KINGSTON, Jamaica, May 11, CMC – Police believe that 49-year-old Hyvette MCLean and her 12-year-old son may have been the wrong targets when gunmen broke down the door to their homes and killed them early Wednesday morning. “It is a reprisal but the victims were killed because of mistaken identity.
The person who they went for was not the person who was killed,” Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Area one, Winchroy Budhoo, told the OBSERVER ONLINE website.
Budhoo said the police are aware of what caused the killings and that they are “pursuing good leads”. The authorities say they are investigating whether it is linked to a murder at a nearby bar two weeks ago and the subsequent torching of a house. The police said the mother and her, son, Devontae Haughton, a student of Hopewell High School, were at their home during the early hours in the community of Tucker, St James, with other family members, when the gunmen kicked open the door and opened fire.
They received bullet wounds and were taken to hospital where they were pronounced dead.
The other occupants of the house were not harmed The double murder brings to four the number of people killed in the area in the past 13 days and 70 in the parish of St James since the start of the year.