The murders of Jake Branam, Kelley Branam, Scott Gamble, and Samuel Kairy: A complete timeline of events
Jake Branam had been running charter trips aboard his 47-foot sport-fisher Joe Cool for barely 3 weeks. He accepted two last-minute passengers on September 22, 2007.
By the following night, Branam, his wife Kelley, half-brother Scott Gamble, and friend Samuel Kairy had vanished. The yacht was found adrift near Cuba, blood-streaked and deserted.
The quadruple murder will be reconstructed on Fatal Destination’s episode The Ghost Ship, premiering Tuesday, July 1, 2025, at 10 pm ET/PT on Investigation Discovery. What follows traces the case from that ill-fated charter through the courtroom verdicts that still keep the killers behind bars.
Timeline of events: Jake Branam’s final charter and the abrupt turn south
September 22, 2007 (2 pm) - Jake Branam departs Miami Beach with Kirby Logan Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo on board, bound for Bimini. Archer, fleeing theft and child abuse charges in Arkansas, paid $4,000 in cash, as per ABC News, September 26, 2007.
September 22, late afternoon - The Joe Cool yacht turns south toward Cuba instead of east to Bimini. Prosecutors later confirmed GPS data supported this diversion, as per CBS News, October 1, 2007.
September 23 - As cited in FBI.gov, February 29, 2009, investigators believe Archer forced the crew to kneel and shot them. The bodies were thrown overboard, and the valuables remained untouched.
September 24 - The Coast Guard finds Joe Cool adrift 30 miles north of Cuba. Archer and Zarabozo are rescued from a raft with luggage but no crew.
September 27- The forensics reveal blood and 9 mm casings matching the missing crew.
October 10 - A federal grand jury indicts Archer on murder and hijacking charges.
Authorities later confirmed that the suspicious southward turn was what first triggered a massive Coast Guard response. When Joe Cool was found, its fuel tanks were nearly empty, showing the killers’ plan to reach Cuba had failed long before they were picked up in the raft.
The missing life raft and neatly packed luggage hinted that Archer and Zarabozo were prepared to abandon the boat as soon as they ran out of fuel. For investigators, these small timeline clues, route changes, fuel records, and GPS logs became the backbone that prosecutors used to convict both men without ever recovering the victims’ bodies.
Evidence chain, indictments and lasting legal legacy
Laboratory work linked the casings to Zarabozo’s Glock and matched deck-side blood droplets to Jake Branam and his crew. GPS records proved the deliberate course change toward Cuba, and e-mails showed Archer planning to flee U.S. justice.
Faced with this overwhelming evidence, Archer pleaded guilty on July 25, 2008, and on October 14 received five consecutive life sentences from U.S. District Judge Paul Huck. Zarabozo’s first jury deadlocked, but a 2009 retrial ended in convictions on all counts, earning him five life terms plus 85 years.
According to NBC News, assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Gilbert later praised investigators who recreated a crime scene in the middle of the ocean, according to the same FBI account. Today, Jake Branam is remembered as a young captain chasing his first Bahamian charter. Archer remains incarcerated at USP Lewisburg and Zarabozo at USP Coleman.
The case stands as a rare example of justice achieved without bodies, proof that the evidence Archer and Zarabozo left behind on Jake Branam’s Joe Cool was enough to anchor four consecutive life-sentence convictions.
Stay tuned for more updates.
