Police-DPP collaboration helped secure murder conviction for Henry boys’ killers

Last Updated on Friday, 12 June 2026, 0:00 by Denis Chabrol

Amid intense public pressure for justice, this week’s guilty verdict for the murder of the Henry boys in the West Berbice backlands almost six years ago was as a result of very close collaboration between the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) chambers, a top police investigator said on Thursday.

Former murder accused Akash Singh, the prime state witness, essentially told the court details about the killing of the cousins Joel and Isaiah Henry in the Cotton Tree backlands whose mutilated bodies were found on September 6, 2020.

Mr Singh said they were accused of damaging several marijuana plants in the area.

He said he assisted in disposing the cutlasses that were used but investigators did not recover the weapons from the canal in which he said they were disposed.

Head of the GPF’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Deputy Police Commissioner Wendell Blanhum said Tuesday’s murder conviction of Anil “Dan Pole” or “Rasta” Sancharra and Vinod “Magga” Gopaul was an example of “hand-in-hand” work between the police force and the DPP on many high-profile matters.

“A historic and recent example is the case of the Henry Boys, where a guilty verdict was returned just hours ago. That investigation was conducted under incredibly difficult, high-pressure circumstances, where a national public outcry for justice was palpable. Yet, our investigators stayed focused on their core functions of evidence-gathering and case-building,” he told the opening of a joint police-DPP training being sponsored by the Partnership of the Caribbean and European Union (PACE) Justice Project which is co-financed by the European Union and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Sancharra and Gopaul would be sentenced by Justice Simone Morris-Ramlall on June 26 after considering probation and psychology reports.

Mr Blanhum said the duo would not have been found guilty without the DPP’s work.

“This success would not have been possible without the tremendous, seamless support given by the DPP to the police throughout the investigation and the prosecution phases, ultimately presenting a case that left a 12-member jury convinced beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

Singh denied that he was induced to lead false testimony against the now convicted men.

The now convicted men were represented by Dexter Todd.

For several days after the Henry boys were killed, there were violent protests along the West Berbice public road and other areas along the east-west corridor.

Vehicles and properties were burnt and commuters were robbed and beaten.

The political opposition and human rights activists had demanded highly trained forensic experts be involved in securing justice.

Top investigators and related experts were eventually procured from the Caribbean Regional Security System (RSS), whose five-member team had concluded that the GPF had done sufficient work and was capable of solving the killings of Joel and Isaiah Henry as well as Haresh Singh.

Singh was killed and his motorcycle burnt in the aftermath of the Henry boys’ deaths.