Grenada prison escapees are accused of murdering an American couple
Three men who escaped from a prison in Grenada and were accused of hijacking an American couple’s yacht to flee have been charged with murder, police said Thursday.
The couple, Ralph Hendry, 66, and Kathy Brandel, 71, went missing while sailing off the coast of Grenada. They had spent the winter cruising the Caribbean in their catamaran named Simplicity, which was found abandoned in neighboring St. Vincent and the Grenadines on February 21.
There was no indication inside the last police statement that the couple’s bodies had been recovered on Thursday.
Trevon Robertson, 23; Atiba Stanisclaus, 25; and Ron Mitchell, 30, face two counts of “manslaughter by intentionally causing the death of Ralph Hendry and Kathleen Brandel,” Royal Grenada police said.
Police authorities in Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have given different ages and names for the refugees.
The men were also charged with escaping lawful custody, burglary, theft and two counts of kidnapping; Mr. Stanislaus is also accused of rape, police said, but no details were given about those allegations. The three men appeared in court for the first time on Thursday and are due back on March 27. Royal Grenada Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The police reported this in a statement released on February 22 that three men escaped from a prison in Grenada on February 18 and headed to St. Vincent using a yacht docked in the St. George area of Grenada.
The prisoners were recaptured on February 21, the same day the couple’s yacht was found. Police said at the time that they were “currently working on leads that indicate the two occupants of the yacht may have been killed.”
At one press conference on February 26Commissioner Don McKenzie of the Royal Grenada Police Force that “information indicates that they removed the occupants during their journey between Grenada and St. Vincent.”
During a February 26 press conferenceJunior Simmons, Chief Inspector of the Royal St. Vincent and Grenadines Police Force, said the joint investigation into the disappearance with Grenada Police was ongoing, and he said the couple was presumed dead.
The investigation revealed that while sailing from Grenada, the suspects “committed several criminal offenses, including bodily harm to the couple,” he said.
The couple, who were married for 27 years, were “veteran cruisers,” according to the newspaper Salty Dawg sailing club, a non-profit organization that brings together a community of sailors who take long-distance cruises on their boats. The couple had been members for many years, the organization said in a statement, and “they both contributed to building the SDSA”
In a joint family statement Posted on the association’s website on Feb. 27, Nick Buro, Ms. Brandel’s son, and Bryan Hendry, Mr. Hendry’s son, said that “if we have learned anything from this tragic event, it is that we know that they have left this world a better place than it was before they were born.
“Ralph and Kathy lived a life that most of us can only dream of,” the post said. “Sailing the East Coast of the United States, living in their home of Simplicity, making friends with everyone they encountered, singing, dancing and laughing with friends and family – that is who Ralph and Kathy were and that is how they will be remembered in our hearts . ”