Three tourists found dead in a well in Mexico were shot in the head.
Callum, 33, and Jake Robinson, 30, both from Perth, and Jack Carter Rhoad, 30, vanished while on a surfing holiday in the state of Baja California on April 27.
The bodies of the Australian brothers and their American friend were found in a four-metre-deep well on Friday, 159 miles south of the tourist town of Ensenada where they had been camping.
A burnt-out white pickup truck, tents and a phone linked with the surfers were also found four miles from where the bodies were discovered on Friday.
The alarm had been raised after they failed to arrive at an Airbnb, days after they had disappeared.
Relatives travelled to Mexico to identify their bodies on Sunday, state prosecutor Maria Andrade Ramírez said.
She believes the three men were murdered as they tried to stop the theft of their truck in the town of Santo Tomás.
The attackers may have wanted it for its tyres.
A fourth body was found in the well, which the attackers had covered with boards, but officials said this was unconnected to the case.
The missing surfers’ bodies had been in the well, on an isolated ranch, for five to seven days. The fourth had been there as long as a month.
Police are currently investigating three Mexican nationals in connection with the case.
Two men and a woman have been detained on suspicion of direct or indirect involvement in the attack, the BBC reported.
One of the men has been charged with ‘forced disappearance’, or kidnapping.
Protesters took to the streets of Ensenada, carrying surfboards with Spanish slogans on Sunday.
One said: ‘They only wanted to surf – we demand safe beaches.’
Another said: ‘Ensenada is a mass grave.’
Dozens of surfers gathered for a ‘paddle-out’ ceremony on the water as a vigil for the three murdered men.
Ensenada is deemed relatively safe and has long been popular with tourists from California just to its north.
But Baja California is one of Mexico’s most violent states, gripped by gang violence.
The risk of crime and kidnapping is so high, the US State Department advises Americans to reconsider travel there.
However, prosecutor Andrade Ramírez refused to speculate on the involvement of organised crime, and whether the shots to the head were an execution.
She said: ‘The investigation has only just begun.’
The FBI and Australian Federal Police are assisting Mexican authorities in the investigation.
Jake, who was about to start a new job as a doctor in Victoria, had been on ‘the trip of a lifetime’ to visit his brother Callum, who was living in the US.
They had visited Coachella music festival in the US before heading to Mexico to surf.
Their parents, Deborah and Martin Robinson, said: ‘Callum and Jake are beautiful human beings. We love them so much and this breaks our heart.’
Callum’s girlfriend, Emily Horwath, said her heart was ‘shattered into a million pieces’, in an Instagram post with pictures of the couple.
His teammates at Stevenson University Lacrosse club, where he was chasing his dream of becoming a professional lacrosse player, called him larger than life.
In a statement, they said: ‘With his beautiful long hair and charming smile, he truly embodied the nickname ‘big koala’ – warm, friendly, and always there to lend a helping hand.’
There have been more than 30,000 murders a year in Mexico, for more than six consecutive years.
Last year seven people were killed when a band of gunmen invaded a holiday resort in Mexican state of Guanajuato.
Three men and three women as well as a seven-year-old child were gunned down at the La Palma resort in the small town of Cortazar.
In 2015, Australian surfers Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas were murdered in the Sinaloa region, next to Baja California, The Guardian reported.
They are believed to have been shot by gang members before their van and bodies were burnt.
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