Tourist couple Ralph Hendry and Kathy Brandel feared death after three escaped convicts hijacked their yacht in the Caribbean
A TOURIST couple are feared dead after three escaped convicts hijacked their yacht in the Caribbean.
Sailors Ralph Hendry and his wife Kathy Brandel were last seen Sunday afternoon by a boat neighbor as they headed to a restaurant on Grenada.
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The American couple had lived on their quay huntSV Simplicity, for ten years and always had contact with their children at home.
They usually stayed overnight winter and had arrived on the island two weeks earlier.
Ralph and Kathy, from Virginiawere planning to stay another week before disappearing.
They have followed the same path in recent years, from Virginia to Massachusetts before coming down Florida to visit Ralph’s sister and then to the the Caribbean to island hopping.
Suellen Desmarais, Ralph’s sister, told Fox 5 DC: “On Sunday they went into town around 3 o’clock because another skipper saw them going into town.
“The other skipper noticed when he went to bed that they were there because you always look to see who is around you and in the morning, when the skipper woke up, they were gone.”
The sailors went missing on the same day that three fugitives, Ron Mitchell, 30, Trevon Robertson, 19, and Abita Stanislaus, 25, “escaped lawful custody.” New York Post reported.
The Grenadian trio escaped from South St. George Police Station and headed to the marina, where they reportedly fled to another Caribbean island – Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
A police statement said: “Preliminary information from investigators in St Vincent suggests the three men made their way to St Vincent via a yacht moored in the St George area.”
On Wednesday, a sailing captain was paddle boarding along the coast of Saint Vincent when he noticed a ransacked yacht with a broken sail.
He immediately reported the SV Simplicity to the Coast Guard as ‘an empty sailing ship’, with ‘visible blood stains’ on deck.
“The entire interior of the ship and decks were plundered,” the commander wrote, naming the missing couple.
Data collected by the U.S. Coast Guard showed that SV Simplicity left a port in Grenada around 10 p.m. on Sunday, February 18, and arrived in Saint Vincent around noon the next day.
Police are now linking the couple’s disappearance to the escape of three inmates from their nearby cell on Sunday, claiming the men may have murdered the couple.
A press release from the Royal Grenada Police Force did not name Ralph and Kathy, but added that “two Americans may have been killed.”
Officers revealed that Robertson, Stanislaus and Mitchell – a sailor – had previously been arrested in December, jointly charged in a violent robbery.
Mitchel was also charged with one count of rape, three counts of attempted rape, two counts of indecent assault and causing harm. People reports.
Police arrested the trio in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Wednesday around 4:35 p.m.
Ralph and Kathy have yet to be located, but Suellen is hopeful her brother and sister-in-law are alive.
She said: “Why would I assume someone is dead, without a body DNA? I want to stay positive. I want to believe they are still alive.”
The couple’s children, Nick Buro and Bryan Hendry, left for the Caribbean in search of their parents.
They told People they last heard from mom and dad on February 18 and said the lack of contact was unusual.
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