A suspect linked to last December’s double murder of a Chinese couple in Bellevue, near Southfield, St Elizabeth, had been on the police’s radar for crimes committed in at least two other divisions, police sources say.

The male suspect, who was not named, was taken into custody on Saturday by the St Ann police, almost six weeks after the December 23 gruesome murder of Haikong Wan, 48, and Shiyun Shu, 53, both of Bellevue District.

Head of the St Ann police, Senior Superintendent Dwight Powell confirmed that the man was apprehended.

He, however, said he did not want to divulge too much information into the matter.

“I know he is a person of interest in more than one division for some serious offences,” Powell told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

The suspect is set to face an identification parade.

Last Wednesday the St Elizabeth police had identified a second suspect in relation to the double murder.

They listed Tommy Thompson from Cameron Hill in Maggotty, St Elizabeth, as wanted.

A police source disclosed that both Thompson and the suspect held in St Ann are being probed by the Major Investigation Division (MID), as it is believed the men were caught on closed-circuit television (CCTV) posing as customers in Jojo Supermarket before killing the Chinese couple.

The police said the business owners, who operated the supermarket, were killed during a robbery.

The police added that they were alerted to the robbery at 7:20 pm and on their arrival the couple was found lying in a pool of blood. They were taken to hospital where Shu was pronounced dead and Wan succumbed at 8:15 pm.

A police source said investigators are also probing the possibility of the double murder being contracted.

Last month Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson and Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang, during a tour of police stations in St Elizabeth, visited the crime scene in Bellevue.

The commissioner pointed to the increased trend of contract killings.

“… There are people who are being paid to do killings. We are onto it. We have some ideas about who may be involved, some of them, but it seems to have blossomed over the past couple of years — two, three years maybe — and even more so where people are doing killings for money,” he said.

The double murder sent shockwaves through Bellevue as residents expressed anger that their community had been stained, even as they questioned the preliminary motive of robbery.