Murder case is awash in mystery

The view from the Tiki bar of Monty’s Restaurant at the Miami Beach Marina might give a man on the run certain ideas.

The gleaming chrome-and-fiberglass charter yachts promise a luxurious escape. Palm trees lining the marina and sunlit teal waters of Biscayne Bay hint at the island idylls beyond this Caribbean gateway. A whimsical sign points to the nearest Bahamian anchorages: Walker’s Cay, Marsh Harbour, Bimini Bay.

Kirby Logan Archer, using a false name and covering his buzz-cut strawberry blond hair with chestnut dye, had been on the lam since January when he turned up at Monty’s a month ago.

He spotted the sleek sport-fisher Joe Cool docked at the marina. From there, it can be deduced from what he later told investigators, he plotted a way out of fear and subterfuge.

Two days later, the 47-foot fishing boat was reported missing. On Sept. 23, a Coast Guard cutter found the vessel abandoned, drifting and dragging anchor, 35 miles north of Cuba.

Its interior cabin was in “disarray,” with cigarette packs, computer gear, clothing, cameras and cellphones scattered about, according to an affidavit by Coast Guard Special Agent Richard Blais. Its four Miami crew members and two charter clients -- Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo, a 19-year-old Cuban -- were missing.

Archer and Zarabozo were spotted by a Coast Guard helicopter 15 hours later and 12 miles away, on the Joe Cool’s inflatable orange life raft where they had a supply of water, $2,200 in cash and six pieces of neatly packed luggage.

They reportedly gave an account of three pirates who commandeered the boat and executed the four crew members. The two men were left unscathed; after the Joe Cool ran out of gas, they told the Coast Guard, another pirate vessel picked up the attackers.

The gruesome tale has captivated and shaken the Florida nautical and tourism worlds, reminding those who make their living acquainting visitors with sun, sand and sea that danger can lurk even in the beauty of the Caribbean.

As officials try to piece together a plausible scenario, they have tried to figure out what Archer was running from.

It might have been the consequences of going absent without leave from the Army four years ago.

He was also wanted for allegedly stealing $92,000 from the Batesville, Ark., Wal-Mart where he worked as an assistant manager. On Jan. 26, he allegedly walked out with the money stashed in a microwave oven resealed in its box. Archer paid for the microwave at the front register, taking his employee discount, then left without a word to his wife, two sons or his parents.

Or did he fear charges of child molestation, which Sharp County, Ark., authorities were investigating?

Prosecutors and federal agents believe Archer and Zarabozo, the bearded, muscle-bound Cuban who has since turned 20, might have been fleeing to Cuba for a new life in exile. Cuba has no extradition treaty with the United States, and their money would go far on an island where $15 is a monthly salary.

Archer and Zarabozo are expected to be charged today with first-degree murder in the presumed deaths of the four other people aboard the Joe Cool: Captain Jake Branam, 27; his wife, Kelley, 30; his half-brother and crewman, Scott Gamble; and first mate Samuel Kairy. The Branams left behind a 2-year-old daughter and 4-month-old son, who are now the subjects of a custody battle among relatives.

No bodies have been found. No murder weapon has been recovered. What motive Archer or Zarabozo might have had to kill the crew remains a mystery -- and a challenge for the U.S. attorney’s office, which must prove premeditated murder with evidence that defense lawyers have described as laughably thin and circumstantial.

Four spent Glock 9-millimeter casings were found, and there appeared to be blood on cabin steps leading from the salon to the two staterooms. Federal agents also found a flimsy key that could be to handcuffs or a luggage lock, and a February receipt from a Hialeah, Fla., gun shop for a Glock magazine and bullets.

U.S. Atty. R. Alexander Acosta acknowledges that proving cold-blooded murder will be a challenge but argues that that shouldn’t be a deterrent.

Archer’s lawyer, Allan B. Kaiser, scoffs at the government’s case.

“Having been a prosecutor for 16 years, if this case was dumped in my lap I would have laughed in disbelief,” Kaiser said. The prosecution is relying on “inconsistencies” in the two men’s accounts of what happened on board, he said.

One man said the pirates wore cargo pants, the other said jeans. Both seemed unsure of the colors of the marauders’ T-shirts.

Archer told the Coast Guard and the FBI that he had been sitting on the Tiki bar terrace on the night of Sept. 21 when he spotted the Joe Cool moored at the head of the D-Pier and decided to book it.

But he reportedly told the boat owners that he and Zarabozo were surveyors wrapping up a South Florida assignment and wanted to meet up with their girlfriends in the Bahamas’ Bimini Bay, 60 miles east. The men could have flown from Miami to Bimini for $150, but instead peeled off 40 $100 bills for the Joe Cool charter.

“Happens all the time. This is Miami Beach -- there’s big bucks around here. You wouldn’t think anything of someone paying $4,000 in cash,” said Greg Love, who charters yachts through his Club Nautico office across from the marina slip that the Joe Cool occupied.

The criminal complaint filed Oct. 10 against Archer and Zarabozo says investigation of the fishing boat’s GPS navigation system showed erratic movements once the vessel was about halfway through the two-hour cruise to Bimini.

Zarabozo told investigators that the Joe Cool was lured into the hijacking by a phony distress call from what appeared to be a disabled vessel.

The Coast Guard has no record of a distress call at that time, according to the complaint.

But Coast Guard spokesman Luis Diaz said it was possible for a ship-to-ship message to go undetected if the communication was made on a different channel.

Prosecutor Michael Gilfarb speculated at a bail hearing Tuesday that Archer and Zarabozo were on “a one-way trip out of the country that resulted in the elimination of witnesses to that flight by way of murder.”

Both spoke Spanish and had lived in Cuba. Zarabozo was born there and emigrated with his mother on a lottery visa in 1999. Archer had served as an Army military police investigator at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the mid-1990s, when Cuban rafters were held at the base while their bids for U.S. migration were processed.

Archer told FBI interrogators that he and Zarabozo met while they worked for Miami private security firms about six months ago.

The nature of their relationship remains as baffling to investigators as any motive for the alleged killings.

And the objectives of the rescued boaters may remain a mystery as long as the two resist turning state’s evidence on each other.

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carol.williams@latimes.com