Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

- I've spent over half of my life at sea,

traveling around the world.

But it's not always smooth sailing.

- The U.S. Coast Guard received information

that the fishing vessel, "Joe Cool," was missing.

- It seemed to have vanished into thin air.

- There were six people on board.

They had the capability to call for help.

- I was all over the news, the mysterious ghost ship.

- We had no idea what had happened to that boat.

- Then, out in the middle of nowhere,

they found the boat floating.

- And then the Coast Guards go on board with guns drawn.

- It looked ransacked. And there's blood on the decks.

* *

- This is not a normal search and rescue.

We knew that something was wrong.

- We were devastated.

- What happened to the six Americans

who had been on that boat?

* *

[seagulls squalling]

[upbeat music]

- Miami is one of the world's

most popular vacation destinations.

It's got the turquoise waters of Biscayne Bay

and 35 miles of white, sandy beaches.

- If you love the water,

Miami is a wonderful place to be--

a lot of boats, diving, sportfishing charters,

a lot of water activity.

- And particularly, Miami Beach Marina is

right there next to the inlet.

It's the gateway to the Bahamas.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of boats and yachts

go from Miami to the Bahamas.

- It's no wonder tourists flock here for fun in the sun.

[tense atmospheric music]

However, in 2007, a once-in-a-lifetime adventure

turned into an unbelievable nightmare.

* *

[ship whistle blares distantly]

- It was Sunday afternoon.

And Coast Guard Sector Miami was alerted by a phone call

from the owner, Jeff Branam, of the "Joe Cool,"

that their charter boat was overdue from Bimini,

which is the closest island in the Bahamas,

about 50 miles to the east of Miami.

- When a vessel is reported as overdue,

that means the boat did not meet its scheduled return.

But overdues happen all the time.

The fish are biting,

and passengers want to stay out longer,

or people drink too much in Bimini

and need to sleep it off, which causes a delay.

- The owner said there were six people on board,

the four crew members,

and then they had two passengers.

- There was the captain, Jake, his wife Kelley,

and the two crew members, Sammy and Scott,

who was Jake's older half brother.

- They were a professional crew.

And they had an itinerary

that we expected they would stick to.

- The passengers were not like

most of the passengers they had.

They were not interested in fishing.

They just wanted transportation to Bimini.

Now, the captain, Jake, was a little puzzled.

And he asked them, are you sure?

You could probably get a much cheaper flight

to go to Bimini from Miami.

But they couldn't fly

because their girlfriends had accidentally packed

their passports in their luggage.

And they're in Bimini Bay on a boat.

So the passengers said, how much is this gonna cost?

And finally, they settled on a price of $4,000

for a one-way trip.

- They could make that trip in 2 1/2 hours or so.

We see that a lot, on a weekend especially.

- The owner, Jake's uncle, Jeff,

encouraged Jake to go ahead, take the trip.

It's an international trip.

You'll be able to say that you've

taken charters to the Bahamas.

And, you know, you might have fun while you're there.

That Saturday morning,

they set off from Miami Beach Marina

on a straight shot to Bimini.

What Jake and the crew planned to do

was take these two passengers,

drop them off on the boat that their girlfriends were on,

and then come back to Miami, fishing most of the way back

to see if they could catch some fish for the family.

It was important to Jake to be back the next day

in time for another charter that he had planned.

It was for Loews Hotel on Miami Beach.

But the next morning, when Jake's cousin

was expecting to see the "Joe Cool" back at the dock

so that the boat could be prepped

for this important charter, the boat wasn't there.

[phone rings]

- Charter boat owner Jeff Branam said

he'd never been alerted to any kind of issue on board.

When Coast Guard gets an overdue called in,

you start making some phone calls.

You call marinas. In this case,

they called the marinas in the Bahamas.

And there was no sign of "Joe Cool."

We alerted any vessels that might see any evidence

of where "Joe Cool" might be.

