UPDATED: MoBay records its first murder of 2019

A quarrel between two men travelling in a motor car on Merriam Way, in the Westgate Gate area of St James yesterday, ended with one man dead and the other arrested, facing possible murder and other charges.

The accused is a 21-year-old of a St James address, whose name is being withheld as he has not yet been charged, while the dead man has been identified as Demar Stennett, a 21-year-old student of Cornwall Courts in the parish.

According to reports, about 7 a.m. the two men were heard quarrelling in the car before one came out and started running away from the vehicle.

Members of the Jamaica Defence Force were passing at the time and the man ran into nearby bushes. He was accosted by the soldiers and he claimed that his vehicle had broken down.

But the soldiers became curious after they noticed fresh wounds on the face of the accused. He attempted to escape from the soldiers and reportedly attacked one of them, leaving him with a wound to the mouth. A bloody knife was also seen inside the car.

During a search of the area, Stennett's body was found metres from the vehicle with multiple stab wounds.

The scene was processed and the suspected killer was taken to hospital where he was admitted under police guard.

Stennett became the first person to be murdered in St James since the start of 2019. This followed 101 murders in the parish last year, a sharp decline from 335 murders recorded in 2017.

NOTE: The victim's surname was incorrect in a previous version of this story