$3M reward leads to seven new arrests for West Coast Berbice murders

Nov 12, 2020 News

Murdered: Haresh Singh

Murdered: Joel and Isaiah Henry

Kaieteur News – More than two months after, the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has made some headway with their probe into the murders of the West Coast Berbice boys, cousins Isaiah and Joel Henry and Haresh Singh, as seven new suspects were recently taken into custody.
Those seven suspects were arrested for both sets of murders, Singh and the Henry boys, being killed in two separate incidents. It was not clear, however, how many suspects were held in relation to the specific murders.
While he did not reveal much additional detail, Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum attributed this new development to the recent $3 million reward offered by the police for information pertinent to the cases.
The Force came under heavy fire from the attorney representing the Henry family, Nigel Hughes, who viewed the reward as an “admission of failure” as they are still working on locating the crime scene where the boys were brutally slain, even after an intense search of the Cotton Tree backlands with a full-fledged team of investigators.
Added to this, DNA sample results from a cigarette butt, retrieved from the scene did not match DNA taken from the suspects, who were initially arrested.
With the branded failed efforts of local law enforcement even after receiving support from the CARICOM RSS team, efforts are being made to acquire the services of the special Argentine Forensics Team to continue the probe into the murders.
To bring in the Argentine team with the necessary equipment needed to conduct their investigations would cost $4 million with the exception of travel, meals and accommodation. An additional US$1,000 would be needed to ship the needed equipment and that team would comprise of a forensic anthropologist from Argentina, two forensic pathologists and a criminalist.
While the Government initially gave positive reports of the Argentine team’s assistance, there has been no signal that it would help fund their arrival.
This is also compounded with comments made by Home Affairs Minister, Robeson Benn, who stated that Guyana prefers to seek assistance from the US, UK and Canada as it shares a special relationship with those authorities.
The mutilated bodies of Joel and Isaiah Henry were found back on September 6, in clumps of bushes near to a coconut estate located at Cotton Tree backdam, WCB.
Protests marred by violence, had erupted over the news of their gruesome murder and days later, the body of another teen, Haresh Singh was found, lying in a patch of grass and bleeding from the nose at the Number Three Village backdam.
Singh was later pronounced dead at a hospital and was identified as the grandson of one of the suspects, a rice farmer, who was in police custody at that time, for the murder of the Henry boys.