Triple murder alarms St Ann community

The usually peaceful community of Free Hill, St Ann, was rocked yesterday by a triple murder.

The bodies of Antria Rattray, 46, a cook employed at the St Ann Municipal Corporation drop-in centre in Ocho Rios, her 13-year-old son, Mykah Bonitto, and Lawrence Badall, 50, were discovered early Monday morning with their throats slit and other wounds. Rattray's other teenage son, who was said to be asleep in another room, made the discovery.

Rattray's aunt Jennifer Wilson-Campbell said that the family is in the process of burying her brother, who died on July 3, and this tragedy has plunged them further into grief. Wilson-Campbell, who lives in nearby Lillyfield, said she was alerted by a call from her nephew who lives in the United States, who told her he heard of the killings and suggested she should visit the scene.

"It's hard. My niece was just like a daughter to me. I can't really believe it," she said. Antonette Hudson, Rattray's close friend for more than a decade, was among the dozens of persons who gathered at the scene. Hudson said she called Rattray sometime before 9 a.m. and got no response; she assumed that she might have been busy.

"I don't have words to express how I feel right now. It's very heart-wrenching and it's very traumatizing," Hudson said. "Maybe last night was the only night we hadn't spoken on the phone but we call each other almost every night and sometimes early morning on our way to work." After no response, she assumed that Rattray would call her back.

"Then I got a call to say they heard that she passed and I dropped everything I was doing and came on the scene to actually see for myself if it was so," she said.