Relatives identified this Sunday, May 5, that the three bodies located inside a well are those of two Australian surfers and one American who disappeared last weekend, Mexican authorities reported.
The prosecutor’s office Baja California indicated that relatives saw the bodies that were recovered in a well about 15 meters (50 feet) deep and identified them as their loved ones.
The three people, who were on a surfing trip in the Baja California peninsula, were apparently murdered by three thieves who stole their truck. because they wanted the tires. They then disposed of the bodies, throwing them into a well near the coast.
The well is located about 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the place where the foreigners were murdered, and also contained the remains of a fourth person who had been in that place much longer.
Three suspects are detained in connection with the case, which local residents say was solved much faster than the disappearance of thousands of Mexicans.
Chronology: Why were foreign tourists murdered in Baja California?
The three men disappeared last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, and posted photos on social media of waves and isolated beaches along a stretch of coast south of the city from Ensenada.
The state attorney general María Elena Andrade Ramírez described the moments that ended the brothers’ journey Jake and Callum Robinsonfrom Australia, and from the American Jack Carter Rhoad.
He said that the thieves passed by and saw the foreigners’ truck and tents, and wanted to steal their tires.
“Surely there was resistance on their part” and the thieves shot them deadhe stated.
The thieves then went to what the prosecutor described as a place that was difficult to access and threw their bodies into a well that they apparently already knew. Investigators do not rule out the possibility that the same suspects also dumped the first body into the well as part of their robberies.
The place where the bodies were discovered, near the municipality of Santo Tomas, It was near the remote coastal area where the tents and vehicle of the missing people were found on Thursday. From the last photos of him, the trip seemed perfect. But even foreigners who have lived in the area for a long time wonder if it is safe to camp on the coast.
The moderator of the local Internet forum Talk Baja, who has lived in the area for almost two decades, wrote in an editorial on Saturday that “the reality is that the dangers of traveling to and camping in remote areas already exceed the benefits.”
The Baja California prosecutor’s office He had said he was questioning three people in the case. On Friday, prosecutors said the three had been detained on charges of a crime equivalent to kidnapping, but that was before the bodies were found. It was unclear whether they could face more charges.
The mother of the missing Australians, Debra Robinson, asked for help Wednesday to locate her children through a message on a local community’s Facebook page. Robinson noted that one of her sons, Callum, was diabetic. The US State Department reported that it was aware of reports of a US citizen missing in Baja California.
In 2015, two Australian surfers, Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas, died in the western state of Sinaloa, across the Gulf of California, facing the Baja California peninsula. Authorities said they had been victims of thieves. Three suspects were arrested in that case.
