SANTA Cruz, St Elizabeth – The St Elizabeth police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the murder of a 59-year-old school teacher and the wounding of her husband in their bedroom sometime between Monday night and early yesterday.

Police said Beverley Fender, mother of four children (all adults) and a grade three co-ordinator at the Santa Cruz Primary and Junior High School, was found bludgeoned to death – with multiple injuries all over her body – at about 7:00 am yesterday by another occupant of the house. Mrs Fender was less than four months away from retirement.

Her husband 63-year-old Albert Fender, a building contractor – was reportedly found unconscious, suffering from a blow to the head. He was rushed to hospital where he was admitted. A relative of the couple told the Observer late yesterday that Mr Fender had been slipping in and out of consciousness at hospital and had been scheduled for a brain scan.

Police chief in St Elizabeth, Superintendent Merrick Watson, told the Observer that investigators’ “preliminary suspicions” were that the Fenders were the victims of a break-in and robbery. The theory was strengthened by evidence that louvre blades in a window at the back of the house had been removed. The window was said to be particularly vulnerable since a security metal grille had been recently taken out to facilitate ongoing expansion at the rear of the house.

The bedroom was also ransacked, Superintendent Watson said.

Investigators believe a “bloodied” piece of metal piping found on the scene was the weapon used by the attacker.

When the Observer visited the murder scene on Beadle’s Drive just east of the centre of Santa Cruz yesterday afternoon, shocked friends and relatives spoke of the tragedy in hushed tones. The stripped mattress in the bedroom was soaked in blood.

“We don’t know what really happened here,” said Mrs Fender’s sister, Mobre Ellis. She disclosed that her sister, who had been married for more than 30 years, was a “quiet, jovial person” who “never fuss with anybody yet”.

At the Santa Cruz Primary and Junior High, school principal Ivorine Dwyer paid rich tribute to Mrs Fender who had worked at the school in excess of 32 years.

“She was a very loving, warm, peaceful person, peace-loving and a peacemaker,” said Dwyer. “It is said that in her 32 years at this school she never had conflict with anyone and I can tell you that she was really looking forward to retirement,” Dwyer added.