Found Adrift
Archer, 35, and Guillermo Zarabozo, 19, had chartered the Joe Cool, a 47 foot Miami-based fishing charter, asking to be transported to Bimini. After the vessel failed to return to Miami on schedule, a Coast Guard rescue operation was initiated, and the Joe Cool was eventually found adrift, a deserted "ghost ship". Archer and Zarabozo were found nearby in the vessel's lifeboat, with their luggage — with no sign of the vessel's crew: Jake Branam; Kelley Branam; Scott Gamble; and Samuel Kairy.
Archer's account said that the vessel was hijacked, and that the hijackers let him and Zarabozo go. Zarabozo initially gave a similar account (though he later changed his story, claiming that he was never aboard the Joe Cool, and was charged with making a false statement to law enforcement officials as a result). However, investigators suspected that Archer had chartered the vessel in order to flee an Arkansas arrest warrant, and seek asylum in Cuba, Zarabozo's native country. Archer had previously been stationed at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base while serving as a military police investigator in the United States Army.
Read more about this topic: Kirby Logan Archer
Famous quotes containing the word adrift:
“Raising a daughter is an extremely political act in this culture. Mothers have been placed in a no-win situation with their daughters: if they teach their daughters simply how to get along in a world that has been shaped by men and male desires, then they betray their daughters’ potential But, if they do not, they leave their daughters adrift in a hostile world without survival strategies.”
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