A Canadian couple were beaten and stabbed to death during an incident in which their home was looted and their two vehicles stolen over the weekend, Mexican authorities say.

Police said the victims were an 84-year-old man and a 72-year-old woman.

Friends and family have identified the victims as Nina Discombe and Edward Kular.

According to police, they were discovered yesterday morning by a gardener.

The slain man’s son, Steve Kular, told CBC News that the family is devastated.

"He was an amazing father to all of us, he had several grandchildren and was a great man," he said.

Christine Kular, the daughter-in-law of the deceased, said she learned what had happened on Monday.

"It’s like a bad dream, I can’t believe that it has happened," she told CBC News, fighting back tears.

She said that her father-in-law and Discombe had been dating for the past few years.

The couple had been living in Ajijic, a small, lakeside town popular with foreign retirees, located about 50 kilometres south of Guadalajara.

Edward Kular was a resident of Toronto, while Discombe was from Ottawa.

News shocks longtime neighbours in Toronto

In Toronto, Kular’s neighbours said he was a longtime resident of Scarborough, near Birchmount Road and Lawrence Avenue East.

Betty MacLeod said she and Kular had been neighbours for 60 years.

"I’ve been in this house 60 years and he had lived two doors down from me, moved in the same year," she told CBC News on Monday evening.

MacLeod said that Kular was "really a nice gentleman, a good family man" and a good neighbour to her.

Mitch Forbes said the news of Kular’s death left him "stunned" and "absolutely shocked."

Forbes said that Kular had been going to Mexico during the winter for years.

'We're all perplexed'

Alejandro Grattan, the editor in chief of the English-language El Ojo del Lago newspaper, told CBC News that he was a friend of the victims.

"We're all perplexed and we're in a daze," Grattan said in a telephone interview. "They had many, many friends down here."

He questioned the motive that police are giving.

"They both were beaten up savagely before they were killed, and you know, that's not exactly the kind of thing that somebody who's just there to steal money and jewelry is going to do."

Roberto Arroyo, a spokesman for the municipal government of Chapala, told CBC News in a telephone interview that authorities are looking for a green truck they believe will likely contain items taken from the couple’s home.

Mathieu Roy, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs, told CBC News in an email that Canadian officials are providing assistance to the family of the deceased.

Roy said the department could not provide further information on the case for privacy reasons.

The Canadian government advises travellers to "exercise a high degree of caution" when visiting Mexico, though Ottawa does not currently have a nationwide advisory in effect for the country.

Canadians took nearly 1.6 million trips to Mexico in 2012, according to data posted on the Statistics Canada website.