The suspects accused of gunning down three surfers in Mexico were reportedly tracked down when one was pulled over for a routine traffic stop.
Ari Gisel, 23, was busted in a routine patrol in Ensenada on May 1, during which she tossed a 100-gram bag of meth and tried to flee, Telediario reported.
Police then searched her car –– and found an iPhone that belonged to Jack Carter Rhoad, a 30-year-old American who was last seen in Ensenada with his surfing buddies, brothers Jack and Callum Robinson, on April 27.
At the time of Gisel’s arrest, investigators were already trying to trace Rhoad’s phone when they noticed that someone had turned it back on, causing it to ping a nearby cell tower, an insider previously told the Daily Beast.
Once detained, Gisel told police her boyfriend, Jesús Gerardo Garcia Cota, had shown up at her home on April 28 and told her he did something to “three gringos,” according to the local reports.
When Gisel asked her boyfriend what he meant, he allegedly confessed to killing the trio.
Garcia Cota then brought his girlfriend out to his car, where he showed her the new tires he allegedly took from the victims’ white Chevrolet Colorado.
The bodies of the three men were discovered down a 50-foot well on early May 3, when authorities said they were already investigating three people in connection with their deaths.
All three had been shot in the head, police said.
A white pickup truck matching the one the friends were driving was also found torched nearby.
One day later, on May 4, police announced that Gisel, Garcia Cota, and the latter’s brother, Cristian Alejandro Garcia, had been arrested.
Mexican prosecutors claim that the three surfers were killed when they tried to fend off the would-be robbers.
