THE St Catherine South Police have blamed the Klansman gang for yet another beheading in that parish.

About 2:00 Tuesday morning, a group of men, armed with guns and other weapons, invaded premises at Church Pen, on the outskirts of the town of Old Harbour, through a back gate and called out 39-year-old Hopeton Cunningham out of his bed. The men then attacked Cunningham, also called ‘Hopey T’, and severed his head from his body and left with it in a bag.

They were, however, surprised by the police as they left the premises and ran, leaving the bag with the man’s head during a shoot-out and escaped in nearby bushes.

The Jamaica Observer was told that one of the policemen recognised the severed head as that of Cunningham’s and immediately went to his home where he saw the headless corpse lying in a pool of blood.

Police said they awoke the occupants of the house and informed them of the terrible fate that had befallen Cunningham. Surprisingly, none of the occupants of the house heard when Cunningham was being killed, although a neighbour reported hearing screams, according to the police.

Cunningham’s mother, Joy Sturridge, and his father Earl both had glum looks when the Observer visited the scene of their son’s death yesterday.

Both said their son was not involved in any criminality and could point to no reason why he would be so mercilessly hacked to death, although he was threatened by a member of the Church Pen community recently.

“I don’t know why them kill him like that,” Sturridge said as his father sat with a blank stare and his left hand on his jaw.

Cunningham’s murder has left a 12-year-old boy, who has just been successful at the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) and will attend Glenmuir High, fatherless.

Beheadings are a signature of the well-organised criminal outfit and Cunningham’s macabre demise is the latest in a string of beheadings that has shocked the nation.