Suspects who confessed to raping, killing teen for court today

By Andrew Carmichael

The two suspects in the brutal murder of an East Bank Berbice teenager are expected to make their first court appearance today.
The two men of Sisters Village, East Bank Berbice, are accused of sexually assaulting and killing 13-year-old Leonard Archibald of Brothers Village on September 17.
The teenager went missing last week Sunday, after riding ahead of his three sisters he was accompanying home from a birthday party in the neighbouring village.
It is believed that one of the suspects who is a relative of the now dead teenager lured him into the yard to run an errand and the teenager was attempting to steal time from his duty of accompanying his three younger sisters in order to run the errand for which he was expecting payment.
Instead he was captured and sodomised and when he lost consciousness, he was bound and thrown into the Berbice River along with his bicycle.
The two suspects confessed to Police on Friday and related the horrific story. The bicycle was discovered in the Berbice River behind the suspects’ house about 40 feet from the high tide mark. On Saturday afternoon, the body was discovered by a search party some three miles from his home at the village of Khotbradt. The body was found in a decomposed state on a mud flat.
A post-mortem examination is expected to be performed on the body today before the suspects are taken to court.
Also, Police Divisional Commander, Assistant Commissioner Linden Alves has refuted claims by a section of the media that one of the accused tried to sodomise his co-accused in the Police lock-ups. Alves said that the suspects were being held at separate locations and, as such, had no access to each other.
Meanwhile, the accused in the Smithfield, New Amsterdam murder is also expected to make his first court appearance today.
On September 17, a couple were involved in a domestic fight and the wife was subsequently hospitalised. She died four days after she was allegedly beaten.
The dead woman has been identified as Janette Tahal, 58, of Smithfield, New Amsterdam. Tahal died at the Georgetown Public Hospital on Thursday last.
Reports are that the now dead woman and her husband Joseph Tahal, 60, had an argument at their Lot 95 Smithfield home and he allegedly lashed her with a piece of wood several times. The woman was picked up in a semi-conscious state by a friend, who was visiting the home at the time and taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital where she was stabilised before being transferred to the Georgetown Hospital.
The couple were involved in mobile vegetable vending and, according to neighbours, had frequent fights.
On Tuesday, Police arrested Joseph as he was on his way to the Georgetown Hospital.