CHESTER CASTLE, Hanover – Detectives were yesterday probing Monday’s brutal murder of businessman Oliver Kerr, who was gunned down while his wife and young daughter were waiting for him to transport them home.

Kerr, 43, who operated a grocery shop, was shot and relieved of his licensed firearm shortly after closing his businessplace.

Kerr, known by residents as “Mr Chin”, was about to enter his pick-up truck, which was parked across the road from his businessplace, when he was surprised by gunmen who shot him several times.

Kerr reportedly ran a few metres before he fell. He was subsequently taken to the Cornwall Regional Hospital where he died.

According to his wife, Karleen, after they closed the grocery shop her husband decided that he would park the pick-up truck at the back of the premises of the business establishment and drive home their motor car. She said that she and their five-year-old daughter were standing beside the car, waiting on her husband to park the pick-up truck when an explosion was heard.

The distraught widow told the Observer yesterday that upon hearing the explosions she took her daughter and ran from the scene out of fear for their lives.

“…Me only hear blam, blam, blam so me just run off and turn off the street and go in a one yard,” she said.

Kerr’s death brings the murder toll in the normally peaceful parish of Hanover to four since the start of this year.

Meanwhile, the Hanover police were up to late yesterday afternoon combing the mountainous terrain of Elgin Town as they continue their search for Dionne Jackson, 27, of Santoy, Hanover who went missing last Friday.

The search for the missing Hanover woman Monday afternoon led to the discovery of the body of Patrice Clarke, the 25-year-old babysitter of Windsor Castle, Portland who the police believe may have been strangled and abandoned in the deep, hilly terrain of the Elgin Town community by her attacker.

The police have taken a man from the Elgin Town community into custody in connection with Clarke’s death. He is also being interrogated in connection with the whereabouts of Jackson.