The Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has advised the police to charge three persons with murdering Isaiah and Joel Henry, the West Coast Berbice (WCB) teenagers who were brutally killed more than four months ago.
Since the bodies of the teens were found in the Cotton Tree backdam, triggering protests in West Berbice, the Guyana Police Force has been under immense pressure to find and charge their killers.
Isaiah, 16, and Joel, 18, went missing on Saturday, September 5, after they left home for the Cotton Tree backlands to pick coconuts. Their mutilated bodies were found the next day.
Days after, another teenager, Haresh Singh, was also murdered in what is believed to be a reprisal killing.
Earlier this week, the families of the Henrys staged a protest outside of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) office at Eve Leary to call for the police to provide them with an update on the investigation.
They said the police had been silent on the investigation and numerous efforts to obtain an update proved futile.
“….Four month have gone since this cruel incident happened with our sons Isaiah and Joel in Cotton Tree Backdam and we ain’t getting no answers,” Isaiah’s father, Gladston Henry told reporters.
Gladston added that the pace of the investigation is only adding to the family’s distress. “We are full with anger and pain because of the way how this investigation is going,” he said.
He said that while months have passed, whomever is responsible is still roaming the streets freely.
“…..These people and these killers left right out there…..We want to know if these people go free in such a cruel murder what will happen for the future generation. These two young boys had a whole future ahead of them and they snuff them out in a kind of a cruel way. Like some animal or something. We cannot get these people in society still living around here. Still doing what they please and moving as they like in this society and in this country,” Gladston said.
Crime Chief Blanhum recently disclosed that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is currently providing the Guyana Police Force (GPF) with “technical assistance” in relation to the investigations.
Blanhum said that as the probes continue, local police have sought the assistance of the FBI to aid in “certain” aspects of the investigations.
