WESTERN BUREAU — Roy Atkinson held his dying daughter-in-law in his arms as she took her last breath, the victim of a gunshot wound allegedly inflicted by her younger brother.

“Twenty-six minutes after 12:00 she dead… inna mi hand but mi couldn’t tell them (the young girl’s family members),” Atkinson told the Observer.

Nineteen-year-old Latoya Murray, also known as “Munchie”, already mother to a 14 month-old son, was four months pregnant.

She was at home on Easy Street in the Glendevon section of St James Monday, eating an orange when she was shot in the mouth.

The police reported that Latoya’s 15 year-old brother, who was outside chatting with a friend, took the weapon inside to show his sister. But during the display, the gun allegedly went off.

According to Atkinson, he was outside the house cleaning the gutter when he heard an explosion and saw his son Alex run out saying that “Munchie” was shot. He told the Observer that the young girl ran from the bedroom, through the living area and out to the veranda before she collapsed and died in his arms.

“The guy who was with (Latoya’s sibling) mussi de show him a gun, so the guy take out the magazine, to my knowledge, and hand him the gun but there was a shot in the chamber wha him never know ’bout,” Atkinson explained.

With unshed tears in his eyes and Latoya’s small child in tow, he added that the gun should never have entered his home.

“No man should have a gun unless you are a police, a soldier or a licensed (firearm holder), period. And unless the government do something about the illegal gun and thing, this country will never reach nowhere,” said Atkinson

Latoya lived with her brother and child in her father-in-law’s house prior to her death. The relationship between herself and her brother, though far from perfect, was described as that of a regular family.

The remorseful teenaged boy has since turned himself in for the shooting death of his sister, and he is being held for questioning at the Catherine Hall Police Station. The weapon however, was not brought in.