The three surfers first went missing in April of 2024. Photos: Instagram
On Monday, the trial began for the men charged with murdering Australians Jake and Callum Robinson and American Jack Carter Rhoad. On the third day of the proceedings, more details have emerged about the days before the trio were found.
In April 2024, the three surfers were reported missing after going on a camping trip in Ensenada. Authorities believe they were killed in an attempted robbery gone wrong, in which the assailants wanted to take the surfers’ car and steal its tires. As Courthouse News Service reports, during the trial, Rhoad’s widow and brother described the search for the missing men, and the moment they discovered the remains of their campsite
The last time Rhoad’s wife spoke to him was a FaceTime call on April 25. Four days later, she hadn’t heard from him again and could see that his shared location had not changed. Concerned, she contacted another friend who had been on the trip, but left early.
On April 30, the pair reported the men missing to the U.S. embassy and simultaneously began their own search. Using the “find my phone” function on Rhoad’s iPad, she was able to send the location of the device to friends and family.
“I sent screenshots of the location that I had on his iPad,” she said. “They discovered the campsite where the boys were camping. All of it had been burned. They also saw blood in the area. On Friday, we were informed that their bodies had been found.”
When Clifton Rhoad learned his younger brother had never checked into an AirBnB he had booked, and that Carter’s wife had also not heard from him, he joined in the search. “When we didn’t hear from Carter and there was no word from him, we drove down to retrace their steps in two pickup trucks that had off-road tires because we were concerned theirs had broken down,” he said.
From there, the search party met with a police officer and headed toward Punta San José, where the missing men had planned to camp and surf. “When we arrived there was a small fire pit with tent poles sticking out of the burned area,” described Clifton. “I was alarmed immediately.”
“As we pulled up to the edge of the cliff, I thought something must have been terribly wrong. As we approached the tent, I saw things that would never have been burned intentionally: packages of hamburger buns, toothpaste tubes, a charred laptop, a flannel that was covered in blood and mostly burned,” he said.
“We spent a long time looking through the charred remains. We were so occupied with the charred area that we didn’t realize the entire area of sand was covered in blood,” he continued. “Facing the ocean, there was a six-inch by four-inch area where it looked like someone had been dragged.”
They also found a bullet casing, prompting the Mexican police officer to call a forensics team. Days later, their bodies were found dumped in a cliff-top shaft with gunshot wounds to the head.
