Murder on the High Seas – The True Story of the Joe Cool's Tragic Final Voyage is a true crime book written by Carol Soret Cope, bestselling author of In the Fast Lane: A True Story of Murder in Miami and Stranger Danger: How to Keep Your Child Safe. The book explores the investigation into the mysterious murders aboard the Joe Cool.
On routine patrol off the coast of Cuba, a United States Coast Guard cutter spotted a “ghost ship” – a luxury forty-seven-foot sportfisher drifting on the tide, abandoned and out of fuel, its interior ransacked and its deck speckled with blood.
The next morning, a helicopter crew plucked two men from a life raft nearby. Kirby Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo told rescuers they had chartered the Joe Cool from a one-way trip from Miami to the Bahamas. They went on to tell an incredible story – pirates had ambushed the boat, killing its crew: captain Jake Branam; his wife, Kelly; crew member and Jake Branam’s half brother, Scott Michael Gamble; and Samuel Kairy. Only Archer and Zarabozo had survived.
But as the FBI investigated, Archer and Zarabozo’s story began to fall apart. A far more bizarre tale unfolded in a Miami federal courtroom as prosecutors make the case that the captain and crew had indeed been hijacked and murdered – not by pirates, but by their own charter passengers…
Publishing information
The Berkley Publishing Group
Published by the Penguin Group
ISBN 978-0-425-23977-3