The surfer killed in Mexico was from Atlanta and about to get married

ATLANTA – One of three men brutally killed on a surfing trip in Baja California and later dumped in a 50-foot well was from the Atlanta metro area.

According to an Associated Press report, the family on Sunday positively identified 30-year-old Carter Rhoad as one of the victims, who Mexican authorities said was killed after thieves allegedly tried to steal the trio’s truck because they had the tires wanted to.

The three men – Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and metro Atlanta native Rhoad – were shot. The suspects then allegedly got rid of the bodies by throwing them into a well near the coast, which, according to senior prosecutor Andrea Ramirez, was “literally hard to find.”

The three men were on a camping and surfing trip along a stretch of coast south of the city of Ensenada and posted idyllic photos of waves and deserted beaches on social media before they went missing two weekends ago when they failed to show up at their Airbnb home, where they were stayed for the rest of their trip.

Family friends told 11Alive’s Cody Alcorn that Rhoad will marry his fiancée in the coming weeks in a private ceremony at the family’s Lake Burton home before holding a ceremony for friends and extended family in Columbus, Ohio.

Rhoad and his family grew up in the Atlanta area. After graduating, his parents moved to Lake Burton in Clarkesville, Georgia. Clarkesville is approximately 84 miles northeast of Atlanta.

After growing up in the metro area, Rhoad attended Northview High School in Johns Creek. There he played on the Titans soccer and football teams. In high school, he was named Defensive Player of the Year for his football team.

After graduating in 2009, Rhoad played soccer for two years at Florida Southern College before later transferring to Point Loma Nazarene University, a Christian liberal arts college in San Diego, where he was a goalkeeper on the soccer team. After graduating in 2014, Rhoad played professional soccer for Deportivo Mixco in Guatemala for a year.

Rhoad decided to return to the San Diego area, where he got a job and continued serving as a Young Life leader, a Christian organization that focuses on young people in middle school, high school and college. According to his LinkedIn, he continued to serve as a team leader for Medical Mission Guatemala, an organization that undertakes summer mission trips to provide medical assistance to remote villages in Guatemala.

Rhoad’s life mantra was to help others.

“I love people… Building real relationships is one of the most rewarding things in life, and I am honored every day by the people around me,” Rhoad wrote on his LinkedIn page.

Two separate online fundraisers have been launched to commemorate his impact on the lives of those around him and to help a grieving family at an unimaginable time. One of the fundraisers was started by a friend of Rhoad and his fiancée Natalie in San Diego, who said the money was intended to support his fiancée and also put the money into scholarships and donations close to his heart. This online fundraiser has raised over $64,000 of the $250,000 goal and can be found here for those who would like to donate.

Another online fundraiser was started by a friend of Rhoad’s parents. According to the fundraiser, the money raised will be used for “essential things like housing, food, transportation and more.” The fundraiser has raised over $71,000 of the $100,000 goal and can be found here.

Three suspects are being held in connection with the case, which locals say was solved much more quickly than the disappearances of thousands of Mexicans.

Senior prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez described the likely horrific moments that would have ended the journey for the Robinson brothers and Rhoad.

She suspected that the killers drove by, saw the pickup truck and the foreigners’ tents and wanted to steal their tires. But “when (the foreigners) came and caught them, they certainly resisted.”

She said the killers then shot the tourists.

The thieves then allegedly went to a location she described as “extremely difficult to reach” and allegedly dumped the bodies into a well they apparently knew. She said investigators did not rule out the possibility that the same suspects also dumped the first, earlier body into the well as part of previous crimes.

“Maybe they were looking for trucks in that area,” Andrade Ramírez said.

The thieves allegedly covered the well with boards. “It was literally almost impossible to find,” Andrade Ramírez said, and it took two hours to get the bodies out of the well.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers expressed his condolences for the Robinson family. “I think the heart of the entire country goes out to all its loved ones. It was an absolutely terrible, absolutely terrible ordeal and our thoughts are with all of them today,” he told a news conference in the capital Canberra on Monday.

The site where the bodies were discovered near the municipality of Santo Tomás was near the remote coastal area where tents and trucks belonging to the missing men were found on the coast on Thursday. Based on the latest photo posts, the trip looked perfect. But even experienced local expats are wondering whether it’s still safe to camp on the largely deserted coast.

The moderator of local internet forum Talk Baja, who has lived in the area for nearly two decades, wrote in an editorial Saturday: “The reality is that the dangers of traveling and camping in remote areas now outweigh the benefits.”

But in a way, adventure was the key to the victims’ lifestyle.

Callum Robinson’s Instagram account had the following slogan: “If you don’t live on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.”

At the press conference, Andrade Ramírez was questioned by a reporter who agreed that such a massive and rapid search for foreigners was carried out, but asked why, when locals disappear in the area, little is done, often for weeks, months, years .

“Do you have to be a foreigner in Baja California to be investigated if something happens to you?” asked the reporter, who did not give her name. “Every investigation is different,” Andrade Ramírez responded.

To underscore that point, dozens of mourners, surfers and protesters gathered in a main square in Ensenada, the nearest city, to express their anger and sadness over the deaths.

“Ensenada is a mass grave,” read one placard carried by protesters. “Australia, we are with you,” a man scrawled on one of the half dozen surfboards at the demonstration.

One woman held up a sign that read: “They just wanted to surf – we demand safe beaches.”

Gabriela Acosta, a surfer, attended the protest “to show love, solidarity and respect for the three lives lost.” Acosta said surfers in Baja are aware of the dangers.

“We are women and sometimes we would like to surf alone,” Acosta said. “But we never do that because of the situation. We always have to be accompanied.”

“I think what happened to them is just an example of the lack of security in this state,” she said.

Later, the surfers performed a “paddle-out” ceremony, forming a circle on their boards in the sea.

Baja California prosecutors had said they were questioning three people involved in the murders, two of them because they were caught with methamphetamines. Prosecutors said the two were being held on drug charges but remained suspects in the murders.

A third man was arrested for a crime amounting to kidnapping, but before the bodies were found. It was unclear whether he would face additional charges.

The third suspect was believed to have been directly involved in the murders. Under Mexican law, prosecutors identified him by his first name, Jesús Gerardo, aka “el Kekas,” a slang word meaning “quesadillas,” or cheese tortillas. Andrade Ramírez said he has a criminal record and that more people may have been involved.

Last week, the mother of the missing Australians, Debra Robinson, posted a call for help finding her sons on a local community Facebook page. Robinson said Callum and Jake had not been heard from since April 27. They had booked accommodation in the town of Rosarito, not far from Ensenada.

Robinson said Callum was diabetic. She also mentioned that the American who was with them was named Jack Carter Rhoad, but the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City did not immediately confirm this. The US State Department said it was aware of reports of a missing US citizen in Baja but did not provide further details.

In 2015, two Australian surfers, Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas, were killed in the western state of Sinaloa, across the Gulf of California – also known as the Sea of ​​Cortez – from the Baja Peninsula. Authorities said they were victims of muggers. Three suspects were arrested in this case.