PORTLAND, Jamaica — The Portland police have identified the headless body of a man found in bushes on Tuesday as that of Kevin Garfield Patterson, a 38-year-old resident and taxi driver of Alfred Lane in Port Antonio.  

This is the fifth murder in Portland since the start of the year, the same when compared to the corresponding period last year.

Family members positively identified the body on Thursday by a tattoo on the right arm of the deceased with the initial KGP and alluded to other visible marks on the body.  

Patterson was last seen alive on Saturday, August 19 by some of his colleagues.

Police sources told OBSERVER ONLINE that his motorcar was found parked at his house on Alfred Lane, but pointed out that the deceased, who was also called ‘rapist’, was a habitual drinker.

The partially decomposed and headless corpse was found in the hilly interior of Fern Hill shortly after 6:30 pm Tuesday.

Officers from the Portland Criminal Investigative Branch (CIB) are yet to find Patterson’s head, despite two days of intense search.

The police theorise that the man may have been killed elsewhere and the body later dumped in the Fern Hill area.

Investigations continue.

Everard Owen