On September 23, 2007, Jake Branam, 27, his wife Kelly Branam, 30, his half-brother Scott Gamble, 35, and friend Samuel Kairy, 27, were last seen leaving Miami Beach, Florida, on Jake's 47-foot fishing vessel, the "Joe Cool". They had been chartered for a trip to Bimini in the Bahamas by two men, Kirby Logan Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo, for a fee of $4,000. The plan was to drop Archer and Zarabozo off to meet their girlfriends and return to Miami the next day.
When the "Joe Cool" failed to return as scheduled, Jake's uncle alerted the authorities.
The "Joe Cool" was discovered adrift and deserted on September 23, 2007, in the Straits of Florida, about 20 miles from Cuba. The vessel was in disarray, and the life rafts were missing. On September 27, Archer and Zarabozo were found in a life raft near where the boat had been located. Initially, they claimed that the "Joe Cool" had been hijacked by pirates who killed the crew and then set them adrift. However, their stories were inconsistent and raised suspicion. Investigators found that Archer was fleeing an arrest warrant for allegedly stealing $92,000 from a Walmart in Arkansas and also faced child molestation allegations. It is believed that Archer's motive for chartering the boat was to flee to Cuba to seek asylum.
Kirby Logan Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo were charged with four counts of first-degree murder on October 10, 2007. In July 2008, Archer pleaded guilty to murder, robbery, kidnapping, and hijacking to avoid the death penalty and was sentenced to five consecutive life terms in prison. Zarabozo was tried separately. His first trial in 2008 resulted in a hung jury on the murder and piracy charges, though he was initially found guilty of firearms violations. At his retrial in February 2009, Zarabozo was convicted on all counts, including four charges of murder, and received five life sentences plus 85 years. Despite the convictions, the bodies of Jake Branam, Kelly Branam, Scott Gamble, and Samuel Kairy were never recovered.Last Seen: Sep 23, 2007
