RESIDENTS of New Works in the Deans Valley area of Westmoreland are still trying to come to terms with the brutal slaying of Sadie “Sunshine” James, a 44-year-old bar owner who was found in a canefield on Thursday with her throat slashed.

A tractor operator discovered the body, lying on its back with the throat slit, in cane fields in the nearby Baram District at about 9:20 am.

Immediately following the gruesome discovery, friends rushed to the side of family members and openly grieved over the body.

“She don’t deserve this kind of death,” cried Sunshine’s 71 year-old mother, Ruby James. The tearful James added that her daughter, the third of her nine children, was “loved by everyone”.

Floyd Wright, the third of Sunshine’s four children, bent down and kissed his mother’s lifeless body where it laid in the open cane field, oblivious to the sea of grieving faces around him. Her sister-in-law, Sharon, broke down in tears.

But as the family and community struggle with the pain of Sunshine’s sudden demise, her father Ernal James issued a call for a full investigation to be launched into the circumstances leading to her murder. He in fact had some words of advice for the investigating officers.

“The police fi look into certain things,” he noted. James who had arrived in the island from New York a week ago, and had brought a necklace and a ring as a gift for his child, argued that her death did not appear to be linked to a robbery attempt.

“The ring and chain and her jewelery were still intact. It wasn’t robbery,” he argued. “The only good thing is that I am here and not in New York.”

According to reports from area residents and family members, Sunshine closed her bar, which is located on the Deans Valley main road, at approximately 9:30 Wednesday night. Her 21 year-old son Floyd, who is believed to have been one of the last persons to see her alive, said he watched as she walked about 200 metres to her boyfriend’s shop where she normally sleeps.

According to him, he assumed that she was safe when he saw a car light turn on and off, and so he went home.

According to the Constabulary Communications Network’s Corporal Alva Douglas, although a motive had not yet been established for Sunshine’s death, robbery has been tentatively ruled out.

“Her boyfriend’s car is in the custody of the police. It is being dusted for forensic evidence as the investigation continues,” Douglas said.

In the meantime, family members, friends and residents of that rural community continue to meet in little groups expressing shock and confusion over Sunshine’s untimely end.