2 customers charged in boat mystery
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- ethered
Two charter boat customers who were found in a life raft were charged with federal crimes as the search for the crew broadened.
Agents take two men into a building at the station -- both men's heads were covered with gray blankets.
Agents take two men into a building at the station -- both men's heads were covered with gray blankets.
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* Crew's disappearance hard to believeTwo men picked up in a life raft after hiring a Miami Beach charter boat whose four-member crew disappeared over the weekend were charged late Tuesday with federal crimes.
Kirby Archer, 35, of Strawberry, Ark., was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Guillermo Zarabozo, 19, of Hialeah, was charged with giving a false statement to a federal agent. Both were taken to federal prison in Miami.
Archer, a former customer service manager at an Arkansas Wal-Mart, is accused of stealing $92,000 from the store by sneaking it out in a microwave oven in January.
The Joe Cool, the 47-foot sportfisher boat at the center of the mystery, was towed back to Miami Beach as well.
Federal agents, who are investigating the disappearance of the Joe Cool's crew, were mum on what Archer and Zarabozo, plucked from a life raft on Monday, have had to say under questioning.
Meanwhile, details emerging from family, neighbors and co-workers of the two men -- in both rural Arkansas and a hardscrabble section of Hialeah -- indicate that Archer befriended Zarabozo's family in the mid-1990s.
Then a boy, Zarabozo and his parents and sister were trying to escape Cuba, and Archer was a military police investigator at Guantánamo Bay, according to Archer's ex-wife, Michelle Rowe.
''I can't be 100 percent sure, but I think this is the same boy he met in Guantánamo and told me he had grown very close to,'' Rowe told The Miami Herald.
Archer's current wife, Michelle Archer, said her husband knew a ''Guillermo'' in Miami. Zarabozo's mother confirmed Tuesday that her son knew Archer -- and said Archer had visited their home years ago.
Meanwhile Tuesday, the Coast Guard moved its search for the four crew members farther north to waters off Palm Beach County, three days after the U.S. Coast Guard found the Joe Cool in the Florida Straits, about 40 miles north of Cuba.
The missing are captain Jake Branam, 27; his wife, Kelley Branam, 30; Branam's half-brother Scott Gamble, 35; and first mate Samuel Kairy, 27, all of Miami Beach.
''Unfortunately, the clock is ticking,'' cautioned Petty Officer James Judge.
Relatives of the Branams hired a helicopter Tuesday and flew a stretch of the Florida Straits. Back on land, they said the couple's daughter was calling for her mommy and daddy.
POSSIBLE DESTINATION
Rowe, who divorced Archer in 2005, told The Miami Herald that her husband is fluent in Spanish and may have wanted to take the charter boat to Cuba.
Coast Guard officials say the GPS navigational device on board the Joe Cool indicates it was headed from Miami Beach to Bimini, then made a sudden turn south toward Cuba.
Rowe said she called authorities in Miami to alert them about her ex-husband.
''I'm not a scorned lover, but he's a piece of s---,'' she said. ``And people should know.''
Arkansas court records show that their divorce was bitter. She alleged they moved to Arkansas in December 2003 because Archer was AWOL from the Army, something he later confirmed in his testimony. The AWOL matter was resolved, and he was discharged from the military.
In testimony, she accused him of physically abusing her during their marriage -- allegations he denied.
She also testified that after they separated in 2003, she entered into a lesbian relationship and that Archer began a relationship with a man named Greg. She also said Archer was ``with five or six other gay men during that time.''
The testimony is summarized in a Arkansas court of appeal order of Jan. 31, 2006, that kept the couple's two children in the custody of Archer.
Rowe said she eventually won custody of their two sons, however.
Archer testified that he was not gay -- but Rowe testified that he was and that one of his relationships was with a high school boy. She said in an interview that she is not gay and that her poor relationship with Archer ''drove'' her into a relationship with another woman.
Rowe told The Miami Herald that Archer had met a young boy and his family in 1995 or 1996 while he was in the U.S. Army and stationed at Guantánamo Naval Base.
At the time, the Cuban family had tried to leave the island on rafts. They had apparently been intercepted at sea and taken to the base, where Archer took an interest in the boy, then 6 or 7 years old, Rowe said.
''He told me about the boy. He said he took him under his wing. He stayed in touch with him all this time,'' Rowe said. ``The boy even came to visit him in Arkansas.''
Michelle Archer, Archer's current wife, said he is a ``wonderful father.''
She said she last saw her husband Jan. 26, the night he allegedly walked out of the Batesville, Ark., Wal-Mart with $92,000 in cash and disappeared.
''I talked to him that last night,'' she said, ``and the last thing he told me was to remember that he loved me. . . . We had a good relationship, a good marriage. I don't know what happened.''
FAMILIAR NAME
She thought she recognized the name of Guillermo Zarabozo. ``I think it's a kid of a friend that he helped bring over to the U.S., back when he was stationed in Cuba. I'm not positive on that.''
In Hialeah Tuesday evening, where Zarabozo lives in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with his parents and 12-year old sister, his mother confirmed her son knew Archer.
Francisca Zarabozo spoke as she wiped tears from her face. ''My son is a good kid,'' she said.
Archer ''had only been to the house once, and that was years ago,'' she said. ``Not just anyone is allowed to come into our house.''
She said she has not heard from her son since his arrest and that authorities have not contacted her.
''I am praying to God that he's OK. This is the worst feeling in the world a mother can feel,'' she said. ``He's a good kid; people need to know he's a good kid.''
Miami Herald staff writers Casey Woods, Curtis Morgan and Jay Weaver and researcher Monika Z. Leal contributed to this report.
- flavorful0
Okay, I am not going to read all of that but what I skimmed makes somehow less relevance to the PVN than most threads.
- BonSeff0
relevancy: -14
- k0na_an0k0
i can't be assed with reading that.
wtf is it all about? it was gibberish.
- emecks0
Emergency! Emergency!
Relevance Control Agents report for duty.
- CALLES0
in a hit or miss scenario... well you know
- ethered0
your right. Its just an interesting crime article I just read. These 2 pirates killed a bunch of people, stole their boat and dipped to cuba.
- flavorful0
These 2 pirates killed a bunch of people, stole their boat and dipped to cuba.
ethered
(Sep 26 07, 08:53)Why didn't you lead with that, hahah?
- Jaline0
I read the entire thing.
Interesting, but confusing. And...what does this have to do with anything? Is it a big news story?
- ethered0
yes it was on the first page I think... but i just copy/pasted some of you add-less people might enjoy it.
I probably wouldnt have read it myself now that i think about it.
- ethered0
and non multi-taskers
- dirtydesign0
How about a link instead?
- ethered0
i believe there might have been children on that boat and these pirates..just threw all these people into the water. They could be dead.
These...pirates....
of the caribbean.......
- Jaline0
Someone check to see if Walt's on that boat.
- GreedoLives0
why were they on a life raft? it never says... and why would one dude escape cuba as a kid, kill 4 people and then try to go back?
what the hell is going on?
- ethered0
that article is written with alot of weird backstory connections that may be irrelevent to the actual "people getting murdered at sea" theme.
i dont get it either.