When Dustin LaFortune was dumped at a Regina hospital -- emaciated, mutilated, suffering from amnesia -- the questions began. What happened to him? Who could have done this? Now, months later, W5 hears from Dustin, family and friends and watches his slow recovery.

On a late summer afternoon, Dustin LaFortune is having his first sip of beer in months. It's a special occasion -- LaFortune is toasting the long awaited reunion with family and friends in Victoria, British Columbia, after spending nearly five months in hospital recovering from multiple beatings, mutilation and starvation. The 27-year-old former lumberyard foreman, mover and weightlifter almost didn't survive.

The victim of regular brutal beatings, allegedly over the course of 14 months, LaFortune was dumped at Regina General Hospital on April 16th, barely conscious, and admitted to the intensive care unit.

Once weighing almost 245 pounds, when dropped at the Regina hospital he weighed only 87 pounds. With an acute brain injury and suffering from amnesia, LaFortune had also been starved and was suffering from malnutrition. His body was mutilated, with fractures to his head and ribs. His lower lip was severed and his tongue sliced.

Renee LaFortune, Dustin's mom, says he was barely recognizable and near death when she first saw her son in hospital. "When we got there and I looked at him, I thought maybe he should die…. He had hard palate injuries. His eye orbits were broken. His skull was fractured. His head was crushed."

Friends and family were left to wonder how this could happen to a strong, healthy and highly likeable.

"He was funny. He was charming, very charming. He was a very happy guy. He made you feel good, and he was gorgeous," said Lynn Ness, whom LaFortune describes as his "soul mate."

Lindsay Airhart, the mother of Dustin's eight-year-old daughter, Aurora, describes LaFortune as consistently generous and never confrontational. "I don't think I ever heard him speak a bad word about anybody. He was always just so caring and loving."

While his childhood was atypical in many respects -- TV and sugar weren't allowed growing up -- LaFortune enjoyed horseplay and pranks with his three brothers and was known for building elaborate forts, riding his bike and chronically drawing. Still today, he goes almost nowhere without his sketchbook and pencil.

A household policy of respect for others and non-aggression was instilled in the LaFortune children at an early age, in part due to their Metis heritage. "In our family we had one rule and that one rule was people are not for hurting -- not their feelings and not their bodies. There was no violence," said Renee LaFortune.

LaFortune's mom says that household canon might explain, in part, why her son was vulnerable to such vicious beatings and abuse. "He wouldn't have known what to do. He has no experience or awareness that people can be like that."

Ness adds, "He was a very sweet guy… until you did something wrong, he would give you the shirt off his back type of thing."

The gentle LaFortune would meet his alleged attacker, known to friends as Dee, at a Winnipeg house party three years before joining him in Calgary to run a moving business.

By many accounts, LaFortune had a good and successful life in Winnipeg. Working as a foreman at a local lumber yard, he spent his weekends with friends and continued to see his daughter regularly.

While LaFortune never struck up an immediate or close friendship with Dee, they stayed in touch through mutual friends, and then by phone when Dee moved to Calgary.

In late 2008, after breaking up with his Winnipeg girlfriend of nearly four years, LaFortune set out to join Dee in Calgary, to start up a moving company.

The business was successful and they were making money. But not everything was fine. LaFortune told W5's Paula Todd he experienced his business partner's temper soon after arriving in Calgary.

One time, LaFortune explains, "I just backed up my chair and it went over this little extension cord in his room, and he just lost it. And then he took a steel-toed boot and started beating me in the head with it."

When Airhart visited LaFortune in October 2009, in Calgary, he was in hospital, with multiple rib fractures and wounds to his face and body. According to Airhart, LaFortune told her that a freezer fell on him.

After staying with LaFortune and his business partner for six weeks in their Calgary home, Airhart said she asked LaFortune to return to Winnipeg with her. "I tried to get Dustin to come home with me. And he said no."

According to LaFortune, his friends and family, things got worse and soon LaFortune wasn't even reachable. No one was able to contact him.

After several unreturned phone messages, Airhart phoned LaFortune's father about her concerns. "So I let it go for three weeks to a month. And I called up Donald, Dustin's biological father, and I said I have a gut feeling Dustin's dead, something's wrong."

At least two missing person reports were filed -- by LaFortune's father and mother -- with police shortly after. Four days after filing a report online, Renee LaFortune's son was dropped off at Regina General Hospital, in a state of untold injury and mutilation.

LaFortune's recovery has been slow and painful, but the aspiring entrepreneur who wants to have his own landscaping business some day, is optimistic. "First of all, I don't quit at anything. It's not in my vocabulary. I can't wait to get started on the business and get back to the regular world again," said LaFortune.

With the backing of thousands of Facebook subscribers, LaFortune is buoyed by the support. "I couldn't have done it without my supporters... I can't believe there's 50,000 people out there on my side," he says, referring to the messages of encouragement he continues to get.

Still faced with reconstructive surgery -- to repair his ears and mouth -- and brain injury therapy, LaFortune looks forward to the future -- hopeful but a little wary. "I still think the same about humans -- that humans are capable of everything good. They're also capable of everything bad, too. You've just got to be smart enough to figure out one from the other."