The outcry for justice that followed the brutal murders of 16-year-old Isaiah Henry and 17-year-old Joel Henry may have found an answer in the Berbice High Court, but for those who knew and loved the teenage cousins, the pain of their loss remains.
On Wednesday, Justice Simone Morris sentenced Anil Sancharra and Vinod Gopaul to life imprisonment for the September 2020 murders of the Henry boys. Both men will be eligible for parole after serving 35 years.
Donna Thomas, 60, a relative of Joel, said the sentencing of their convicted killers cannot bring back the two young lives that were taken.
Speaking with Ignite News on Thursday at Number Three Village, West Coast Berbice, Thomas reflected on the court’s decision and the memories of Isaiah and Joel that continue to stay with the family.
Thomas said she accepts the court’s ruling but believes only God knows the complete truth surrounding the case.
“If they are innocent, then they should stop crying and pray without ceasing because God will reveal the truth in his own time.
Because is not hang they got, they got life in prison,” she said, adding: “But if they know anything, if they know the names, then they should speak out.”
As she reflected on Isaiah and Joel’s lives, Thomas described the cousins as cheerful young men who often spent their afternoons outside their homes singing, rapping and practising as aspiring DJs.
“Well, when I come home afternoon time, I normally reach them in front here, sit on the step, and say, one is, um, let’s use the internet in front there, DJ Isaiah, and Joel is DJ Finger, cause he normally suck finger, and they just singing and rapping between them. So when I jump out my vehicle, they normally call me off, Aunty Donna, and wave at me, and I will listen to the tune and walk and come in,” she recalled.
Isaiah, she said, was friendly, hardworking and always willing to help others.
She also remembered the close friendship between Isaiah and 17-year-old Haresh Singh, another teenager from Number Three Village who was murdered just days after the Henry cousins during the unrest that followed their deaths. Thomas said the two boys shared a close bond.
“They were very good friends,” she said, recalling that Isaiah often helped Haresh harvest coconuts and carry out other work in the backlands.
The tragedy, Thomas said, devastated the entire family.
“It affected the family terribly. Until now, I still imagine seeing Isaiah whenever I open my back window in the mornings. That’s the last time I saw him,” she disclosed.
She also recalled the days of unrest that followed the murders, when roadblocks and protests brought West Coast Berbice to a standstill as residents demanded justice for the slain teenagers.
Although the court has now handed down life sentences, Thomas believes the punishment can never compare with what Isaiah and Joel endured.
“They still get it easy. Imagine how Isaiah and Joel cried and pleaded before their lives were taken so brutally,” she told this publication.
Throughout the trial, the prosecution called 45 witnesses, including 16 police witnesses, relatives of the victims, residents of surrounding communities and expert witnesses, all of whom helped reconstruct the events leading to the deaths of Isaiah and Joel Henry.
The court heard that on the morning they disappeared, the cousins were seen heading into the Cotton Tree backdam. Investigators later testified that the bodies were discovered in the backlands, with bloodstains found some distance away, suggesting the teenagers may have been attacked at another location before their bodies were left where they were eventually found.
A key part of the prosecution’s case came from state witness Akash Singh, who testified that he accompanied Anil Sancharra and Vinod Gopaul to tend a marijuana farm located deep within the Cotton Tree backdam.
Singh explained that the cultivation site was not in the main farming area but much farther in, beyond cultivated lands containing watermelons, coconuts, mangoes and other crops. According to his evidence, the marijuana plot was hidden well beyond those farms in a remote section of the backdam.
He testified that after the marijuana plants were discovered destroyed, the two teenage cousins approached the camp. While they were being questioned about the damaged crop, one of the boys allegedly laughed. Singh told the court that when the taller teenager attempted to run, Gopaul chopped him with a cutlass while Sancharra attacked the other teen. He said there were “plenty chops” inflicted on both boys before their bodies were tied onto horses and removed from the area.
Singh also testified that he disposed of the cutlasses and bloodstained clothing in a nearby canal and that both accused threatened to kill him if he ever revealed what had happened.
Government pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh later testified that both Isaiah and Joel Henry suffered multiple incised wounds to the head, neck and face. He told the court that the injuries were so severe that both teenagers’ spines had been severed.
Joel Henry also sustained multiple chop wounds to his hands and fingers, injuries the pathologist said were consistent with defensive wounds, indicating he had attempted to fend off the attack.
The cause of death for both teenagers was given as haemorrhage and shock resulting from multiple incised wounds inflicted by a sharp weapon.
After hearing the evidence over the course of the trial, the jury unanimously found Anil Sancharra and Vinod Gopaul guilty of the murders, and Justice Simone Morris sentenced both men to life imprisonment, with eligibility for parole after serving 35 years.
