By MARK STEVENSON Associated Press
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are believed to be those of the 2 Australians and an American who went missing during a camping and browsing trip last weekend, prosecutors said Saturday.
“It is suspected that the bodies are under investigation,” a prosecutor's office official, who declined to be named, told the Associated Press.
The bodies were present in a well, where investigators also found one other body that authorities said can be examined.
“A fourth body was found. It has nothing to do with the three foreigners. “The fourth body had been lying there for a long time,” the official added.
The site where the bodies were discovered near the municipality of Santo Tomás was near the distant coastal area where tents and trucks belonging to the missing men were found on the coast on Thursday.
The men – identified by relations as brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Jack Carter Rhoad – went missing on Saturday. They didn’t show up at their scheduled accommodation over the weekend.
The US State Department said: “We are aware of these reports (of bodies) and are closely monitoring the situation. We have no further comment at this time.”
Baja California prosecutors said Thursday they’d query three people within the case. On Friday, the office said the three had been arrested and charged with a criminal offense amounting to kidnapping. It was unclear whether or not they might face additional charges.
Andrade Ramírez, the chief prosecutor, said the evidence found together with the abandoned tents was linked to the three people questioned in regards to the missing foreigners.
Milenio reported that the suspects apparently stole the surfers' truck and a few parts of it were present in one other truck owned by one in all the suspects.
On Wednesday, the mother of the missing Australians, Debra Robinson, posted a plea for help to find her sons on a area people Facebook page. Robinson said Callum and Jake had not been heard from since April 27. They would have booked accommodation in the town of Rosarito.
She said the American who was with them was named Jack Carter Rhoad, however the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City didn’t immediately confirm this. The US State Department said it was aware of reports of a missing US citizen in Baja but didn’t provide further details.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Rhoad was from San Diego, Callum Robinson had lived in that city and Jake Robinson was visiting his brother.
In 2015, two Australian surfers, Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas, were killed within the western state of Sinaloa, across the Gulf of California – also generally known as the Sea of Cortez – from the Baja Peninsula. Authorities said they were victims of muggers. Three suspects were arrested on this case.
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