- The "Joe Cool," built in 1988,

is a 47-foot sportfish made to handle rough seas.

Equipped with a tuna tower, it's a high-end boat,

ready for fishing trips that rake in the big fish

as quickly as it does the charters.

Because the "Joe Cool" had a charter scheduled

for the next morning, it's very unlikely

Captain Jake would have intentionally

extended their trip.

That's why the Coast Guard believes something is amiss.

- The U.S. Coast Guard was hyper-focused

on finding the vessel.

So they did some homework on the crew members.

And they found out that they were residents

of South Florida.

And they learned that Jake Branam and Kelley Branam

were a married couple in their 20s.

Jake had a half brother, Scott Gamble,

and one of their very, very close family friends,

Samuel Kairy, were on board.

So all four knew each other.

And they were all friends and family.

- My brother, Jake, worked his way up

to be captain of the "Joe Cool."

Sammy was the first mate.

He was a sweetheart.

He was great friends with Jake's kids and Kelley.

Jake and Kelley have two beautiful children.

She loved her children.

She loved my brother.

She adored him.

Kelley was wonderful.

Scott had a background in mechanics,

so he helped a lot with the boat, the engines.

And if anything went wrong,

Scott was able to help out with that.

In 2007, "Joe Cool" was doing amazing.

Jake knew where to go to find the fish.

So, so many people were contacting him,

and his charter boat business

began to really, really take off.

And so when they were reported missing at sea,

it was a scream in my head.

The not knowing if they're okay is the worst part.

- In addition to making phone calls

to nearby marinas and Bimini,

the Coast Guard sends out a PAN-PAN message,

which is like a maritime version of a BOLO.

It goes out on Channel 16,

which is a standby emergency channel that every boat

all over the world is tuned to 24 hours a day.

They'll describe the vessel, its last known sighting,

the itinerary, how many people are on board,

and the purpose of the voyage, all vital information.

But there were no sightings of the "Joe Cool."

Once the Coast Guard has exhausted

all options in their emergency protocol,

they launch an official search and rescue mission.

[tense music]

- At that point, we launched aircraft

out of Coast Guard Air Station Miami

and put them in a search pattern looking for the boat.

* *

We know the "Joe Cool's" a vessel

that's highly seaworthy.

It's very capable of making that trip.

They had the capability to call for help.

They had emergency radio beacon

on board they could have turned on.

There was a lot of things they could have done

to signal that they needed help.

So we knew that something was wrong.

[seagulls squalling, helicopter whirring]

- The Coast Guard followed a track

from Miami Beach Marina to Bimini.

That's where they started searching

because that's where the boat had gone.

But there was nothing.

Nothing turned up.

They had no idea what had happened to that boat.

It seemed to have vanished into thin air.

* *

- The whole boating community basically came together

doing their own searching.

- As it came across the horizon,

we could see that it was the "Joe Cool."

Nobody was responding on the radio.

- They notice that the life raft is missing.

That adds to the mystery and adds to the urgency.

- Pirating is a real thing.

I think the Coast Guard realizes that they've stumbled

upon a crime on the high seas.

[tense music]

[ship whistle blares distantly]

- On Sunday, September 23, 2007,

the U.S. Coast Guard received a report

of an overdue charter vessel.

The "Joe Cool" did not return to Miami when scheduled.

So the Coast Guard launches a search and rescue mission

from Miami to Bimini in hopes of finding the missing crew

and two passengers on board.

[ship whistle blaring]

- It was all over the news, the mysterious ghost ship.

The unknown is terrible.

Of course we were-- we were scared to death.

But, you know, Jake was an amazing captain.

And Sammy's there.

Scott's there.

And they were so experienced on the water.

We had hope that they were okay.

We were waiting for any type of tips or leads.

The Coast Guard really couldn't give us

much of an update at that point.

During the search,

we had family members charter helicopters.

And they were out doing their own searching.

