(Jamaica Observer) Jaycinth Brae gave her seven-year-old son a special hug before she left home yesterday morning for work.
According to relatives of the 37-year-old employee of Genesis Insurance Brokers in Spanish Town, she was looking forward to celebrating the boy’s eighth birthday today.
But Brae’s life was brutally cut short as she walked to work in Ensom City, St Catherine at about 7:30 am. A heartless gunman pumped at least four shots into her body.
“Reports we received are that Brae was walking to work when she was attacked and gunned down,” police told the Jamaica Observer.
One resident said he was at his home when he heard loud explosions and when he went to investigate he found the body of the mother of three in the road.
Detectives at the scene said Brae was still clutching her brown handbag when she was found. None of the items from her bag were removed, suggesting to the police that the attack was not a robbery.
The brazen murder plunged the community into shock.
“I can’t believe it; that is where she walk go to work in the mornings, is walk she was walking along the roadway when gunmen came and attack her!” said one of Brae’s sisters, who out of fear asked that her name be withheld.
“I was at home when I got a phone call and I still can’t believe it. Why them do her like that? Oh God!” the sister moaned as she cuddled Brae’s third child, a six-month-old boy.
According to the sister, Brae’s eldest child, a 16-year-old girl, lives overseas.
She said that the mood at her mother’s house in another St Catherine community was sombre as her siblings prepared to inform their mother of Brae’s murder.
Brae’s nephew, Daniel Harris, said “every year family members would gather to visit our grandmother for Christmas”.
Added Brae’s sister: “Just a few weeks ago, she was talking about her plans to join family members to visit her mother.”
Detectives from the St Catherine North Police say they have not yet established a motive for the murder.
