It Was Supposed to Be a Dream Surfing Trip. Then 3 Friends Wound Up Murdered and Thrown Down a Well By KC Baker

Three friends — two from Australia and one from the U.S. — met up in Mexico for a week of surfing and fun, but they ended up dead.

Now, one of the suspects convicted for her role in the brutal carjacking and execution-style shootings of the three men in April 2024 has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Ari Gisell Silva Raya, 23, of Mexico, pleaded guilty on Wednesday, Nov. 21, to instigating the murders of Jake Robinson, 30, of Victoria, Australia, his brother, Callum Robinson, 33, of San Diego, and their friend, Carter Rhoad, 30, also of San Diego, during a surfing and camping trip in the northern Mexican state of Baja California, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports.

Silva Rayal was sentenced on Nov. 21 to 14 years in jail for robbery of a vehicle with violence and an additional six years for robbery with violence, per ABC News Australia.

She was also fined 54,285 Mexican pesos ($4,563), according to ABC News Australia.

The three adventurers were last seen on April 27 while they were surfing and camping along the Mexican coast, south of Ensenada.

At the start of the ill-fated trip, Callum posted a picture on Instagram of his white pickup truck filled with equipment parked in a sandy locale with the caption, “…and it begins.”

The trio then spent time in San Miguel, the last place they surfed before they disappeared.

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On May 2, 2024, the bodies of the three men were found at the bottom of a 50-foot well after they were reported missing, FBI San Diego said at the time, NBC San Diego reported.

They each had suffered gunshot wounds to the head.

The body of a fourth man was also found in the well but authorities said his death was unrelated to the murders of the three friends.

The deadly carjacking came about after Silva Rayal happened to meet the Robinson brothers and Rhoad, saw the truck they were driving and told her boyfriend at the time, Jesús Gerardo García Cota, to “bring me a good phone and good tires for my pickup truck,” prosecutors said in court, according to the BBC.

Sometime between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. that night, Cota, who is known as “El Kekas,” his brother Irineo Francisco García Montaño and a third man, Ángel Jesús León Aguilera, drove to Punta San José where the three surfers were camping, killed them and robbed them, prosecutors allege, NBC San Diego reports.

All three are in custody and awaiting trial, having pleaded not guilty.

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During the sentencing hearing, the victims’ family members spoke about their immense loss.

“Our hearts are broken beyond repair,” Callum and Jake’s mother, Debra Robinson, said via video link to the Mexican courtroom from Australia, ABC News Australia reports.

“The silence in our home is deafening,” she continued. “There are no words for the emptiness, the weight of their absence. The grief is constant — it lives inside us now.”

Their father, Martin Robinson, said he would “never understand why you had to rob these young men,” adding that he didn’t think her sentence was long enough, ABC News Australia reports.

Via video link, Rhoad’s widow, Natalie Weirtz, said, “Carter was the love of my life. He was my safety in the world. My life is now a nightmare,” per ABC News Australia.