There was friends of Jake's

that had their own charter boats.

They were out doing their searching.

The whole boating community basically came together

and really put forth a lot of effort

to look for my brothers.

It was a hard time.

- In our search for the "Joe Cool,"

we launched multiple aircraft

and also diverted a Coast Guard C-130 that was in flight.

We're searching for a boat

on a track line directly from Miami Beach to Bimini.

Smuggling of migrants, particularly coming out

of Cuba, was a nightly occurrence.

There was very, very high traffic

in smuggling drugs coming out from the south to the north.

And so we had normal patrols going on in Sector Key West.

The Coast Guard Cutter "Pea Island's" captain

was Lieutenant Jonathan Carter at the time.

- We were working for Sector Key West.

I was called to the bridge by the officer of the deck

who reported a target of interest.

And as it came across the horizon,

we could see the conning tower.

And we knew it was a sports fisher.

As we approached the vessel,

we continued making radio calls

to try to get them to answer.

Nobody was responding on the radio.

[radio crackling]

There were things that made it very unusual for us.

The first was its location.

Sports fishers don't need to run that far south

and burn that much fuel to find fish.

The second thing was that

there was 75 feet of anchor line out,

but they were well over 200 feet of water.

So that did not make sense to us at all.

As we approached the vessel, the stern door was open

and swinging in the sea.

We could clearly see, written on the stern door,

"Joe Cool, Star island, Florida."

[suspenseful music]

- The "Joe Cool" was 140 miles off course.

The vessel was approximately 30 miles north of Cuba,

which is only about 18 miles from their territorial waters.

- We were within 12 nautical miles

of the Bahamian island of Anguilla Cay.

- The boat couldn't have drifted that fast.

We knew that was very unusual.

And it was hard to reconcile

with what their intended trip was.

- The route from Miami to Bimini goes directly

across the Gulf Stream, which is always moving north

at a speed of 5 to 7 knots.

If the "Joe Cool" had a mechanical problem,

the current would have pushed it north at a very rapid rate,

meaning the only way the boat could have ended up

in the location where it was found

is if someone intentionally piloted the vessel

in that direction, going against the current.

* *

- Coast Guard protocol for seeing a boat that, at least,

has no sign of anybody on board is to be cautious

and to do everything you can to signal who might be there.

We needed to know, was there anybody on board?

And was there a problem on board?

[ship whistle blaring]

- We sounded our ship's whistle over and over again,

trying to get somebody to come out.

Nobody was responding.

- We're basically looking at every possibility

of drug smuggling, hijackers, pirates on "Joe Cool."

- There have been pirates

for as long as there have been ships in Cuba.

And it was still an area well-known for trafficking.

Everybody knew it.

- We had people with long guns posted on the cutter

in case there were people potentially hiding on board.

We launched our small boat with a boarding team.

And the initial plan was to do everything that we could

to try to get people to come out.

* *

So the boat did a circle around the vessel.

They took out their batons and tapped on the hull

in case somebody was inside.

And after about ten minutes of nothing happening,

the XO requests permission to board the vessel

and tactically clear it.

- XO is short for executive officer,

or the second-in-command.

Part of their job is to keep the CO,

the commanding officer, informed of all major events

before allowing their Guardsmen to board another vessel.

- We were in a dangerous spot until we could ensure

that all threats were taken care of

because we noticed some unusual things

about the vessel.

There were car keys. There were wallets.

There was a fishing pole still in the fishing chair.

These were clear indications

that people did not intend to leave the vessel.

- It was a further mystery.

What happened to the six Americans

who had been on that boat?

[siren wailing]

[tense music]

* *

- When U.S. Guardsmen locate the "Joe Cool"

140 miles off course,

they discover no one's on board.

As they search the vessel, they look for clues

about why the crew and passengers abandoned the boat.

- When the boarding team first boarded the vessel,

the boat was in a state of disarray.

