A judge in northwestern Mexico convicted three men on Friday of premeditated murder in the 2024 shooting deaths of two Australian brothers and their American travel companion during a camping trip in Baja California.
Judge Raúl Hernández delivered the verdict in a courtroom in the coastal port city of Ensenada, concluding a monthlong trial that drew international attention, according to media reports. The defendants, identified by authorities as Jesús Gerardo García, known by the alias “El Kekas,” Irineo Francisco “N,” and Ángel Jesús “N,” were also convicted of armed robbery and armed carjacking.
The three victims were Callum Robinson and Jake Robinson, Australian brothers aged 30 and 33, and their 30-year-old American friend, Carter Redd Rhoad. News outlets noted slight discrepancies regarding which brother was 30 and which was 33. The trio had traveled to the Pacific coast to surf and camp when they vanished in late April 2024 near Punta San Jose, roughly 50 miles from Ensenada.
Details of the Attack Revealed in Court
Mexican authorities discovered the victims’ bodies on May 3, 2024, at the bottom of a well near their severely burned pickup truck. All three men had suffered gunshot wounds to the head. Investigators determined the killers ambushed the campers while attempting to steal parts from their truck, including the vehicle’s tires, according to statements from Baja California Attorney General María Elena Andrade Ramírez cited by the New York Post.
During the proceedings, prosecutors presented testimony from García’s former partner, Ary Gisell Silva Raya. Silva Raya, who pleaded guilty in November 2025 to robbery and carjacking charges and received a 20-year sentence, told the court that García approached the campsite carrying a 9mm pistol. She testified that the tourists threw their personal belongings toward the assailant to protect themselves, while one victim pleaded for his life, Al Jazeera reported.
Silva Raya also testified that García later boasted about the victims’ distress and the items taken from their campsite, according to courtroom accounts reported by DW and Al Jazeera.
Families React to the Verdict
The victims’ relatives attended the final trial hearings in person and remotely. Martin and Debra Robinson, the parents of Callum and Jake, traveled from Australia to Ensenada, while Rhoad’s mother, Page, and his fiancée, Natalie Weirtz, observed the proceedings via a video link from the United States, according to The Guardian.
“Today’s guilty verdict is a significant moment in our long and painful journey to seek justice for our beautiful sons, Callum and Jake, and their friend Carter Rhoad, whose lives were so cruelly taken from them in 2024,” Martin Robinson said outside the courthouse, as reported by several outlets. He added that the family has created the Callum and Jake Robinson Foundation to honor their memories.
Weirtz told the court during the hearing that the perpetrators “must be punished so that no other family suffers the same pain,” The Guardian reported.
Hernández is scheduled to formally sentence the three men on Oct. 16. Prosecutors from the Baja California State Attorney General’s Office have asked the court to impose a term of 210 years behind bars for each defendant, though Mexican law limits the maximum prison sentence in the state to 60 years.
