MONTEGO BAY, St James - Four persons, including two brothers, were shot dead and two houses set ablaze early yesterday by armed thugs who invaded two premises in a section of the tough inner-city community of Hendon/Norwood.

Three suspects in the killings were held by the police later in the day.

In the meantime, the murder of brothers Ricardo 'Pete' Wauchope, 16, and 13-year-old Ricardo 'Punti' Wauchope, as well as Albert Smith, 46, and Richard 'Ray Ray' Henry, 19, further damned the reputation of the community which is said to be responsible for almost 50 per cent of the almost 200 homicides in the Montego Bay police division this year.

Investigators theorised that the deadly shootings, which occurred about 2:00 am, was a reprisal for the shooting death of a motorist from the same community on Wednesday.

"We believe that this morning's killings had to do with a murder that was committed yesterday (Wednesday) and that it is sort of a revenge killing," Superintendent Maurice Robinson, commanding officer for St James, told the Observer.

Henry, he added, was one of the suspects whom the police had planned to pick up and interrogate yesterday in connection with the killing of the motorist.

Cameille Tracy, the Constabulary Communication Network's laision officer for St James, said Ricardo - the younger of the brothers - was at home with his mother when armed men kicked open the back door to their one-bedroom board house and enquired about the whereabouts of his brother, Richard.

The gunmen, Tracy said, then set the house ablaze and ordered the occupants to a neighbouring house where Richard was playing games with friends. She said the gunmen then shot Smith and Henry who were in the house. The two brothers were later shot outside. That house was also set ablaze.

The Wauchope brothers' mother, however, managed to escape.

Residents of the volatile community were not willing to speak openly about the incident. "Boss, mi nuh know what happen," said an elderly man who has been living in the community for more than three decades.

The murder scene told a horrific tale of the savagery that claimed the lives of the four residents.

Burnt items were strewn on the premises while large areas of blood-stained grass were observed on sections of the compound. The verandah of one of the houses, which was partially burnt, was splattered with blood.

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