* *

We found blood on the stern

where you typically land a fish.

But we also knew that it could be human blood.

- They also noticed that the life raft is missing.

That adds to the mystery and adds to the urgency

of finding the six Americans.

Had they taken the life raft and gone someplace?

- As the boarding team collects evidence,

a separate team works to find the missing life raft.

Emergency life rafts are built to last.

However, the Coast Guard has no way of knowing

the condition of the crew and passengers.

Some or all of them may be injured,

meaning time is of the essence.

- Good friend of mine, he calls me on my phone.

And he said,

they found the "Joe Cool" down south off Cuba.

- "Joe Cool" was operated intentionally

against the current to the south by somebody.

And we didn't know how.

And we didn't know who.

- You just don't go south to go to Cuba.

You go south, you're gonna go past Cay Sal Banks,

and you're gonna run out of fuel somewhere in the middle

of the Atlantic or something.

I knew something has happened that's not good.

- Now we needed a treat the "Joe Cool" as a crime scene,

because it's shifted from just search and rescue

to a maritime law enforcement case.

- So at this point, the U.S. Coast Guard

called the FBI in this matter

because the FBI has primacy in crime on the high seas

as it relates to U.S. persons and citizens.

It's a very unique situation where your crime scene

is floating in the middle of the ocean.

You have to think very carefully

about the strategy that you're gonna use

and how you're gonna investigate this.

We received a weather briefing that a monsoon was coming,

so we had to protect the "Joe Cool,"

preserve that evidence as best we could.

- We were concerned in the weather

for the state of the "Joe Cool."

And after we put it in the stern tow on the cutter,

nobody went back on board until morning.

* *

- Now with the "Joe Cool" crime scene safely secured,

every available resource goes to an overnight search

of the nearby islands and the ocean in between.

- Through the night, we continued to search.

We had aircraft flying.

And we had several cutters out there.

"Pea Island," "Confidence," and "Cormorant"

were all in different search areas.

- We knew that we were only 11.5 nautical miles

from Anguilla Cay, so we go to Anguilla Cay

to search for potential survivors on the island.

- The helicopter search was challenging

because the weather had started to turn.

[thunder rumbles]

- We had our spotlights in the water,

but we were starting to see whitecaps.

And it just becomes harder and harder

as the weather deteriorates to see things

that could be in the water.

But our primary mission is search and rescue.

So you're still looking for survivors out of the water.

[seagulls squalling]

[helicopter whirring]

- Throughout the next day,

Coast Guard District Command Center remained

in a search and rescue mode.

We had H-60 helicopters flying out of the Bahamas.

We had C-130s. We had P-3s from the Navy.

The search extended all the way

from the north coast of Cuba through the Bahamas,

all the way north as far as Cape Canaveral.

And we're looking for any sign of life

or any evidence that we could find from "Joe Cool,"

because we don't even know

if we're looking for people in the water

or if we're looking for people on land.

- We had no idea what was going on.

And it was a terrible feeling.

We still had hope.

We thought they were somewhere,

clinging, you know, to a rock, something.

- The helicopter had been searching for about an hour

when they saw something orange in the water.

What they found was an orange life raft

with a cover on it.

There was a stenciled name on the side of the raft.

The name was "Joe Cool."

- They hovered over it, and they had to get lower and lower

to the point where they blew the tarp off.

They notice that there's two individuals in the lifeboat.

- The pilot had been told he was looking for six people.

Where were the other four people?

- Three days after the "Joe Cool" vanished,

the Coast Guard locates the boat's life raft.

But only two of the six missing Americans are on board.

[dramatic music]

- We don't know who the two people are.

But we lower the basket from the helicopter.

- And one by one, the individuals got

in the basket and were raised up to the helicopter.

And inside that helicopter, it's very loud.

So it's very common for the Coast Guard to communicate

with the "rescuees" with pen and paper.

