LAGOON, Hanover — THE Hanover Police Division recorded an alarming 11 murders last month catapulting the tally of persons killed in the parish to 24 since the start of the year — four more than the corresponding period in 2014.

“This is the worst June I have ever seen in the parish,” a veteran lawman lamented. The latest murder in the parish was Monday night’s killing of 47-year-old businessman Leslie Clarke, also called Big Ras, who was shot dead at the restaurant he operated across the road from the Green Island Police Station.

A police source close to the investigations told the Jamaica Observer West that Clarke’s killing may have been a reprisal for Sunday morning’s shooting of two brothers, 20-year-old Orane Pringle and 23-year-old Richard Hamilton, also called Blacks, at their home in the Lagoon community, near to Green Island.

“Word on the streets is that the businessman is related to one of the persons suspected to be involved in the killing of the brothers,” a cop close to the investigations revealed. Reports are that about 3:30 am the two siblings were at home — one in the company of a female friend — when a group of men with 9mm pistols swooped down on the two-apartment building.

The gunmen proceeded to kick open the front door then opened a barrage of gunfire on the three occupants. When the police arrived at the scene Pringle was discovered in the house lying in a pool of blood with multiple gunshot wounds, while the blood-soaked, bullet-riddled body of his older brother was on the ground outside the wooden dwelling.

The female, who ran from the house during the shooting, was rushed to a medical facility where she is being treated for bullet wounds to one of her feet and a section of her upper body.

Investigators removed a number of 9mm spent shells from the scene of the incident.

When Observer West visited the Lagoon community this week, Michelle James, the distressed mother of Pringle and Hamilton — two of her six children — fainted while being interviewed.

“Two one time? Two one time? Oh God! Jesus! Mama! Lawd. Mama! Oh God! Whey mi pickney dem gone? Mi two pickney gone,” she wailed before collapsing.

“Mi frighten when Sunday morning me get a call, come now, dem kill you two pickney. Mi couldn’t bear up. Mi couldn’t bear up.”

But, before James collapsed, she revealed that her brother, Ian McFarlane, was shot and killed by unknown assailants in the Wharf Road section of the community in January.

She further noted that following her brother’s death, men attempted to beat Pringle.

“Five months now since my brother dead and mi hear seh man did gang him [Pringle] about to beat him just after mi brother dead in January.

But when me ask him [Pringle] anything him just say mommy everything allright. That’s all me a get from him. Mommy that all right, everything allright,” she said, adding that unlike Pringle, Hamilton did not keep company.

In the meantime the Hanover police have intensified their investigations into the killing of two other brothers — 14-year-old Leon Grant, a Rhodes Hall High School student, and Travis McKenzie — who were gunned down at their Malcolm Drive home in the parish last month. Their 24-year-old sister and 34-year-old stepfather were also shot and injured during that pre-dawn attack. The police theorise that this attack was linked to lottery-scamming activities.