By Raul Cortes and Lizbeth Diaz
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The parents of an American and two Australian surfers presumed to have been killed in northern Mexico have arrived in the country and will try to identify the dead bodies believed to be their children, a Mexican regional official said on Sunday.
Authorities in the Baja California state are conducting forensic tests on three corpses they found in a well this week and which they believe to be Australian brothers Callum, 33, and Jake Robinson, 30, as well as American Carter Rhoad, 30.
But those tests are taking some time and Baja California’s state Attorney General Maria Elena Andrade said the parents are currently filling out paperwork to see if the bodies can be “physically identified, that is to say, in plain sight.”
If the parents are able to identify the bodies, it would void the need for DNA tests, Andrade said at a press conference.
The three foreigners went missing while on a vacation surfing near the popular tourist town of Ensenada, about 90 minutes south of the U.S.-Mexico border on the Pacific coast.
On Saturday, Andrade said there was a “high grade of probability” that the three bodies found earlier in the week belonged to the surfers.
Andrade said that while the bodies were found in an advanced state of decomposition at the bottom of a well more than 15 meters (50 ft) deep, “some physical descriptions give us that high probability”.
A source from the attorney general’s office told Reuters that all three bodies had a shot in the head.
The three surfers were last seen on April 27 and reported missing a couple of days later, when authorities launched a multi-day search with the help from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Baja California is one of Mexico’s most violent states, although the Ensenada area is considered safer. The U.S. State Department advises Americans to reconsider travel to the state due to crime and kidnapping.
(Reporting by Raul Cortes and Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Drazen Jorgic, editing by Deepa Babington)
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