As the years passed and the case grew colder, Hattie Mae Sanders said she doubted anyone would ever be arrested for killing her 3-year-old granddaughter and the girl’s mother in 2009.

When Sharkey County deputies announced Monday they had arrested two men and a woman, Sanders felt a sense of justice.

“They deserve it, yes Lord, for killing that little baby,” said Sanders, the mother of the baby’s father.

Shaun Waller, 34, 162 Hickory St., Cary, Stephanie Smith, 37, 125 Pine Knoll Drive, Ridgeland, and Josephine Warren, 31, no address available, were each charged with two counts of murder in the death of Karitha Carroll, 31, and her 3-year-old daughter, Jamaya Carroll.

Waller, who Sanders described as a family friend, and Smith appeared in Sharkey County Justice Court Tuesday where bail was set at $1 million for each of them. Sanders wanted to go to the court hearing but couldn’t because of her health, she said.

“I can’t get around so good any more,” she said.

Warren, 31, also has been charged with two counts of murder and was scheduled to make her initial court appearance at 1 p.m. Thursday, Sheriff Lindsey Adams said.

Adams declined to comment further on the case.

“It’s still being investigated as we speak, and I can’t go into detail right now,” he said.

Warren was held this morning in the Rankin County Correctional Facility in Brandon. Waller and Smith were in the Issaquena County Correctional Facility.

Karitha Carroll was found Sept. 23, 2009, on a bedroom floor with multiple stab wounds to her chest, defensive wounds on her arms and slash wounds to her throat, and Jamaya was found in her bed with a slash wound on her neck and another on her right arm.

Wounds indicated that Karitha Carroll had fought with her attacker, but it is believed she knew the person because her body was found in the bedroom and there were few signs of a struggle in the living room, Sharkey County Coroner Angelia Eason said in 2009.

A number of suspects had been investigated over the three-year period since the killing, and investigators also looked into the possibility of a murder-suicide.