A 17-year-old boy has admitted to murdering a woman, stuffing her body in a barrel and dumping it at the Calvary Cemetery in Kingston last month.

The teenager is now in police custody after being picked up days after a passerby stumbled upon the barrel containing the body of Latoya Currie, 22, at the cemetery and called police.

A police source from the Kingston West police division, where Currie’s body was found, told the Observer that the teenager had confessed to the crime in the Juvenile Court last week.

“He said he and the woman were involved in a dispute and he stabbed her. He said he was afraid when he saw her drop dead and then he stuffed her, foot first, in the barrel,” the cop said.

The incident occurred at Truman Avenue in Richmond Park, St Andrew in July.

Currie’s body was decomposing when it was found. There were adult and infant clothes also in the barrel.

Police were led to the teenager after it was discovered that Currie had been involved in a domestic dispute with her mother at their Woodford Street home, police said. She was taken to Truman Avenue by her boyfriend, who had asked his friend to accommodate her.

The teenager is the brother of the man who was asked to put up Currie, police say.

According to the police, the accused got no assistance but tricked his friend to drive him to the cemetery with the barrel, telling him it was packed with old clothes.

The teenager’s name has not been released but he will not be given an adult sentence as under Jamaican law, persons 18 years and younger are considered minors and are tried in the Juvenile Court when they commit an offence.