SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — The family of a woman found in a suitcase here Saturday afternoon is finding it difficult to cope with the loss of their loved one, who has been described as a quiet and hard-working woman who tried to uplift and care for her young child.

The death of 29-year-old Kerrian Malcolm of Barracks Road in Savanna-la-Mar is also an additional burden for the mother and father, who lost two other children violently, just months apart. They both had seven children together.

Delroy Malcolm, Kerrian’s father, cried as he spoke with the Jamaica Observer on Sunday. He lost his second son last February at a bar in Frome, and the third son at a party in St Elizabeth in March of this year. They were killed by gunmen. The pain was further aggravated by the death of his second daughter, Kerrian.

“It is not even three months and I am looking to bury another one [child],” bemoaned Malcolm.

“I am telling you the truth, from Friday I haven’t eaten, it’s just water I keep drinking. My wife has high blood pressure [hypertension] and has to be taking pressure tablets. Right now I don’t know if mine is good because I have the pressure too, but I have to be trying to brace it,” he said.

“My daughter is taking it hard and my last boy is also taking it hard.”

Malcolm was unable to speculate on what may have led to his daughter’s demise, as she “troubled no one”. But he said she had been receiving threats, ever since a burglary at the bar she worked at.

“She got a lot of threats and she took it lightly because she was saying that when you make a report to the police, the police same one ah call back the people,” he said.

Kerrian operated a bar which was reportedly broken into, and a rented poker box was stolen. The matter was reported to the police, her father said. Subsequently, Kerrian started to receive threats.

On Thursday night, October 2, the family said she was at home when she reportedly told a family member that she was going on the road to collect something from someone. She never returned home and was reported missing the following day.

The body was found by residents in a zipped suitcase Saturday, October 4, in a gully in the Gully Banks community.

Prior to the bar robbery incident, Malcolm said his daughter’s boyfriend was killed in an incident with the police at her home.

He said a missing person’s report was made for Kerrian on Friday, October 3, and a receipt was issued by the police.

“The police said that if she didn’t come in by Saturday at midnight, we were to come back. They [family] went back on Saturday and the police said they were going to send out the search team. But the people in the community said no, Kerrian is someone who doesn’t leave her yard and go anywhere and doesn’t give trouble in the community. So the people said they were going to do a search themselves.“

He noted that it was community members who found the odd-looking suitcase and used a stick to open the zipper.

He said his daughter’s foot was recognised, the police were called, and the suitcase was removed.

“I can’t tell you how I feel knowing that my daughter doesn’t trouble people. When the boys dem will argue with people, she doesn’t,” Malcolm said.

“She was trying to uplift the family and her son and they took her away.”

He said he tried his best to raise his children on the right path and ensure that they were provided for.

Still, he said death is following the family.

“The first to drop out was my mother — just took sick and died. After my mother was my mother-in-law. After my mother-in-law was my son. After my son was my father-in-law, and after my wife’s father was my other son Roshane, and now my daughter. It’s rough man.”