ALETHIA Bryce, 30, and her 70 year-old mother, Yvette Bryce, were yesterday found stabbed to death at their home at Phadrian Avenue, Hope Pastures, an upscale community in St Andrew.

The Bryces bodies were discovered at about 9:00 in the morning by a relative who had gone to visit them, according to the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN), the police’s information arm. The CCN said the house was ransacked and a blue Isuzu Trooper, registered 8333 DU, was missing from the home.

The bodies were not removed from the site until around 5:30 pm and even family members were kept outside the premises as homicide detectives conducted investigations into the death of the two women.

Family members, neighbours and anxious Madden’s Funeral Home attendants, however, complained that they had never waited that long to remove the dead.

“It was gruesome, there was blood everywhere and aside from the numerous knife slashes, a heavy instrument was used to knock them down,” said Trisha Edwards, Yvette’s niece. Edwards said that she and other family members were only allowed by the police to quickly view the bodies.

Edwards said the two women were the main caretakers of Yvette Bryce’s paraplegic husband Headley, 70, and their disabled 44 year-old son, Ewart, who were said to be in the house at the time of the break-in and killing. But because of their disability they were unable to help.

Yvette Bryce was a retired vice principal of the New Providence Primary School in Barbican and her daughter Alethia was an executive assistant to the dean of education and liberal studies at the University of Technology (UTech).