Mother and her four children found with throats slashed in Jamaica

Gwendolyn McKnight, is comforted as she mourns the killing of her daughter and four children in an apparent homicide outside of Kingston, Jamaica, on Tuesday, 21 June, 2022. (Jamaica Observer newscast)
Gwendolyn McKnight, is comforted as she mourns the killing of her daughter and four children in an apparent homicide outside of Kingston, Jamaica, on Tuesday, 21 June, 2022. (Jamaica Observer newscast)

A mother and her four children were found dead with their throats cut in Jamaica on Tuesday.

The bodies were discovered in Clarendon parish, west of the capital Kingston, on Tuesday morning.

Gwendolyn McKnight said her daughter, Kemisha Wright, and her four grandchildren were those killed.

“She was so nice, she love everybody,” she told Jamaica Observer. “My daughter was so nice and dem tek mi one daughter from mi.”

Ms McKnight said her daughter was a caring and ambitious young woman who was raising four children and going to school to be a nurse.

The victims were aged 34, 15, 10, 5, and 1.

Among the children, there were three girls and a boy.

Police have named 23-year-old Rushane Barnett, believed to be a cousin of the slain family, as a person of interest in the killing.

"This barbarity is deplorable," National Security Minister Horace Chang told reporters following the apparent homicide.

Glenford Miller, head of the Clarendon Police Division, asked for the public’s help in solving the case.

“This is something that we must not condone none at all. This is criminality to its highest level when we are killing off our females and our children like this. This is something that we want the community of Cocoa Piece to help us solve this case quick and fast. So I am using this moment now to tell you this, that anybody who weh hear anything, see anything, know anything, unuh need fi come forth and let we know,” he said on Tuesday, reports Radio Jamaica News.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information.