August 13, 2008
Suspect in boat killings fingers co-defendant
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIAMI — A man accused in the slayings of four people aboard a charter fishing boat last year testified Wednesday that his co-defendant was responsible for all of the killings, and that the man threatened him at gunpoint.
In an evidence hearing that previewed his likely trial testimony, Guillermo Zarabozo said Kirby Archer forced him to get into a life raft after the September 2007 killings aboard the “Joe Cool,” which had run out of fuel near the Bahamas.
Archer, 36, pleaded guilty last month to the killings of captain Jake Branam, his wife Kelly Branam and crew members Scott Gamble and Samuel Kairy. Their bodies have never been recovered.
Despite Archer’s plea, Zarabozo intends to stand trial, claiming that Archer never told him there might be violence aboard the boat. Zarabozo also has said Archer fatally shot the four people using his gun when Jake Branam refused to take them to Cuba. Archer was trying to flee an arrest warrant for a robbery in Arkansas, prosecutors have said.
“I didn’t want to go in the life raft. He made me go. He had my gun,” Zarabozo, 20, testified, the first time he has spoken publicly about the case.
“What was going through your mind?” asked defense attorney Anthony Natale.
“That I would get shot. He had just shot four people,” Zarabozo said.
The hearing Tuesday concerned whether statements Zarabozo made to the Coast Guard and FBI after he and Archer were rescued from the life raft will be allowed at trial. U.S. District Judge Paul Huck ruled those statements could be used because Zarabozo was not under arrest or being interrogated, but simply answering routine search-and-rescue questions.
“That would be a normal Coast Guard procedure and not a nefarious, underhanded attempt by the Coast Guard to obtain criminal information,” Huck said.
The statements involved what Huck called “the so-called pirate story” in which Zarabozo and Archer claimed the four people were shot by unknown Cubans who attempted to hijack the “Joe Cool.” Coast Guard officials have no record of such a boat and Zarabozo has said in court papers the pair concocted the story to cover up what really happened.
Prosecutors have cast doubt on Zarabozo’s claims of innocence, asserting there were likely two weapons and that he shot some of the victims. Zarabozo said Tuesday that Archer told him he also had a gun, but Zarabozo said he never saw it. The guns have never been found.
Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Paul Baker, the first person to interview Zarabozo aboard the cutter Confidence, described him as “cold and calculated” and not emotional like most people rescued at sea. Baker said the FBI was contacted after the “pirate” story surfaced and eventually Zarabozo and Archer were shackled to a gun mount on the cutter.
Zarabozo faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder and other charges. The trial is scheduled for September. Archer is scheduled to be sentenced on his guilty plea in October. He also faces a possible life sentence.
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbc...=/20080813/BRE...
JOE COOL update
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