The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

POLICE have officially classified the deaths of Shemicka McKinney and her two daughters Alisa and Gabrielle McKinney as murder-suicide, according to Chief Supt Paul Rolle, officer-in-charge of the Central Detective Unit.

Chief Supt Rolle said the autopsy results, as well as evidence from the crime scene, indicates Ms McKinney, 36, committed suicide and in the process murdered her two young children.

Three months ago, on Sunday, March 22, the bodies of Ms McKinney and her two daughters, three-year-old Alisa and six-year-old Gabrielle, were pulled from the sea, shortly after eyewitnesses said they saw a car – a dark blue Toyota Avalon – speeding off the ramp and into the water.

One eyewitness said the woman had driven to the edge of the ramp, stopped and turned the car around. She later returned and the car went into the water.

Police said Alisa and Gabrielle’s deaths have been added to the country’s murder count, taking the number to 59 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.

After their shocking deaths, family members described Ms McKinney as a depressed college graduate who was argumentative and out of work.

Her grandmother, Alice Pinder McKinney, told The Tribune she was “angry, sad and confused” by the deaths of the two children.

In an emotional interview that was interrupted with bursts of crying, she described her granddaughter as an intelligent, beautiful girl who “had a lot of problems” and “lost her way” after graduating from college in the United States. She said “Mika”, as she was affectionately called, loved her children “with all her heart.”

Another relative told The Tribune that after an argument she put Ms McKinney out of her small apartment days before her death.

The family previously said they assumed the troubled mother went to another relative seeking a place to stay.

Police have in the past urged people to be on the lookout for warning signs of suicide, such as talking about it or having feelings of helplessness or worthlessness.

For counselling and emotional support contact the Department of Social Services’ hotline at 322-2763 or the Crisis Centre at 328-0922 or 322-4999.