Three women shot to death, one injured, mute woman raped in Jamaica

~~Adz:Right~~KINGSTON, Jamaica – YESTERDAY goes down in Jamaica’s annals as one of the worst Fridays experienced in that country, as a mute woman was brutally gang-raped, three other women shot to death and the shooting of another who is in hospital battling for her life.

According to The Jamaica Observer, the incidents shocked a country already jolted by a string of ruthless murders of children in recent weeks, the latest being that of 11-year-old Christopher Levi Suckra, a grade seven Petersfield High student whose naked, mutilated body was found Thursday morning in a canefield in Banbury, Westmorland. Police believe the boy was also sodomised.

The daily newspaper reported that Friday’s tragedy started when residents of the middle-class community of Mona in St. Andrew found the mute woman naked and traumatised in their community.

A resident gave the woman a sheet to cover herself while the police were called. The woman was taken to hospital where she was undergoing a series of tests yesterday.

But while officers from the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) strongly suspect that the woman was raped, their investigations are being hampered as she cannot speak and was so shaken by her torture that she refused to use sign language when an expert was called in to communicate with her.~~Adz:Right~~

“She seems to be in shock. The poor thing would not even use sign language, so at this point we are moving slowly along with the investigation,” The Jamaica Observer quoted an officer from CISOCA as saying.

Police named the murdered women as Rosemarie Smith, also called ‘Rasta’, of Water Lane in Kingston; Shadel Holding-Witter (40) of Kintyre in St Andrew; and 45-year-old Judith Lee.

The Jamaica Observer reported the police said that Smith was attacked at her home on Water Lane in Kingston about 4:00 a.m. yesterday and shot several times. Her bullet-riddled body was found sprawled out in her yard.

Holding-Witter was also at home in the troubled Kintyre community when gunmen struck just before 7:00 a.m. yesterday. Residents reported hearing a barrage of gunshots and when they went to investigate, the woman was found dead on her verandah. She was shot several times.

Police say Lee was a prostitute who worked in the vicinity of Seymour Avenue in Kingston. Her badly bruised, nude body was found yesterday morning by residents who called the police. It also appeared that she was strangled, police said.

The local media house further stated that the injured woman was shot by a gang of thugs who kicked in the door to the home she shared with her spouse, 76-year-old Rupert ‘Papa’ Jones, at John's Road in St Catherine early yesterday morning. Jones was shot and died on the spot.