NASHUA – Two former Nashua men were arrested in Canada and charged in one of the city’s longest and most notorious murder cases, law enforcement officials announced Tuesday.

Canadian police arrested Anthony Barnaby, 43, and David Caplin, 49. They are charged in connection with the double murder of Charlene Ranstrom, 48, and Brenda Warner, 32, in their apartment at 7 Mason St., during the night of Oct. 2, 1988.

Barnaby lived on the floor beneath the two women. Caplin was staying with him at the time, having arrived from Canada a few days before the murders, police said.

Police found plenty of physical evidence inside the apartment almost 23 years ago following the brutal stabbing deaths. Barnaby confessed but later withdrew his confession. He was tried three times on charges of being an accomplice to murder in connection with the killings, but juries deadlocked each time.

Officials dropped first-degree murder charges against Caplin before his 1990 trial after courts threw out much of the evidence.

Now police hope that advances in DNA testing, along with further investigation and new information from new and old witnesses, will be enough to finally put these men behind bars.

Barnaby was arrested in Montreal, and Caplin was arrested at New Carlisle Jail in New Carlisle, Quebec, this week. Both men grew up on the Restigouche Indian Reservation in Quebec and are members of the Micmac Tribe, according to police.

Both men are charged with two counts of first-degree murder, Attorney General Michael Delaney said, which carries a sentence of life in prison without parole.

The U.S. Department of Justice is working with Canadian officials to extradite the men, a process that could take “many months,” said William Delker, head of the state’s Cold Case Unit.

The investigation was reopened in October when Nashua police Detective Sgt. Frank Bourgeois contacted Delker. Bourgeois attended a Cold Case Investigation School in September 2010, according to his affidavit, and started talking with his bosses about Nashua’s cold cases when he returned.

“It got the wheels turning, I guess,” he said. “We don’t forget about any of our cases, but in this case, there were two victims.”

The Ranstrom/Warner murders occurred to him because the toughest part of a cold case is identifying a suspect. Since police already had their suspects, the investigation was able to quickly focus on proving their guilt, Bourgeois said.

“The Nashua Police Department never gave up on this case, and they never gave up on the victims of these brutal homicides,” Delaney said at a press conference Tuesday. “The time has come for them to stand trial again on these charges in the state of New Hampshire.”

There was blood all over Ranstrom and Warner’s apartment when police searched it following the Oct. 2, 1988, murder. Police found blood stains on two brown-handled steak knives, on a pair of socks, on a 4-foot length of two-by-four, a piece of terry cloth towel, and a piece of paper on a desk. There was blood in the living room and kitchen and, of course, the bedroom where the women were bound and stabbed repeatedly, according to a new affidavit Bourgeois filed in Hillsborough County Superior Court.

Police also found hairs in the women’s apartment and a jean jacket with blood stains on them, according to the affidavit.

A number of those pieces of evidence were retested by three forensic laboratories after police reopened the investigation into the murders in October, according to the affidavit.

An independent lab, Bode Technologies, determined that the blood on the denim jacket was consistent with Warner’s DNA and hair on the jacket was consistent with Caplin’s DNA. It also determined that blood found on the white athletic socks had to have come from two men, according to Bourgeois’ affidavit.

The FBI forensic lab tested a number of hairs recovered at the crime scene, five of which proved to be consistent with Caplin’s DNA, according to the affidavit.

Delker said advances in technology is a large part of the reason police were able to bring back the charges against Barnaby and Caplin. He said new tests, like those that focus on a cell’s mitochondria as opposed to its nucleus and tests that can determine whether blood came from a man or a woman, simply weren’t available two decades ago.

Nashua police reinterviewed several witnesses and found at least one new witness, according to the affidavit.

Bourgeois and Detective Robert Macleod visited the Restigouche Indian Reservation on Oct. 24 and spoke with Melissa Metallic at the Listuguj Police Department. She said that a week or two before the killings, Barnaby told her and her then-boyfriend Dion Methot that “he was going to kill two lesbians in Nashua that lived above him and cut them up with a chain saw,” according to the affidavit.

Metallic said she didn’t come forward after hearing about the murders because Barnaby and Caplin were already in jail, according to the affidavit.

Police also spoke with Michelle Gerling, who testified during Barnaby’s trials as a 14-year-old. She said back then she didn’t tell police that the day of the murder Barnaby told her “we are going to kill them,” referring to Ranstrom and Warner. Gerling said she didn’t offer that information during the trial because she was scared and told police she has felt guilty for not telling someone and maybe preventing the murders, according to the affidavit.

Police also spoke with Frank Metallic, who can corroborate Barnaby’s disputed confession to police by testifying about details of the murder Barnaby revealed to him before talking to police, according to the affidavit.

Metallic did not cooperate with police during the initial investigation because he didn’t want to return to New Hampshire to testify. He told Bourgeois he is now willing to testify against both men, according to the affidavit.

Mark Sisti represented Barnaby at all three of his trials in the 1980s and early 1990s. He said he wasn’t surprised at the new evidence police highlighted in the affidavit.

“I’m unimpressed so far,” Sisti said. “This is the same case where they believed they had proof beyond a reasonable doubt three times before, and the jury disagreed with them.”

Sisti said three separate juries didn’t buy statements that police attributed to Barnaby. The defense contended that Caplin was the real murderer. Sisti didn’t rule out representing Barnaby again.

“We’ll see what it comes down to,” he said. “I liked Anthony. I thought he got a raw deal in the first place. I was very happy when the charges were (dropped).”

Police spoke with Barnaby on Oct. 27 after he agreed to meet them for a cup of coffee at a Montreal diner. He told Bourgeois neither he nor Caplin had ever been in the women’s apartment. Days later, he called Bourgeois and said he sat on a couch on the porch of the building on the night of the murders and saw Caplin go in wearing a jean jacket, according to the affidavit.

Police also visited Caplin at a Canadian jail on Oct. 26. Caplin stopped in the doorway of an interview room and asked Bourgeois where he was from.

“Once I stated New Hampshire, David Caplin said goodbye, turned and asked jail personnel to return him to his cell,” Bourgeois wrote in the affidavit.

Staff Writer Andrew Wolfe contributed to this story. Joseph G. Cote can be reached at 594-6415 or jcote@nashuatelegraph.com.