Woman linked to murders of American and Australian surfers in Mexico sentenced to 20 years in prison

A Mexican court sentenced a woman to 20 years in prison for her involvement in the April 2024 killings of two Australian surfers and an American at a surfing hotspot in Baja California, judicial authorities said Thursday.

The victims were Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson, aged 30 and 33, respectively, and Jack Carter Rhoad, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen.

The three had been camping in a remote beachside area when they were killed in what investigators believe was an attempt to steal their pickup truck.

A Mexican judge in Ensenada sentenced Ary Gisell Silva, 23, who admitted during the trial that she had instigated and participated in the robbery of the tourists’ belongings, which subsequently led to the murder of the three surfers.

“They have good phones and good tires” on their truck, the young woman allegedly told her three accomplices before they committed the murder, according to evidence gathered in the prosecutor’s investigation.

Silva was found guilty of crimes related to “violent robbery,” according to the ruling published Thursday in the public records of the judicial authority of Baja California, bordering the United States.

According to evidence presented by the prosecution, Silva was the first to make contact with the tourists and noticed they had valuables. That prompted her to urge her boyfriend and the other two men to commit the robbery.

She initially told a court that her boyfriend confessed to killing the three friends after returning home from their campsite, the BBC reported. She told investigators he showed up at her house on April 28, telling her he had done something to “three gringos,” the BBC reported. She said she asked what he meant, and he replied “I killed them”, the court was told.

The three other individuals have already been arrested and charged with murder, but they are being tried in separate proceedings.

The surfers were reported missing on April 27, 2024, while camping in Ensenada, where they had traveled from the United States to surf.

According to the prosecution, the assailants “intentionally surprised the surfers and shot them with firearms, taking their lives on Sunday, April 28.”

The crime caused great indignation and sadness in their home countries, where an intense search campaign was launched in the media and on social networks.

The bodies were found on May 3, 2024, hidden in a cliff.

Callum Robinson played professional lacrosse in the United States, where he became known as “the big koala,” according to his mother. After the killings, the U.S. Premier Lacrosse League left a message on its website saying the lacrosse world was “heartbroken by the tragic loss” of the trio.

Other foreign tourists visiting the Mexican Pacific region had already been targets of criminal attacks.

In November 2015, two other Australian surfers, Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman, were murdered and their bodies later burned while traveling through the state of Sinaloa.