PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad — A mother and her two young sons were found dead at their home, their throats slashed, in La Horquetta, Arima, 26 kilometres (16 miles) east of here on Thursday.

Responding to a report of a domestic disturbance, local police found the bodies of Vonetta Haynes-Reyes, who worked as a mall store clerk, and her sons, Malik, eight, and Makasi, four. The victims were found with their throats slit in their bedrooms, police said.

The dead woman’s car was missing from her home and it appeared one or more assailants locked up the house after and left in her car, detectives said.

Police were pursuing the theory that it was a domestic homicide and that the scene was ransacked to suggest that robbery was the motive.

Residents of La Horquetta, a sprawling community of public housing, streamed out of their homes and remained outside the Haynes-Reyes’ home described the killings as shocking and horrifying.

So far this year, 213 people have been murdered in Trinidad and Tobago.

Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/jamaicaobserver

Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/JamaicaObserver