The helicopter pilot then slides them a piece of paper

asking them, "What happened? Are you guys okay?"

One of them takes the piece of paper.

And he writes the following.

"West Bimini-- we were abandoned in the boat.

Hijacking--four killed."

So at this point, the Coast Guard realizes

that they've stumbled upon a crime on the high seas.

- During that time, the people who were going back and forth

on fishing boats from Miami

through the Straits or over to the Bahamas

were well aware that they might be exposed

to this kind of hijacking.

They started carrying guns on their boats.

- Upon my interviews on the Coast Guard Cutter

with the two survivors,

we confirmed their identities

as Guillermo Zarabozo

and Kirby Archer.

- The were the passengers of the charter.

And these two survivors say,

there's no one else to be rescued.

Captain Jake and his wife, Kelley,

and the crew members, Sammy and Scott,

were apparently killed.

- Guillermo Zarabozo and Kirby Archer said

that three Cuban pirates boarded the vessel

and killed the other four crew members.

Guillermo Zarabozo and Kirby Archer were being

treated as victims by the U.S. Coast Guard.

- With this information from the surviving passengers,

the Coast Guard radios back to the Command Center on land

and calls off the search for the other four victims.

- We had found out that the-- the search was called off.

And, of course, we fell apart.

[soft dramatic music]

Having four family members out there,

and they're no longer being looked for was hard.

* *

- Any time you lose somebody you're that close to,

you get a sadness well up in you

because it just didn't have to happen.

It just was a-- a sad sequence of events.

- I never got to say goodbye. None of us did.

We never got to say, "I love you."

And I still suffer from that today...

Not having any closure, there's no grave to go to.

The only place we can go is the ocean.

* *

[tense music]

* *

- Before sailing back to Miami

on the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter "Confidence,"

we wanted to see what was on the "Joe Cool."

So we took our time and searched it inside out.

[dramatic music]

And there was four

9-millimeter spent shell casings

that were found in or around the cabin.

That made sense because we had four victims.

* *

But the "Joe Cool," it was a very odd crime scene.

It looked ransacked, but it didn't appear

that anything was stolen.

- If you were attacked by pirates,

they would presumably be doing that for money

or for some reason, take the boat and do something.

But they leave the boat. They leave the valuables.

All the fishing gear is there.

- What was very odd, we found a blowgun,

darts, handcuff key, throwing stars.

These items are considered weapons

and are not something that you would normally bring

on a pleasure trip, like a fishing charter.

The big question here was,

why would pirates leave that on the "Joe Cool"?

- None of that made sense to us.

- By definition, pirates are robbers who travel by sea.

What pirates don't do is board a boat,

kill or remove the crew and passengers,

and then leave without taking all of the valuables.

After the FBI conducts a full search of the vessel,

what they find leads them to question

the men's credibility.

- We noticed the throttles in both the bridge

and the flying bridge were all the way forward,

which was an indication to us

that the boat may have ran out of gas.

- Running against the current with both throttles wide-open

would have quickly depleted the fuel supply on the sportfish,

something pirates would certainly have known.

- When you put all the pieces of the puzzle together,

it just didn't make sense.

So the next step of the investigation

was interviewing Kirby Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo.

If anybody had the answers, it would be these two.

I remember standing on top of that Coast Guard Cutter

with the "Joe Cool" in tow,

and Guillermo Zarabozo was staring at the "Joe Cool."

A partner walked over to him,

and he said, "Remember that boat."

And Guillermo Zarabozo looked at him,

and he said, "I wasn't on that boat."

We knew they paid $4,000 in cash

for that trip to Bimini.

And they were both on the life raft

from the "Joe Cool."

So we knew that he was lying to a federal agent.

So at this point, we had reason to detain.

Had it not been for that,

they would have walked off that Coast Guard Cutter.

* *

- There were many inconsistencies

between the story that these two survivors told

and what had been found on the boat.

In the end, the search and the story

actually raised more questions than it answered.

