Ralph Hendry and Kathy Brandel.Photo:Will Knoll
Will Knoll
A catamaran captain was paddle-boarding along the St. Vincent shorewhen he came acrossaransacked yachtwith a broken, unrolled sail last month.
“It was not a very typical place to drop anchor,” Bernat Buj tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview in the latest issue, on newsstands Friday. “And that caught my attention.”
Concerned, he boardedSimplicity, calling out three times in the hope of finding someone on board.
There was “a great mess throughout the ship, and I thought it was the scene of a robbery,” Buj says. “But when I entered a cabin and saw blood, I thoughtit could be something much worse.”
Bernat Buj, captain of Two Oceans catamaran
He found two American passports belonging toKathy Brandel and Ralph Hendry.
Kathy – a retired real estate agent who would have turned 71 on Feb. 21 – and Ralph – a 66-year-old financial advisor who worked from their yacht – had been cruising in Grenada when they suddenly stopped communicating with family on Feb. 18, according to their sons, who stayed in touch with PEOPLE throughout thesearch for their parents.
While ashore, Kathy and Ralph (front) often took road trips with his son Bryan (in white T-shirt) and her son Nick and his partner Kerri Fennelly (rear left).Courtesy of Nick Buro
Courtesy of Nick Buro
For more on the unfolding case of the missing American sailors in the Caribbean,subscribe now to PEOPLE, or pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday.
After finding the couple’s abandoned yacht – 80 miles from their last reported mooring – in Wallilabou Bay, St. Vincent, the captain reported the “unoccupied sailing vessel” to the local Coast Guard Service Feb. 21.
Missing from the internal correspondence was the working theory between police forces in Grenada and St. Vincent that three Grenadian inmates who had escaped their holding cell the same day the couple went missing, had allegedly hijacked their yacht and thrown them overboard en route to St. Vincent.
The three fugitives – sailor Ron Mitchell, 30, Abita Stanislaus, 25, and Trevon Robertson, 19 – who had been arrested for a violent robbery in December, were re-apprehended on St. Vincent on Feb. 21.
Ron Mitchell, Trevon Robertson and Abita Stanislaus were deported to Grenada March 4. They were not criminally charged in St. Vincent.Royal Grenada Police Force
Royal Grenada Police Force
An insider close to the investigation alleges to PEOPLE that at least two of the men have confessed to Ralph’s and Kathy’s murders.
The men, who were deported to Grenada on March 4, have not been officially charged in the case. Although the couple’s bodies have not been found, they are presumed dead.
Buj says he is still holding out hope. “I wish this story could have a happy ending,” he says.
source: people.com
