Photo: AFP
One of the suspects in the triple murder of an American and two Australian brothers visiting Mexico allegedly told his girlfriend, "I killed them," according to court testimony, the BBC reports.
Ari Gisel García Cota testified that her boyfriend, Jesús Gerardo Garcia Cota, showed up at her home and confessed to doing something to "three gringos," a derogatory term in Spanish-speaking countries, chiefly in the Americas, identify a person who is not Hispanic or Latino, on April 28, one day after the victims, Jack Carter Rhoad, 30, and Jake, 30, and Callum Robinson, 33, were last seen alive in Baja California. Garcia Cota then allegedly clarified, "I killed them" when asked by Ari Gisel what he meant.
Ari Gisel said Garcia Cota then brought her outside to her car, revealing that he outfitted the vehicle with new tires stolen from the pickup truck that the victims had been driving during their surfing trip. Mexican prosecutors alleged that the suspects linked to Rhoad and the Robinsons' deaths attempted to steal their vehicle's tires and gunned them down after they resisted.
Garcia Cota, Ari Gisel and Christian Alejandro Garcia, identified as Garcia Cota's brother, were arrested in connection to the victims' disappearance and all three were reported to have had methamphetamine on them at the time. The surfers' bodies were reportedly found dumped down a 50-foot well about a week after they initially went missing and all three had gunshot wounds to the head.
A fourth body believed to have previously been dumped in the well during an unrelated incident was also located. Rhoad and the Robinsons were surfing and camping in Baja California after attending Coachella.