Woman linked to murders of American and Australian surfers in Mexico sentenced to 20 years in prison

A Mexican court sentenced a woman to 20 years in prison for her participation in the April 2024 murders of two Australian surfers and an American at a surfing hotspot in Baja California, judicial authorities said Thursday.

the victims They were Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson, aged 30 and 33 respectively, and Jack Carter Rhoad, a 30-year-old American citizen.

The three had been camping in a remote area next to the beach when were killed in what investigators believe was an attempt to steal his truck.

A Mexican judge in Ensenada convicted Ary Gisell Silva, 23, who admitted during the trial to having instigated and participated in the theft of the tourists’ belongings, which later led to the murder of the three surfers.

“They have good phones and good tires” in their truck, the young woman allegedly told her three accomplices before committing the murder, according to evidence collected in the prosecutor’s investigation.

Silva was found guilty of crimes related to “robbery with violence,” according to the ruling published Thursday in the public records of the judicial authority of Baja California, bordering the United States.

According to evidence presented by the prosecution, Silva was the first to make contact with the tourists and noticed that they had valuable objects. That led her to urge her boyfriend and the other two men to commit the robbery.

She initially told a court that her boyfriend confessed to killing the three friends after returning home from their campsite, the BBC reported. She told investigators that he showed up at her house on April 28 and told her he had done something to “three gringos,” the BBC reported. She said she asked him what he meant and he replied: “I killed them,” the court was told.

The other three individuals have already been arrested and charged with murder, but are being tried in separate proceedings.

The surfers were reported missing on April 27, 2024, while camping in Ensenada, where they had traveled from the United States to surf.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the attackers “intentionally surprised the surfers and shot them with firearms, taking their lives on Sunday, April 28.”

The crime caused great indignation and sadness in their countries of origin, where an intense search campaign was launched in the media and social networks.

The bodies were found on May 3, 2024, hidden in a cliff.

Callum Robinson played professional lacrosse in the United States, where he became known as “the big koala,” according to his mother. After the murders, the United States Premier Lacrosse League left a message on its website saying the lacrosse world was “heartbroken by the tragic loss” of the trio.

Other foreign tourists visiting the Mexican Pacific region had already been the target of criminal attacks.

In November 2015, two other Australian surfers, Dean Lucas and Adam Colemanwere murdered and then their bodies burned while traveling through the state of Sinaloa.