3 Bodies Found in Baja California Are Identified as Missing Tourists

Published May 5, 2024Updated May 17, 2024

Three bodies that were found in the Mexican state of Baja California last week have been identified as those of three tourists from Australia and the United States who had disappeared days earlier, the Mexican authorities said on Sunday.

The bodies were confirmed to be those of Callum and Jake Robinson, two brothers from Perth, Australia, and Jack Carter Rhoad of San Diego, the Baja California attorney general's office said in a statement. "The confirmation comes after the victims' families were able to identify them, without the need for genetic testing," the statement read.

The Robinsons and Mr. Rhoad had been on vacation, surfing and camping along the coast near the Mexican city of Ensenada, when they disappeared on April 27. The Robinsons' mother said in a social media post on Wednesday that they had never showed up at an Airbnb they had booked in another coastal town.

Early on Friday, the Mexican authorities recovered the three bodies from a 50-foot-deep water hole near La Bocana beach. A fourth, yet unidentified male body, which prosecutors said had no relation to the case, was also found at the bottom of the hole.

Each of the bodies later identified as those of the tourists had a gunshot wound to the head, said María Elena Andrade Ramírez, the state's attorney general.

Three suspects have been detained in connection with the killings. One has been charged with forced disappearance. Ms. Andrade Ramírez said he tried to rob the Robinson brothers and Mr. Carter of the pickup truck in which they were traveling. When they resisted, she said, he shot them and later disposed of their bodies.

"Unfortunately, they stayed in an inhospitable place where there was no way to call for help," Ms. Andrade Ramírez said at a news conference on Sunday.

The other two people being detained have been charged with possession of methamphetamine, Ms. Andrade Ramírez said. She said that there might be more arrests, but that there was no indication that any of Mexico's organized crime gangs had been involved in the killings.

"The hypothesis so far is that they approached with the intent to seize the pickup truck and attacked the victims," she said.

Ms. Andrade Ramírez said a burned campsite had been discovered in a remote, isolated area south of Ensenada, about four miles from where the bodies were found. A single shell casing and blood stains were found at the site, and the tourists' pickup truck, also burned, had been abandoned nearby, Ms. Andrade Ramírez said.

Emiliano Rodríguez Mega is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. More about Emiliano Rodríguez Mega