A gang feud was said to be the motive behind yesterday’s killing of two brothers in Shelter Rock, a poor community located off the Twickenham Park main road in Spanish Town, the former Jamaican capital.

Fruit vendor Jason Watson, also known as ‘Bobo’, was murdered about three-and-a-half hours after gunmen peppered his younger brother, Jermaine Bennett, alias ‘Buzza’, 23, with bullets outside a shop in the community shortly after 8:00 am.

Bennett was shot in the head and other parts of his body less than 100 feet from where his elder brother’s body was later found with at least nine bullet wounds to the chest.

Police say several 9mm spent shells were taken from both scenes.

“From our initial report it seems both brothers were in a gang that was in some conflict with other men from the area; it is not confirmed but reports from the surface points in that direction,” Superintendent Terrence Bent of the Spanish Town police told the Observer yesterday.

Residents, however, believe that the killers may be ‘one of their own’.

Yesterday, as police processed the crime scene after Watson was shot, residents whispered amongst themselves as to the cause of the murder of the two men.

Police said yesterday that Shelter Rock is a stronghold of the notorious One Order Gang, which supports the ruling Jamaica Labour Party in Spanish Town and nearby communities in St Catherine.

“This thing is an internal thing; no man from outside not going to just come into the community and shoot Bobo after them kill him brother this morning,” one resident claimed.

“No man is not going to take that risk; is target them target the two of them,” added the resident, as onlookers gathered around the police yellow tape in grief.

Police say Bennett, who owned a game shop in the community, was shot dead after two armed men pounced on him outside the shop while his brother was murdered shortly before noon, when a group of men cornered him at the top of a hill in the community.

The mother of the two slain brothers, who residents said buried her mother on Wednesday after she battled a terminal illness, collapsed and had to be rushed to hospital when she heard of her sons’ death.

Another one of her sons has since fled the community, residents said.

“The woman just couldn’t take it, me couldn’t take it either,” a woman said while at the murder scene. “Imagine you bury your mother and a day after that you hear that your two son them dead; God know it wicked.”