THREE children are now left without a mother after their stepfather, Garfield Hinds, 29, shot dead his wife who was three months pregnant and then put the nozzle of his revolver in his mouth and ended his own life yesterday morning, in a bizarre murder-suicide over love gone wrong.

Police say the couple’s three-year marriage was on the rocks and Hinds was asked some weeks ago by his wife, Althea Hinds, 30, a shopkeeper, to leave the matrimonial home at Balcombe Drive in Kingston.

When Hinds’ persistent effort to patch up the relationship was rebuffed by Mrs Hinds, the enraged husband returned to the home with a gun and killed his wife before taking his own life at 11:00 am.

Police officers patrolling the Balcombe Drive area were alerted about the murder/suicide and saw Mrs Hinds with a gunshot wound to the face and Hinds with a bullet wound to the head. The firearm, a Smith and Wesson .357 magnum revolver, and four live rounds were recovered by the police.

The scene in the yard of death was gruesome. Mrs Hinds’ brain was splattered over the small wooden shop where she sold cosmetic products and other dry goods, and her blood had begun to curdle in a pool.

Hinds’ body lay on his back in a pool of blood in the yard. His face was completely covered in blood. The body was clad in back jeans pants and a red and black merino. Police on the scene removed two .38 rounds of ammunition from the dead man’s pocket.

The incident has had a devastating effect on Althea Hinds’ three children, nine year-old Ashieka, Richard, seven, and Princess, six, who displayed signs of shock. Ashieka, the eldest child, was badly traumatised and grief-stricken.

“You know how much time mommy run him and him still a come back?” the child asked no one in particular. “I was at church when my brother and sister come and tell me.”

“Mommy run him away 10 time and him still come back come kill her,” little Princess said as her relatives wept uncontrollably.

Some persons in the area who gathered at the death scene were upset that Hinds had come into their community and killed someone who was born and raised in the area.

“Anybody talk to Althea him beat har up. Him nuh come from bout yah and if him see she talk to any a the youth dem bout yah, a worries between them,” one woman said.

“The bwoy nuh come from bout yah and come kill off the girl wid him suicide self,” another shouted.

When scene of crime detectives and undertakers tried to remove Hinds’ corpse, the angry crowd demanded that his body not be wrapped so they could see his face when his body was being put into the hearse.

“Da boy deh nuh fi get nuh wrap up, carry him out yah make we see him face. We want spit pan him,” another demanded of the funeral home employees.

When the body was being carried out on a stretcher, the angry mob flung stones and other objects in its direction, forcing the men carrying the body to take evasive action. One heavy-set woman broke from the crowd and slapped the dead man’s blood-covered face.

“You fi dead 20 time, wicked nuh rahtid,” the woman said as the crowd vociferously endorsed her actions.

Althea Hinds is the seventh person to be killed in the South St Andrew police division in the last 36 hours. So far, 603 people have been killed islandwide since the start of the year.