Three bodies found last week in Mexico's Baja California state have been identified as those of three tourists from Australia and the United States who disappeared several days earlier, Mexican authorities said Sunday.
The Baja California Attorney General's Office said in a statement that the bodies have been identified as those of brothers Callum and Jake Robinson of Perth, Australia, and Jack Carter Lord of San Diego. “Confirmation was made after the victim's family was able to determine the identity without the need for genetic testing,” the statement said.
The Robinson family and Lord went missing on April 27 while on vacation surfing and camping along the Mexican coast near the city of Ensenada. The Robinson family's mother said in a social media post Wednesday that the two never showed up in Ensenada. They used an Airbnb booked in another coastal town.
Early Friday morning, Mexican authorities recovered three bodies from a 50-foot-deep water hole near La Bocana Beach. The body of a fourth unidentified man, who prosecutors said was unrelated to the incident, was also found at the bottom of the hole.
The bodies, later identified as those of tourists, had gunshot wounds to the head, said state Attorney General Maria Elena Andrade Ramirez.
Three suspects have been detained in connection with the murder. One person was charged with forced disappearance. Andrade Ramirez said he tried to rob the pickup truck the Robinson brothers and Carter were in. When they resisted, he shot them and then disposed of her body, she said.
“Unfortunately, they remained in a poor location with no way to seek help,” Andrade Ramirez said at a news conference Sunday.
The other two people in custody are charged with possession of methamphetamine, Andrade Ramirez said. She said there may be more arrests, but she said there is no indication that Mexican organized crime groups were involved in the killings.
“The theory so far is that they approached the pickup truck with the intention of stealing it and attacked the victim,” she said.
Andrade Ramirez said a burnt-out campsite was found about four miles from where the bodies were found in a remote area south of Ensenada. Andrade Ramirez said a bullet casing and blood stains were found at the scene, and a tourist pickup truck was also burnt and abandoned nearby.