A group of gunmen entered a tenement yard at 90 Hanover Street in downtown Kingston early yesterday morning and shot and killed a mother and her two young sons as they slept in their beds on the upper floor of their house.

Dead is 42-year-old Rosemarie Little and her two sons Rodaine Powell, 10, and Oshane Walker, 18. According to information from the Constabulary Communications Network (CCN), at about 5:00 am yesterday, a group of heavily armed men kicked open the door and shot the family.

The woman and her teenage son died instantly, while 10-year-old Rodaine was pronounced dead at the Bustamante Hospital for Children.

A 17-year-old girl, who declined to give her name, but who identified herself as a relative of the deceased, told the Observer that the sound of gunfire and the screams of her “little cousin” (Rodaine), woke her.

“Mi hear running and trampling, and di shot dem a fire,” said the young lady, who spoke with the Observer because other family members who were at the scene of the crime were too shaken up to even speak with the press.

“Mi try fi make a call, but mi never get through. We nuh know why dem woulda kill dem,” she added.

Little, she said, was a vendor who sold goods at a stall across the street from her house.

Rodaine attended the Allman Town Primary School, while his brother Oshane worked at the Super Plus Supermarket in New Kingston.

Several neighbours who gathered at the scene expressed their shock and disgust at the family’s murder, said they too were fearful.

“Everybody inna fright because she an har pickney dem nuh trouble people,” one woman remarked.

The Kingston Central Police are said to be investigating.

This is the second child that has been murdered in under a week, and the second time that several members of one family have been slain by gunmen. Last Wednesday another child – 10-year-old Sasha-Kay Brown, along with her grandparents and aunt died after gunmen threw Molotov cocktail bombs inside their house and stood ‘guard’ outside as they burnt to death.