The three bullet-riddled and degutted bodies found last week were yesterday morning exhumed and DNA samples taken after which relatives were allowed to perform final rites before they were reburied.

Many relatives of Titus Buckery Nascimento, Rickford Bannister and Mahendra Singh called Sunil flocked the locations where the bodies were buried to pay their last respects although they are still to be positively identified.

Some have already accepted that the bodies belong to the men based on items that were recovered from them when they were discovered.

It is unclear when the results of tests will be made available.

Yesterday police had no new information on the missing Island Princess and its four-man crew. So far police are working with the information that Nascimento, Banister, Singh and Ryan Chin made up that crew.

Police on Saturday had said that the quartet left Parika with the vessel on September 26 for Friendship, East Bank Demerara. They were last contacted about 18:30 hours the said day and had given their location as the Essequibo River mouth. Efforts to contact them about half an hour later proved futile.

According to the release the bodies of Nascimento and Singh were found in the vicinity of Wakenaam and Hamburg Island on September 29 and 30 respectively. Their bodies bore gunshot injuries and they had been disembowelled.

The release added that the police had since sought the assistance of Interpol and other friendly law enforcement agencies through the US Drug Enforcement Agency and had provided photographs of the vessel and other related information.

A third body bearing suspected gunshot wounds to the head and leg and which was also disembowelled was discovered on the Queenstown Foreshore on Friday.

Police described that body as being that of a man about 30 years old, of medium build and around 6 ft tall. He was clad in mauve underwear, was of medium build, brown in complexion and appeared to be of mixed ancestry. The fourth is yet to be found.

Several senior police officials have indicated that all possible angles were being pursued especially since the murders were not “ordinary”.

The degutting of the bodies has puzzled authorities and some believe it represents the type of extreme violence associated with the drug trade.