Two brothers, natives of St. Thomas, have spent the past week in a Georgia jail awaiting extradition to Orlando, Fla., where they are expected to stand trial on murder charges in connection with the deaths of an Orlando-area resident and her niece, also from St. Thomas.
The Orlando Sentinel reported Friday that David Sylvester Francis, 20, and Elvis Thomas Francis, 16, were arrested Tuesday in the Atlanta area after they were seen driving a Mazda 626 owned by Helena Mills.
Mills, 41, and her niece JoAnna Charles, 16, were found dead, apparently strangled, in the bathroom of Mills' apartment Nov. 6, the Sentinel said.
Pedro Ruz Guttierez, who reported the story for the Sentinel, said there was nothing discovered thus far that suggested a direct history between the victims and the suspects, but he said that Mills knew the Francis brothers' mother, Gleneth Byron, from their high school days on St. Thomas.
Byron, 46, had recently moved to Orlando to be near her friend Mills. The Sentinel said Byron had argued with her sons some time before the killings and asked them to move out.
Det. Reggie Campbell of the Orlando police homicide unit told Guttierez that the brothers saw Mills and her niece as "easy victims."
Campbell said the victims were attacked and strangled in Mills' home in the Rosemont neighborhood and were robbed of a video-game machine and a medallion with JoAnna Charles name on it. Police later recovered the items, which had been pawned, the Sentinel reported.
The Francis brothers are charged with first-degree murder, auto theft and robbery.
