TOWN HEAD, Westmoreland –

The family of Shanna Kay Legister and Sheneka Shakes, the little girls who were brutally raped and killed in 2005, have welcomed a renewed probe by retired detectives by the state to investigate cold case files.

However, the Westmoreland crime chief, Acting Deputy Superintendent Paul Simms says ongoing investigations have been severely handicapped by the absence of witnesses. He further explained that the cops had to rely on ‘scientific evidence’, but so far there has been no DNA match for the 15 suspects held over the past four years.

The victims, aged eight and nine respectively, attended the Town Head Primary School in the parish prior to the incident.

They were found in a canefield a day after they went missing.

” The officers came by about last week Wednesday. I feel good about it because I was worried everything just a die down and me not hearing anything and just of a sudden me get a call from Janice (Sheneka’s mother) say somebody by her home and they would be coming by me and then they came by and spoke to me. It is four years now and me can’t get no justice so me was happy over it because me was worried,” said a seemingly hopeful Shernett Clarke, mother of Shanna Kay Legister.

“They just killed her and it just a go down the drain and me not hearing anything about it”.

Similar sentiments were echoed by Janice Tomlinson, Sheneka’s mother.

“I have a feeling as if it just happen but me feel better say somebody take it up and we are going to get results,” she said.

According to one of the investigators, although it is too early to comment on the probe, a number of persons have already been interviewed.

In 2005 the then ruling People’s National Party (PNP) announced plans for a more co-ordinated attack on crime, part of the plan included the hiring of retired detectives to help boost the constabulary’s investigative capacity.

On Monday, chairman of the Shanna Kay Legister and Sheneka Shakes Foundation, Windel Dawson said his organisation which was set up a year after the tragic incident will “concentrate on only the memorial service aspect yearly as of now”.

And in another sad twist to the saga, Pauline McIntosh Cole, principal of Town Head Primary, is attributing the mediocre performance in the Grade Six Achievement Test by last year’s batch of students, of which Shanna Kay and Sheneka were members, to the horrific incident.

“I don’t think they performed to the maximum, based upon that experience,” she said.