Mexican Woman Gets 20 Years in Killing of 3 Tourists

A 23-year-old woman has been sentenced to two decades behind bars for her role in the murders of three tourists who vanished while on a surfing trip in Baja California, Mexico, last year. Ari Gisell pleaded guilty to setting in motion the chain of events that led to the deaths of Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Carter Rhoad in April 2024. The three men were shot and killed before their bodies were dumped in a well.

The court heard Gisell, who was interested in the tires of the surfers' vehicle, told her then-boyfriend, identified as Jesús Gerardo, to "bring me a good phone and good tires for my pickup truck." Gerardo, along with two other men, allegedly followed the tourists to their campsite, robbed them, and shot them dead. The cases against the three men are ongoing. Two of them are being held in a maximum-security prison due to alleged ties to the Sinaloa drug cartel, though authorities say the murders aren't thought to be connected to organized crime. Prosecutors are seeking 210-year sentences for the men.

Family members of the victims made emotional statements during the hearing. "We dreamed of seeing them grow older, of having children. That's all taken now," said the mother of the Australian brothers. Jake, a 30-year-old doctor, had traveled to the US to visit Callum, 33, a former Major League Lacrosse player who moved to the US when he was 20. "Our hearts are broken beyond repair," Debra Robinson told the court, per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "The silence in our home is deafening. There are no words for the emptiness, the weight of their absence. The grief is constant—it lives inside us now."

"Carter was the love of my life," said Natalie Weirtz, Rhoad's fiancee. "He was my safety in the world. My life is now a nightmare." Gisell, a single mother, apologized in court, saying, in English, that she had lost her family because of the crime, the ABC reports. "Nothing I can say will compensate you or give you peace," she said. "I am focused on being a better person, and I am very sorry for your losses."