ENSENADA, Baja California — A fourth person has been arrested in connection with the murders of two Australian brothers and their American friend who were killed during a surf trip in Baja California.
According to Mexican officials, a man identified as Ángel Jesús, 31, was captured by officers on Monday south of Ensenada.
Ángel Jesús and two others have been arrested and charged with homicide for the murders of San Diego resident Callum Robinson, 33, his brother Jake Robinson, 30, and their friend Carter Rhoad, 30.
The three friends who were reported missing during a surfing trip were found dead in a remote area of Ensenada on May 3.
According to Baja California prosecutors, thieves apparently killed the three men during an attempt to steal their truck because they wanted the tires. They then allegedly got rid of the bodies by dumping them in a well near the coast.
The well was located some 4 miles (6 kilometers) from where the Robinsons and Rhoad were killed and also contained a fourth cadaver that had been there much longer.
In May, Chief State Prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez described what likely would have been moments of terror that ended the trip for brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Carter Rhoad.
She theorized the killers drove by and saw the foreigners’ pickup truck and tents and wanted to steal their tires. But “when (the foreigners) came up and caught them, surely, they resisted.”
She said that’s when the killers would have shot the tourists.
The thieves then allegedly went to what she called “a site that is extremely hard to get to” and allegedly dumped the bodies into a well they apparently were familiar with. She said investigators were not ruling out the possibility the same suspects also dumped the first, earlier body in the well as part of previous crimes.
“They may have been looking for trucks in this area,” Andrade Ramírez said.
The thieves allegedly covered the well with boards. “It was literally almost impossible to find it,” Andrade Ramírez said, and it took two hours to winch the bodies out of the well.
Following the killings, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers expressed sympathy for the Robinson family. “I think the whole country’s heart goes out to all of their loved ones. It has been an absolutely horrendous, absolutely horrific ordeal and our thoughts are with all of them today,” he said at a news conference in May from the capital, Canberra.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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