Three males who had escaped from a jail in Grenada and had been accused of hijacking an American couple’s yacht to flee have been charged with their homicide, the police stated on Thursday.
The couple, Ralph Hendry, 66, and Kathy Brandel, 71, went lacking whereas crusing off the coast of Grenada. That they had been spending the winter cruising within the Caribbean of their catamaran referred to as Simplicity, which was discovered deserted in neighboring St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Feb. 21.
There was no indication within the newest police assertion that the our bodies of the couple had been recovered as of Thursday.
Trevon Robertson, 23; Atiba Stanisclaus, 25; and Ron Mitchell, 30, face two counts of “capital homicide by deliberately inflicting the demise of Ralph Hendry and Kathleen Brandel,” the Royal Grenada Police Drive stated.
The authorities from police forces in Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have given completely different ages and title spellings for the escapees.
The lads had been additionally charged with escaping lawful custody, burglary, theft and two counts of kidnapping; Mr. Stanisclaus can be going through a rape cost, the police stated, however no particulars had been supplied on these accusations. The three males made their first court docket look on Thursday, and are due again on March 27. The Royal Grenada Police Drive didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The police had stated in an announcement launched on Feb. 22 that three males who escaped from a jail in Grenada on Feb. 18 and made their strategy to St. Vincent utilizing a yacht that had been docked within the St. George space of Grenada.
The prisoners had been recaptured on Feb. 21, the identical day that the couple’s yacht was discovered. On the time, the police stated they had been “presently engaged on leads that recommend that the 2 occupants of the yacht might have been killed within the course of.”
At a information convention on Feb. 26, Commissioner Don McKenzie of the Royal Grenada Police Drive that “info means that, whereas touring between Grenada and St. Vincent, they disposed of the occupants.”
Throughout a Feb. 26 information convention, Junior Simmons, superintendent of the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Drive, stated the joint investigation into the disappearance with Grenada police was ongoing, and he stated the couple was presumed useless.
The investigation revealed that whereas crusing from Grenada, “the suspects dedicated a number of felony acts together with bodily hurt to the couple,” he stated.
The couple, who had been married for 27 years, had been “veteran cruisers,” based on the Salty Dawg Crusing Affiliation, a nonprofit that brings collectively a group of sailors engaged in long-distance cruising on their boats. The couple had been longtime members, the group stated in an announcement, and “they each contributed to constructing the S.D.S.A.”
In a joint household assertion posted on the affiliation’s web site on Feb. 27, Nick Buro, the son of Ms. Brandel, and Bryan Hendry, the son of Mr. Hendry, stated that “if now we have discovered something from this tragic occasion, it’s that we all know they left this world in a greater place than it was earlier than they had been born.”
“Ralph and Kathy lived a life that almost all of us can solely dream of,” the message stated. “Crusing the japanese coast of the US, dwelling on their dwelling Simplicity, making mates with everybody they encountered, singing, dancing and laughing with family and friends — that’s who Ralph and Kathy had been and that’s how they are going to be remembered in our hearts.”
