Mexican authorities have arrested three men for the suspected murders of Australian surfers Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman.Two other suspects are still on the run.
In late November, the pair vanished without a trace while traveling in Mexico. Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman had been driving a van from Canada south when they abruptly lost contact with family and friends. For weeks, their families struggled to find them. Then the Mexican authorities found a burned out van that matched the the one registered to Coleman. It had two charred bodies inside, both shot. The van was found on a dirt road in a dangerous part of Sinaloa, infamous for its gang activity and home to Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The inside of the torched van. The remains have been blurred. Picture: Noroeste.com/Carlos Chaidez
According to an Australian news outlet, Chief state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera Gomez, Mexican authorities arrested three suspects who confessed to shooting two tourists and setting fire to their van. The suspects said they shot a “long-haired tourist in the face when he resisted a robbery before killing the second one in the gang-plagued northwestern state of Sinaloa on November 21.”
Although the bodies have not been identified yet, the girlfriends of the missing men have traveled to Mexico with dental records and hair samples. They plan on finishing the trip the men set out on.
Prosecutors told reporters that the two other suspects who are on the run are “part of a criminal group dedicated to vehicle thefts, drug dealing and with a history of committing murders.”
A gofundme link has been posted by the families to help bring the men home.
