GOBAY, St Catherine – Gunmen invaded the sleepy Gobay district of North East St Catherine during a predawn attack Sunday, killing two people and injuring another.

The dead have been identified as 59-year-old higgler Samuel ‘Jack’ Morrison and Cecil ‘Dougie’ Campbell, a 45-year-old farmer. Morrison’s 47-year-old wife Norma is in critical condition in the Linstead hospital.

Residents told the Observer that about 1:00 Sunday morning, gunshots were heard and it was later discovered that the Morrisons were shot inside their two-apartment house. Shots were also heard about a mile away where Campbell’s body was found.

On Sunday, Clayton Morrison, the couple’s 23-year-old son, said that his mother called him on his cellphone about 1:15 am and told him that three gunmen had kicked open her room door, killed her husband and shot her in the chest.

Official reports from the Riversdale police said the husband’s bullet-riddled body was found on the floor, while the wife was found in another room with bullet wounds all over her body. Meanwhile, Campbell’s body, which too had several bullet wounds, was found some 10 chains from his house.

“De place get bad. A pure gunman (inna) the area. Since last week a three man gunmen kill in ya and five get injured. We haffi go move out. We can’t stay ya at all,” said a schoolmate of Clayton Morrison. He said Morrison and his wife attended the Church of God of Prophecy and, as far as he knew, did not trouble anyone.

The shootings sent shockwaves and fears throughout the rural district and at least 10 families were seen moving out of the community hours after the brutal atttacks.

The police, up until yesterday, had not established any motives for the killings. The victims, they said, were not robbed.

But Member of Parliament for North East St Catherine, the Jamaica Labour Party’s Gregory Mair, believed the killings were politically motivated. Campbell, he said, was a key JLP worker while the Morrisons were JLP supporters.

He expressed concerns over what he said was a series of shootings in the area in recent months, saying that four people have been killed over the past week.

“Gobay has become a nest for certain elements who have come to create havoc. But what is of great concern is that this is happening just before the parish council elections,” Mair said, adding that Gobay had strongly supported the JLP during the September general elections.

He called on the government to establish a police post in the area.

“I am going to meet with the minister of national security and I want to get the presence of the police and the army in here effective this week. In the interim, I want to work out a plan to have a police post put in here permanently to weed out the criminal elements,” he told the Observer.