MANDEVILLE, Manchester – Two incidents, including a double murder in the Manchester Police Division, between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning have heightened fears among residents even as detectives theorise that at least one of the incidents may be a reprisal and linked to lottery scamming.

Police identified the victims of the double murder, which happened in Kendal – a few miles north of Mandeville – as Damion Robinson, 29, otherwise called Bleachers, a resident of Mike Town in Manchester, and Shamoy Borah, 22, otherwise called Shemmy or Girly, a resident of Comma Pen in St Elizabeth. Sources say Borah was prominently featured in dancehall as a video vixen in south-central Jamaica.

A police report said about 1:50 am, Robinson, Borah, and another friend were travelling in a motor vehicle when explosions were heard. Robinson and Borah sustained gunshot wounds. The friend escaped without injury.

However, residents of Kendal told the Jamaica Observer that shortly after midnight the three people were travelling in a Mark X motor car from a party in Barrett Piece district in Kendal when gunmen opened fire on the occupants at the intersection of Barrett Piece and the Kendal main road.

Robinson, who was driving the motor car, was found slumped in the vehicle with multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body. Borah reportedly ran about 60 metres from the car and collapsed at the side of a shop. They were pronounced dead at hospital.

Residents said the gunshots were confused with loud, frightening sounds from motorcycles.

“Mi did think it was the sound weh the bikes mek, but after mi hear the woman start bawl, ‘Help!’, mi get up and tek it seriously. When mi look down pon the main [road] mi see a likkle car wid four-way flasher on, so because one of my friends drives a Mark X, I thought it was him,” said a resident who asked not to be named.

The resident added that Borah’s body wasn’t found until the police arrived on the scene.

“When mi reach to the car mi see that is a youth got shot. About 20 minutes after we find out seh a girl deh at the shop side weh did run from the car with gunshot,” he said.

Another resident told the Observer that the double murder shocked the community.

“Mi hear a barrage of shots. Mi a check seh is a bike at first… Everything happen between midnight and one o’clock. The people are not from the community. They were at a party inna the lane [Barrett Piece], so they were leaving from there when the incident happened,” said the resident.

A reliable police source said investigators theorised that the incident may be a reprisal for another murder recently. “It could also be [related to] scamming,” said the source.

In the second incident, Kurt Douglas, 22, a student of White Shop district in Sanguinetti was shot and killed shortly before midnight after leaving a party.

Though Sanguinetti is located in Clarendon, it is under the jurisdiction of the Manchester Police Division.

Police report that about 11:45 pm Douglas was walking on Cohen Street in Sanguinetti with a friend when they were attacked by a gunman. Douglas was reportedly shot multiple times. The friend escaped without injury. Douglas was pronounced dead at hospital.