By Glenroy Sinclair and Nagra Plunkett, Staff ReportersTHE VIOLENT deaths of at least seven persons between Monday night and yesterday morning have pushed the country's murder figure to at least 92 in 35 days.
Yesterday's killings include two cases of double murder which took place in St. James and Hanover.
According to police reports, about 6 a.m. on Wednesday, Errol Panther, 35, and Trevor Panther, 33, broke into a grocery shop where they stole grocery items before setting the wooden building ablaze. It is said that the siblings then went to a nearby house where they attempted to break in.
An alarm was raised and the residents of the area responded. The men were cornered in a section of the community and were set upon and chopped several times all over their bodies. The stolen items and a machete were reportedly recovered from the younger Panther brother.
Over in Hanover, 17-year-old Andreka James and a 32-year-old taxi driver Samuel Lawrence, were killed in execution style, reportedly by three gunmen at a standpipe in Kew district in the parish.
Reports are that the victims were in the process of fetching water at the pipe when they were attacked by their killers. The police said the victims were forced to lie on the ground and then shot in the back of their heads. The killers later escaped in Mr. Lawrence's Toyota Corolla motor car, registered 3968 PB.
STUFFED IN A BARREL
On Tuesday night, the body of an unidentified man was found stuffed in a barrel on Mark Lane, downtown Kingston, with hands and feet bound. The body had multiple stab wounds.
Also on Tuesday, Nathan Patterson, 18, of St. John's Road, Spanish Town, St. Catherine was reportedly shot by a lone gunman while walking along Pechon Street in downtown Kingston. He died on the spot.
On Monday night, a 23-year-old musician, Damion Sewell, of Germain Road, Bridgeport, St. Catherine, succumbed to injuries in the Spanish Town Hospital. He was reportedly shot earlier in the community by men travelling in a Toyota Corolla motor car, registered 5116 DH.