[tense music]

- Guillermo Zarabozo and Kirby Archer

told authorities that the "Joe Cool" was hijacked

by pirates who killed the four crew members.

However, after the FBI conducts

a full search of the vessel,

the evidence just isn't adding up.

So investigators separate and question

the two survivors for a second time.

* *

- Because he had lied to a federal agent

about being on the "Joe Cool,"

we started with Guillermo Zarabozo

and established that rapport.

And eventually, Guillermo admitted

that he was on that vessel.

He said three Cuban pirates boarded the vessel

and then shot and killed the crew members,

and then forced Kirby Archer to drive the boat to Cuba.

After close to eight hours of driving, they run out of gas.

* *

And at that point, Guillermo said that

an unknown vessel showed up, like a go-fast boat,

and the three hijackers jumped on and sped away.

I asked him about specific details,

what the hijackers were wearing,

their size, height, physical description.

Guillermo said there were two younger Cuban males,

and then an older gentleman who was kind of the boss.

And he described them very specifically

as wearing polo shirts and jeans.

And then we asked the same questions to Kirby Archer.

And the basics are very similar,

that there were three Cuban hijackers.

But Kirby Archer's description of the hijackers

were shorts and T-shirts.

There was also the order of the victims that were shot

were very different.

And we got very inconsistent answers.

When people lie, it's hard to keep your lie straight.

- Kirby Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo

reported that they were left alone on this boat.

There was no fuel. The battery had run out.

And that they decided that they would take the life raft

and try to get to shore.

- Nothing can explain why you get in a life raft

from a boat that's perfectly seaworthy, 47-foot,

expensive charter boat yacht.

The "Joe Cool" had

emergency position-indicating radiobeacon on board.

It clearly showed that you push this button,

you turn it on, and that would have gone immediately

to our Coast Guard Command Center,

and we would have known they needed help.

Instead, they get in a life raft.

The hijackers story was definitely suspicious

because they leave the boat, they leave the valuables,

they spared Archer and Zarabozo.

None of that made sense at all.

- My honest opinion was that these two individuals

were responsible for the murders.

But we needed evidence to secure arrest warrants

for both individuals, which was very challenging.

So at that point, we communicated

the facts and circumstances that we had to the prosecutor.

* *

- In 2007, I was the chief of the Major Crimes Section

at the U.S. Attorney's office, investigating cases

that happened in international waters.

That's why I was called by the FBI.

Our concern was,

we need to figure out how to keep them in custody.

This case was a tragic scenario

where a husband and wife get killed.

And then a brother and a very close friend get killed.

So obviously, you always want to get it right,

but you have to investigate and turn over every rock

to get justice for the victims' families.

- So we wanted to collect all the information

and learn as much as we could.

So we start doing our homework

on both Guillermo Zarabozo and Kirby Archer.

- We run a background check of Guillermo Zarabozo

and learn that he's 18 years old

with no criminal history.

He lived with his family.

And he was a security guard.

He even had a State of Florida license

to carry a weapon as a security guard.

And for Kirby Archer, what we learn right away

is that there's an arrest warrant pending for him

from Arkansas for a theft of money from a Walmart.

- He was a customer service manager there.

He had stolen $92,000 and disappeared.

- So that right there gave Kirby Archer a motive

of why he would want to flee by steering

the "Joe Cool" in international waters.

- So the FBI had a reason to arrest him

and keep him in custody.

- We knew we were gonna be able to hold Kirby Archer.

But Guillermo Zarabozo, on the other hand,

was a much more difficult challenge for us to figure out,

is there anything that we can charge Guillermo with?

We just had to find the evidence

to keep Zarabozo in custody.

It's very difficult to prosecute

a murder case at sea.

And if we can't charge him right away,

we were very concerned that he would flee

to avoid prosecution.

[tense music]

- Authorities are able to arrest suspect Kirby Archer

on unrelated theft charges out of Arkansas.

