On Friday 16 October, a judge in Ensenada, Baja California, sentenced three men to 158 years and nine months in prison each. The guilty verdict had come a week earlier. The victims: Australian brothers Callum and Jake Robinson, 33 and 30, and their American friend Carter Rhoad. The Guardian and Al Jazeera list homicide, aggravated robbery, robbery with violence and violent vehicle theft. The New York Times headline rounded it to 159 years. We are keeping 158 years and nine months.

AP and Al Jazeera name the first man Jesús Gerardo García, “El Kekas”. The Guardian writes that the surname was withheld for legal reasons. The other two: Irineo Francisco and Ángel Jesús, also with “N” on the Mexican wire. State prosecutors had asked for 210 years each, an “exemplary” sentence. That request is not the sentence.

The three camped, on the night of 27 April 2024, on a beach at Punta San José, about 80 kilometres from Ensenada. Authorities: they were shot, the bodies dumped in a well more than 15 metres deep; found on 3 May. The FBI helped the search, Al Jazeera writes. We have not rewritten the trial as a horror piece.

The brothers’ parents, Martin and Debra Robinson, came from Australia for the trial that opened on 7 September. They followed the sentencing by video. Prosecutors had sought more than $100,000 in damages; the judge sent compensation to the civil courts. Debra, at the verdict, according to the BBC: the murders took the future they had imagined with their sons.

BBC: the partner of the man called El Kekas, Ary Gisell Silva Raya, received 20 years in a separate trial in November 2025; she admitted a role in the robbery. That is not one of the three 158-year terms. Antonio Otañez, president of the Baja California surfers’ association: “justice has been served”; he also notes a major drop in surfing tourists. That is his line, not ours.

We have not turned the sentence into a verdict on all of Mexico. It is a 2024 file, closed as punishment in October 2026, in Ensenada. Three men were found guilty. Three were killed.

Image: wisley, sunset at El Sauzal, near Ensenada, 10 December 2013, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. Not Punta San José beach, not the courtroom.

Sources consulted: Three Mexicans jailed for 158 years each for killing Australian, US surfers — Al Jazeera; Mexican judge sentences three men to 158 years in prison for murders of Australian and US surfers — The Guardian.