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8/7/2025, 4:06:05 PM
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14977179/yacht-murder-american-couple-vacation.html
https://archive.is/fMgOu
Defiled, gagged and tossed in the sea: The judge said it's the 'most heinous' crime she's ever seen... and it's exposed a vacation danger that too many overlook
As Tammy Sisson hugged her friend Kathy Brandel goodbye in the Caribbean, she took comfort in the fact they'd soon be reunited.
Little did she know it was the last time she'd ever see Kathy alive.
Sisson, 62, and her husband Pete, 68, had set sail from Norfolk, Virginia, two weeks earlier with Brandel, 71, and her husband Ralph Hendry, 66, who were sailing to the Caribbean for the first time.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Tammy recalled jumping for joy and embracing Brandel as they caught sight of Antigua, where they docked on November 14, 2023. Though Tammy and Pete flew home to Newport, Rhode Island, after, they thought they might rejoin their friends in a few months' time.
But on February 18, 2024, Brandel and Hendry's 48-foot St Francis catamaran, Simplicity, was hijacked by three escaped convicts, who stormed the yacht moored off the coast of Grenada.
One of the convicts raped Brandel before they dumped her and Hendry, bound and gagged, into the sea. Then, the men deliberately sailed into Hendry as he desperately tried to swim away. The bodies of Brandel and Hendry were never found.
The three escapees – who were previously incarcerated for robbery and rape – were re-arrested shortly after the murders. They were sentenced in Grenada last week.
Justice Paula Gifford, presiding over the Grenada High Court, called the case the 'most heinous' of her career. But ahead of sentencing, defense attorneys begged the judge for leniency given the perpetrators' poverty-stricken backgrounds.
https://archive.is/fMgOu
Defiled, gagged and tossed in the sea: The judge said it's the 'most heinous' crime she's ever seen... and it's exposed a vacation danger that too many overlook
As Tammy Sisson hugged her friend Kathy Brandel goodbye in the Caribbean, she took comfort in the fact they'd soon be reunited.
Little did she know it was the last time she'd ever see Kathy alive.
Sisson, 62, and her husband Pete, 68, had set sail from Norfolk, Virginia, two weeks earlier with Brandel, 71, and her husband Ralph Hendry, 66, who were sailing to the Caribbean for the first time.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Tammy recalled jumping for joy and embracing Brandel as they caught sight of Antigua, where they docked on November 14, 2023. Though Tammy and Pete flew home to Newport, Rhode Island, after, they thought they might rejoin their friends in a few months' time.
But on February 18, 2024, Brandel and Hendry's 48-foot St Francis catamaran, Simplicity, was hijacked by three escaped convicts, who stormed the yacht moored off the coast of Grenada.
One of the convicts raped Brandel before they dumped her and Hendry, bound and gagged, into the sea. Then, the men deliberately sailed into Hendry as he desperately tried to swim away. The bodies of Brandel and Hendry were never found.
The three escapees – who were previously incarcerated for robbery and rape – were re-arrested shortly after the murders. They were sentenced in Grenada last week.
Justice Paula Gifford, presiding over the Grenada High Court, called the case the 'most heinous' of her career. But ahead of sentencing, defense attorneys begged the judge for leniency given the perpetrators' poverty-stricken backgrounds.
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