But they don't yet have the evidence

to keep Guillermo Zarabozo in custody

while building their murder case.

So detectives take a second look

at what they recovered from the "Joe Cool."

* *

- These spent shell casings recovered on the "Joe Cool"

were sent to our FBI lab in Quantico.

And they were forensically analyzed.

There was a stamp that said FC.

FC stands for Federal Cartridge Company.

Next, we served a search warrant

on Guillermo Zarabozo's home.

We found that he had a receipt

for a purchase of a 9-millimeter magazine,

which is consistent with the cartridges that were found.

It could be evidence to move forward

and ultimately convict both.

However, we needed to prove that Kirby Archer wanted

to utilize a vessel to make his way to Cuba

to escape arrest and conviction.

- Investigators confront both suspects

with the prosecutor's plan to push for the death penalty.

They also revealed the discovery of the bullets

found in Zarabozo's house to show how likely it is

they will secure a murder conviction.

Given this new information, Kirby Archer is ready to talk.

- Kirby Archer wanted to take a plea

to avoid the death penalty.

- Kirby Archer told investigators

he first crossed paths with Guillermo Zarabozo

at an auto shop where Zarabozo was working

as a security guard.

Kirby convinced Guillermo Zarabozo

that he was working for the CIA,

that he was going to go to Cuba.

- Zarabozo wanted to get into law enforcement.

Kirby Archer was telling him that if he successfully did

this mission, he would get him a job with the CIA.

- Kirby Archer needed an accomplice.

He needed someone to help him commit these crimes.

- Kirby Archer said he's the one

who shot first the captain, Jake,

and then his wife, Kelley,

and that Guillermo Zarabozo shot

Scott Gamble and Sammy Kairy.

Guillermo Zarabozo threw their bodies overboard

and tried to clean up the boat.

- And it was just enough to charge him

for all those murders.

- It seems Archer never planned

for the "Joe Cool" to make it to Bimini.

But without proper boating knowledge,

he had a better chance of getting hit by lightning

than making it to the Cuban coast.

- Kirby Archer pleads guilty to the murders.

Zarabozo never disputed that the four people were killed.

He just claimed somebody else did it, not him.

It was very important for us to prove that Guillermo

was actively involved in shooting the individuals

and throwing them into the water.

Guillermo Zarabozo went to trial

on a 16-count indictment.

There was a count for overtaking the vessel.

There were four counts of murder,

robbery for taking the boat.

There were also counts for use of a firearm.

We told the jury, the most compelling evidence

from the vessel were the casings

and the location of the blood evidence.

[camera shutter clicking]

- That blood was analyzed.

And we found evidence of blood from all four victims,

which matched Kirby Archer's story.

- Ultimately, the jury did reach a unanimous verdict

and found Zarabozo guilty.

- Throughout the trial, Guillermo Zarabozo

maintained his innocence and belief

that his actions were part of a covert CIA operation.

- Both Kirby Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo

were sentenced to five consecutive life sentences

without the possibility of parole.

- I can remember, after Zarabozo was found guilty,

everyone that was there was literally hugging,

in tears of joy.

It was such a relief.

[somber music]

* *

- Oh, it's still tough on me to think about it

because it was just such a waste,

just such a useless, horrible act.

* *

- As the years have gone by, you're reminded every holiday

that you don't have the hugs and the joy

and the love from the ones we've lost.

We'll never have that again.

There's still a hole that will never go away.

* *

- The perpetrators had a plan to get to Cuba.

But they didn't factor in the fuel needed

to make the trip or the difficulty

of piloting a vessel against the Gulf Stream.

Luckily, their inexperience on the ocean landed them both

in prison for the rest of their lives.

[camera shutter clicks]

* *

To this day, the gun,

the bodies of Jake Branam, Kelley Branam,

Scott Gamble, and Sam Kairy

have never been recovered from the sea.