Key Points
- Family members of three tourists who went missing in Mexico last month have positively identified their bodies.
- Authorities in Baja California are treating it as a murder investigation, according to Reuters news agency.
- Thieves killed the men in order to steal their truck, particularly because they wanted the tyres, authorities said.
Family members of three tourists who went missing in northern Mexico last month have positively identified their bodies, the state prosecutor’s office in Baja California said in a statement on Sunday.
The remains of Australian brothers Callum, 33, and Jake Robinson, 30, were found in a well earlier this week in what authorities are treating as a murder investigation, according to Reuters news agency.
They were discovered alongside the remains of their American friend Jack Carter Rhoad, 30, who they were travelling with when they went missing.
Authorities said thieves killed the three men to steal their truck, particularly because they wanted the tyres.
Baja California state prosecutors had earlier released details of the killings and said family members of the victims would view the bodies to see if they could be identified by sight.
Chief state prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez had said: “The probability that it’s them is very high,” noting the corpses still appeared to be identifiable by sight.
, posting idyllic photos on social media of waves and isolated beaches along a stretch of coast south of the city of Ensenada.
The Robinson brothers, Jake (right) and Callum (2nd from left), together with their parents. Source: AAP / Supplied
But Andrade Ramírez described the moments of terror that ended the trip for the brothers and their friend Rhoad.
She said the killers drove by and saw the foreigners’ pickup truck and tents, and wanted to steal their tyres.
“Surely, they resisted,” she said of the victims, and the thieves shot them to death.
The thieves then went to what she called “a site that is extremely hard to get to” and dumped their bodies into a well they apparently were familiar with.
The site where the bodies were discovered near the township of Santo Tomás was near the remote seaside area where the missing men’s tents and truck were found along the coast.
A source from the attorney general’s office told Reuters that all three bodies were found with a shot in the head.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Monday offered his condolences to the families of Callum and Jake and said the whole country mourned with them.
“We can only imagine what this ordeal has been like for them and for the loved ones of Callum and Jake,” he said at a news conference. “It has been an absolutely horrendous, absolutely horrific ordeal and our thoughts are with all of them today.”
A burnt-out ute was found in the search for missing Perth brothers Jake and Callum Robinson in Mexico. Source: AAP / Supplied
Baja California prosecutors had said they were questioning three people in the case.
On Friday, the office said the three had been arrested on charges of a crime equivalent to kidnapping, but that was before the bodies were found. It was unclear if they might face more charges.
At least one of the suspects was believed to have directly participated in the killings.
Last week, the missing Australians’ mother, Debra Robinson, posted on a local community Facebook page, appealing for help finding her sons.
Robinson said Callum and Jake had not been heard from since 27 April. They had booked accommodation in the nearby city of Rosarito.
