The answer about the dumpster full of corpses is simply not plausible at all; and as I said the answer to this one is all together plausible. A suicide pact is deffinitly plausible, but not nearly as satisfying as the actual answer. To give you a hint, an obscure hint to be sure, and a not-at-all-direct one, but a hint nonetheless, actually this hint may be too obvious, but anyhow. Hint: Perhaps Jake could have helped them.
Ok, how about a deep sea diving trip gone horribly wrong? All of them were in the water when a shark or other vicious sea-dwelling creature(s) attacked and killed them all. Or perhaps the water was poisoned due to a spillage long long ago. Or maybe one of the people on board the ship who drowned along with his last victim as they fell into the water whilst fighting each other?
What if I change "Jake" in the hint to "Jacob"? Help any? Probably I should have used "Jacob" in the first place as "Jake" makes the hint too round-about. No horrible diving accidents, not really anyhow, no fights either. The answer is actually kind of mundane.
Arrrgh! Did you all give up? Well here's the answer. Some folks went out on their yacht and decided to go swimming. They all jumped into the water to swim but forgot to put the swim ladder down and couldn't get back on the boat again and drowned. The hint is relevant in that there is a popular type of boat ladder called a "Jacob's ladder" There are also several other uses for the term "Jacobs Ladder". Familarity with even one would eventually have yielded the answer.
