It has been almost three weeks since teenaged cousins Isiah and Joel Henry were brutally murdered and while no charge has yet been laid, Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum said the investigation is ongoing.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Blanhum said one suspect is presently in police custody in relation to the murder.
He noted that the probe is still active and investigators were still at the scene up to yesterday afternoon.
Three Sundays ago, the police had said that the bodies of the cousins were found about 600 feet from each other in clumps of bush near to a coconut farm on the West Coast of Berbice (WCB).
Isaiah, 16, a student at the Woodley Park Secon-dary School and Joel, 18, who worked at the Blairmont Estate, went missing on Saturday, September 5th, after they left home for the Cotton Tree backlands to pick coconuts.
After they did not return home, relatives lodged missing persons’ reports with the police and subsequently launched a search. It was while searching that the bodies of the teens were discovered.
Autopsies performed on the bodies of the teenagers showed that they both died from haemorrhage and shock due to multiple wounds.
To date, a number of persons, including the owner of a coconut estate were arrested and questioned in relation to the murder of the Henrys. However, they were subsequently placed on station bail.
Apart from the suspect in custody presently, five persons were detained by the police during last week in relation to the matter. They were also released last Friday after their 72-hours detention period expired.
Blanhum had previously told this newspaper that among the five suspects were individuals who allegedly saw the Henrys on September 4th, one day before their bodies were discovered. He had said that the suspects were taken into custody after they initially denied that they saw the dead teenagers on the day in question.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that two of the five suspects were previously detained during the early stages of the investigation. They are both related to Haresh Singh, the teenager who was allegedly murdered days after the Henrys in what police believe is a reprisal killing.
The arrests of the five suspects came hours after the police announced last Friday that after combing the backlands of the No. 2 and No. 3 Villages, WCB, dozens of ranks found nothing of “evidential” value for the investigation into the murder of the Henrys.
Police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Royston Andries-Junor had said that a “methodical” search was carried out in the backlands of No.2 and No.3 Villages, WCB between 7am and 2pm by a total of seventy-five ranks which included members of the Criminal Investi-gation Department‘s (CID) Major Crimes Unit and Region Five. The team was headed by Police Commander of Region Five Edmond Cooper and a Lieutenant Colonel. They were also accompanied by Government Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh.
“Ranks on the ground also received aerial support via a helicopter from the Guyana Defence Force (GDF). However, nothing of evidential value was found,” the police said.
Prior to this, the police had said that investigations revealed that the Henrys were not killed at the location where their bodies were found. “…Preliminary findings showed that the bodies of the Henry boys were discovered at a secondary crime scene,” the police in a statement had said.
This means that the heinous murders were not committed where the bodies were found. “Person(s) moved the bodies after the murder and placed them at the locations where they were subsequently discovered,” the police added.
Forensic evidence was found at the secondary crime scene and has since been collected, preserved and submitted to the Guyana Forensic Laboratory for DNA analysis.
The police had also said that DNA samples were also collected from the suspects who were in custody and sent for a comparative analysis to be conducted against the forensic evidence collected from the secondary crime scene.
The results are expected soon.
