THE police have three individuals in custody for questioning in relation to the deaths of four Clarendon men who vanished in early April after leaving their communities, supposedly en route to St Catherine.

The development brings to a head several weeks of mystery after the police on May 11 discovered five bodies in two shallow graves in an area known as Danger Island, which is adjacent to the banks of the Sandy Gully in the vicinity of Weymouth Drive, Kingston 20.

The bodies, which were all in advanced states of decomposition, were discovered with the assistance of cadaver dogs from the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Canine Division. Investigators, who at the time said they had theories about the identities of the bodies, said they would await the outcome of the post-mortems to guide their investigations.

Yesterday, investigators from the Major Investigations Division, which led a high-level probe into the incident, indicated that results of the DNA profiles of four of the five unidentified decomposed bodies found suggest that those remains belong to the men reported missing from Rocky Point and Longwood addresses in Clarendon. Police are still working to verify the identity of the fifth individual.

The men are: Roy Hamilton, otherwise called Bloomers, 42, of Longwood district; 40-year-old businessman Kavaugn Graham, otherwise called J, of Rocky Point; Omar Bennett, otherwise called Hard Ball, a 30-year-old taxi operator of Rocky Point; and Ricardo Mathra, otherwise called Column, a 33-year-old sound system selector of Longwood, who went missing from April 7.

The police say two operations conducted at locations in the Corporate Area led to the arrest of two men and a woman on reasonable suspicion. Several phones seized from the individuals are now being scrutinised, the lawmen say.

The motor vehicles in which the men were reportedly travelling before they disappeared were found abandoned in Riverton, St Andrew, in March, and are in the custody of the police.

— Alicia Dunkley-Willis