s death. The consulate learned of the death from newspaper reports.

Berman, who pressed to have the case reopened at the urging of Amado’s family, has arranged for Joe Amado to give the gray pullover sweater his brother purportedly hanged himself with as evidence to Mexican authorities in the presence of FBI agents, said Rose Castaneda, an aide to Berman.

The dead man’s sister, Delores Amado, said she recovered the sweater from Rosarito police when she claimed the body.

“We’re not taking any chances this time,” Joe Amado said, adding that even if his brother wanted to kill himself, he couldn’t have done so with his sweater. “I want the FBI to be there in Congressman Berman’s office when we turn over the sweater. Our family wants whoever killed him arrested and prosecuted.”

The family wants the turnover to take place at Berman’s office in Panorama City, but Mexican authorities have not agreed to do so.

At the same time, Joe Amado said his family has resisted what he said is a request by Mexican authorities to exhume the body, which is buried in a Los Angeles-area cemetery, so that it can be examined further.

“If they did that, they could say the body appears to fit whatever they want to say about it,” he said.

A Mexican government official, meanwhile, contended that the case has never been closed and that Joe Amado and his family have not fully cooperated with his government’s investigators. Juan Ponce, senior legal adviser to the Mexican consul general in Los Angeles, said Amado family members declined to sign statements he said they gave to authorities who interviewed them at the North Hollywood home where Mario Amado lived with his parents and siblings.

“We’ll have to subpoena witnesses,” Ponce said.

“The problem is, the body is buried here. We have to ask the American judicial system’s help. Our job is to see if the investigation was properly done. If our investigators find that there is evidence that it was not suicide, they’ll prosecute.”

Ponce confirmed that Mexican authorities want to exhume the body and examine it for fibers in areas of the neck where, according to both autopsy reports, there are slender bruises. As for the sweater, Ponce said the Amado family should offer it as evidence “the proper way--by turning it over to your State Department first.”

He sighed. “It’s a very complicated case,” he said. “You not only have a dead body. You’ve got relations involving the family and other witnesses here. We’re doing our best.”

Joe Amado said that on the day before his brother died, the two of them took their girlfriends to Rosarito Beach, a popular tourist destination south of Tijuana. They stayed at a condominium owned by Patty Griffin of North Hollywood, a friend of Mario Amado’s.

There, Mario Amado and Griffin spent most of Friday night, June 5, and Saturday, June 6, quarreling, Joe Amado said. Officers were called about 4:30 p.m. Saturday in response to allegations that Mario Amado had struck the woman, Rosarito police said.

When he went to the Rosarito station later that evening to inquire about his brother, he was told the prisoner had died, Joe Amado said.