TWO suspects in the March 19 gun murder of two-year-old Tyra Lewis are now behind bars, the police said yesterday.

However, the names of the two were being withheld pending identification parades.

“The men were picked up during an operation in the Richmond Park area last week,” Detective Inspector Webster Francis of the St Andrew North Police Division told the Observer.

Tyra died after she was shot in the shoulder with a high-powered assault rifle after a band of armed thugs kicked in the door to her family home and sprayed bullets inside. The incident took place in African Gardens, also known as ‘Vietnam’, in August Town, St Andrew.

The gunmen also shot and seriously injured Tyra’s six-year-old sibling Rajay, her 12-year-old uncle, her 19-year-old aunt and the children’s mother. Rajay, who recently underwent surgery, is still hospitalised.

A few hours after Tyra’s brutal murder, the bullet-riddled bodies of two men, identified as Ryan Henclewood and Deanie Mitchell, were found in an area of August Town known as ‘Bottom River’.

Marks and bruises on the bodies of both men suggested they were beaten before they met their demise.

Residents of the area openly branded the men as ‘child killers’.

The police subsequently confirmed that they were involved in the attack on the baby and other members of her family.