On September 23, 2007, 27-year-old Jake Branam left Miami Beach aboard his 47-foot fishing vessel Joe Cool with his wife Kelly Branam, 30, his half-brother Scott Gamble, 35, and friend Samuel Kairy, 27. Two men, Kirby Logan Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo, had chartered the boat for a $4,000 trip to Bimini; the stated plan was to drop the two men off to meet their girlfriends and return the next day. The Joe Cool was found adrift and deserted that same day in the Straits of Florida, about 20 miles from Cuba, with the vessel in disarray and the life rafts missing.

Archer and Zarabozo were recovered in a life raft four days later and initially claimed the boat had been hijacked by pirates, but their accounts were inconsistent and drew suspicion. Archer and Zarabozo were later charged in the deaths; convictions and pleas followed, yet the four victims’ bodies have never been recovered.

Was anyone in the Miami boating community aware of suspicious charter activity or of the Joe Cool’s final movements on September 23, 2007?