SAN DIEGO — The remains of three people found near the Mexican fishing port of Ensenada are those of missing surfers from Australia and the United States who were killed in an apparent carjacking, authorities said Sunday.
The family members made the identifications in person at the request of Baja California state prosecutors, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement obtained Sunday by NBCSan Diego. The bodies were recovered from a remote well about 50 feet deep, authorities said.
The Attorney General’s Office said the bodies, found in La Bocana, south of Ensenada, are those of Jake and Callum Robinson, from Australia, and Jack Carter Rhoad, from the USA.
At least two of the three were believed to live in San Diego, authorities said, according to NBC San Diego.
The Ensenada medical examiner’s office said Friday that the three victims were killed by gunshots to the head.
At a press conference on Sunday, prosecutors said the motive was carjacking and that the attackers may have focused mainly on the wheels of the pickup truck used by the missing surfers.
The three were at a makeshift camp during a fishing and surfing trip south of Ensenada, where the Baja coast quickly becomes remote and full of surprises for surfers seeking relatively rare outings.
Prosecutors said they found the trio’s campsite, including tents, spent gun casings, bloodstains and marks indicating bodies had been dragged.
Three people were being questioned in connection with the case, authorities said. Two of the three, a man and a woman, were arrested on methamphetamine-related charges, they said, and the third was the subject of a kidnapping warrant.
The state’s chief prosecutor, María Elena Andrade Ramírez, previously said there may be evidence, including a victim’s cellphone in the possession of one of the three, that could link the trio to the case.
A fourth body was discovered with the three in the well and may be part of an unrelated case, authorities said.
On Sunday, Andrade Ramírez met with the parents of the three men, his office said in a statement identifying the bodies.
She assured them, it said, that she was committed to ensuring that those responsible faced the full weight of the law.
The three men were reported missing on April 27 when they failed to return to an Airbnb rental closer to the border in Rosarito, Debra Robinson, mother of Jake and Callum Robinson, said on Facebook.
Street violence by cartels and big cities attributed to drug trafficking in places like Tijuana has been seen as rare in the world of Baja tourism, which requires vehicles with off-road capability and the ability to light a fire.
The peninsula’s Pacific coast has been a top destination for North American surfers for 60 years. but the U.S. State Department more recently urged Americans to avoid traveling to Baja as cartel violence spread.
Maria Pinheiro, Tangni Noriega, Marisa Parra It is Linda Takahashi contributed.
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