THE Hanover police have taken one man into custody in connection with the brutal slaying of a 14-year-old Rhodes Hall High School male student and his brother during a pre-dawn attack at their home in Lucea on Tuesday.
Investigators have linked the murders to the multi-million-dollar lottery scam targeting United States citizens, most of them elderly.
The deceased have been identified as Leon Grant, 14, and 20-year-old unemployed Travis ‘Shane’ McKenzie, both of Malcolm Drive, Lucea.
Their 24-year-old sister and stepfather have being treated for gunshot wounds sustained during the incident.
The double murder brought to 14 the number of homicides recorded by the Hanover police since the start of the year — one shy of the 15 reported during the corresponding period in 2014.
The episode occurred about 2:00am Tuesday, after masked men kicked open the front door to the home and started shooting.
The schoolboy was hauled outside the house and shot execution style, even as his mother hurled a hammer at his killers, a police source told the Jamaica Observer West.
This led the detectives to surmise that McKenzie may have been the target of the attack because the shooters did not attempt to harm his mother when she went to her son’s assistance.
Investigators later removed spent shells, fired from AK-47 and M-16 rifles, .9mm and .45 pistols, from the scene.
Gunshot holes that dotted the front section of the wooden structure served as a vivid reminder of the episode.
An incident on Labour Day in which a car belonging to a family member was shot up foreshadowed Tuesday’s attack.
When the Observer West visited the Rhodes Hall High School, traumatised staff members and students were fighting to come to grips with the tragedy.
Principal Loreen Aljoe said the slain teen possessed leadership qualities.
“He was assisting because I guess he had that kind of leadership quality about him. He is a leader. The others looked up to him. So for us it’s a loss. We never got the opportunity to see Leon graduate,” Aljoe lamented.
She said Leon was well-liked by his peers and the teaching and ancillary staff.
“When we came this [Tuesday] morning we had teachers crying, students crying, everybody, because
Leon was a popular student here. So everybody knows Leon,” said Aljoe.
She argued that Leon was one of the school’s success stories, having drastically changed for the better since grade seven following the intervention of teachers.
“He is a student who has transformed over time. He had certain little issues in grade seven, probably grade eight as well. The parent came in, and the school and the parent, we sought counselling for him and he responded very well. He has transformed and has been able to assist other students in remaining on the right path,” the senior educator lamented.
“As recent as last week, I was telling him how proud I am he was one of our success stories, so he realised that too, and I think he was proud of his achievements. For me it’s just unfortunate because having a number of troubled students and having an intervention programme and seeing where a child has been transformed and not knowing exactly what the child would have turned out to be is just sad,” she said.