A 33-year-old man has been charged with the mur­der of 16-year-old Shenelle and her broth­er Ke­ston Singh.

He is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear vir­tu­al­ly be­fore a High Court Mas­ter to­day.

Vil­lagers said the sib­lings and sus­pect were “friends.”

How­ev­er, on Sep­tem­ber 4 they were bru­tal­ly hacked to death while re­port­ed­ly at the sus­pect’s home in Naggee Road, New Grant, Princes Town. 

Based on in­for­ma­tion from the po­lice and vil­lagers, the cut­lass at­tack was sud­den and un­pro­voked.

Ke­ston, 21, who worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard, was chopped in his neck and feet while Shenelle was chopped in her face. Shenelle tried to es­cape, but she did not get far. 

Vil­lagers found her body around 7 pm re­port­ed­ly in front of the sus­pect’s house on the edge of the road. The po­lice then dis­cov­ered her broth­er’s body slumped over a couch. Their mur­ders trig­gered out­rage among res­i­dents who said since the at­tack the love-filled com­mu­ni­ty has been solemn and cold. 

Ke­ston had moved in­to the com­mu­ni­ty ap­prox­i­mate­ly a year ago. He shared a close re­la­tion­ship with his sis­ter, Shenelle, who lived in Ma­yaro with their moth­er. She was a Form Four stu­dent at Ma­yaro Sec­ondary and want­ed to study nurs­ing.  Four days be­fore the tragedy, she had left home to pur­chase a school shoe. In­stead of re­turn­ing home, she vis­it­ed her broth­er.

She told her rel­a­tives she would have re­turned home on Sep­tem­ber 4.

Res­i­dents de­scribed the sib­lings as re­spectable, lov­ing and friend­ly “chil­dren.” Still try­ing to come to terms with the tragedy, vil­lagers, dressed in white, held a can­dle­light vig­il from Naggee Road Junc­tion to where the mur­ders oc­curred on Sat­ur­day evening.

Fu­ner­al arrange­ments for the sib­lings were still be­ing fi­nalised yes­ter­day.