More than two years after three young surfers vanished from a remote stretch of Mexico’s Pacific coast, a judge in Baja California has sent each of the men convicted of their murder to prison for 158 years and nine months.
Jake and Callum Robinson, two brothers from Australia, had been travelling with Carter Rhoad, a friend from the United States. They were camping near Punta San José, south of the port city of Ensenada, when attackers came for their pickup truck at the end of April 2024. According to the state prosecutor’s office, the three were killed when they resisted. Their burnt-out vehicle turned up nearby, and their bodies were later recovered from a well more than 15 metres deep on a coastal ranch.
The defendants – Jesús Gerardo, nicknamed “El Kekas”, whom prosecutors describe as the leader, along with Irineo Francisco and Ángel Jesús – had been found guilty a week earlier of aggravated homicide, robbery and violent vehicle theft. Their surnames have been withheld for legal reasons. Of the total term, 135 years relate to the killings, with the rest added for the robbery offences.
Back home, the victims’ families watched the court session over a video connection. Martin and Debra Robinson, the brothers’ parents, had flown from Australia to Ensenada for the trial, which opened on 7 September, and they have since set up a foundation bearing their sons’ names. Callum had moved to the United States to play professional lacrosse and loved joining beach clean-ups; Jake, a doctor, was about to start work at a hospital in Geelong.
Organised crime and the drug trade make Baja California one of Mexico’s deadliest regions, even if gangs there rarely go after foreign visitors. The case has nonetheless revived memories of 2015, when two other Australian surfers were murdered on a road trip through Sinaloa.
