Days after a Mexican judge convicted the men on trial for the 2024 murders of three traveling surfers in Baja California, Mexico, the killers have now received their punishment: 158 years and 9 months each in prison.
It marks the end of a two-and-a-half-year saga that started when Australian brothers Jake, 33, and Callum Robinson, 30, and their American friend Carter Redd Rhoad, 30, went missing on April 28, 2024. Days later, their bodies were discovered in a well near their campsite at Punta San José, about 50 miles south of Ensenada.
The three suspects, Jesús Gerardo García, known as “El Kekas,” Irineo Francisco, and Ángel Jesús (whose last names are withheld under Mexican law), had been found guilty on charges of murder, armed robbery, and armed carjacking.
The judge also ordered the murderers to pay the victims’ families USD $85,000 and cover funeral expenses.
Last year, a fourth suspect, Ary Gisell Silva Raya, received 20 years after she pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated robbery and violent vehicle theft. Her testimony was key in revealing what happened during what prosecutors described as a robbery that escalated into murder.
Silva Raya said the interaction began when they asked the surfers for gas, which they gladly provided. However, she told her now-ex-boyfriend, Gerardo García, that the surfers had nice phones and tires, kicking off a robbery that ended in their murders.
She said Gerardo García went to the campsite with a 9mm handgun, where they willingly tossed their belongings and begged for their lives. When Gerardo García returned, he had blood on his boots and had three phones and two necklaces in his pockets.
Rhoad’s mother, Page, called into the sentencing via Zoom.
“There will never be justice for the loss of a child, but these men will never hurt anyone else again,” Page Rhoad said.
