Dalton Laing, Gleaner Writer

Spence

SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland:

THE FAMILY and friends of 18-year-old Rackeisha Spence, of 135 Dalling Street in Savanna-la-Mar, have been left puzzled by her suspected suicide.

Scores of persons converged Monday evening at the house where the teenager resided to get a glimpse of her partially nude body with a noose around the neck.

Unbelievable

Her mother, Millicent Brown, says it is unbelievable that her daughter would take her own life.

"Last night (Sunday), me see Rackeisha and she did a play with me. Today her friends asking me for her but me tell them say me nuh see her from morning," Ms. Brown said between sobs.

"This morning she suppose to go do an interview for a job so me can't believe, me can't believe!"

Earl Spence, caretaker of the property where Rackeisha lived, told The Gleaner that her boyfriend informed him of the gruesome discovery.

Spence said the young man told him that he came home only to find her hanging by a rope from a bannister on the staircase and "in a state of panic and fright," he took her down.

The Savanna-la-Mar police were summoned and the boyfriend was detained for questioning.

But while suicide is being theorised as the cause of death, residents are adamant that she was murdered, and insist that Rackeisha was a happy and jovial person up to the time of her death.