MORTICIAN KILLED : Montego Bay, 31-year-old Chrissy Vaughan, mortician slain...Dispute outside party turns deadly, Community college students traumatised

BY HORACE HINES Observer staff reporter hinesh@jamaicaobserver.com  Tuesday, December 06, 2016     

MONTEGO BAY, St James — A popular Montego Bay mortician was early yesterday morning shot dead in her Bogue Village community while leaving a party which was still in full swing.

VAUGHAN… also lectured at Montego Bay Community College

The victim, 31-year-old Chrissy Vaughan, was also a part-time lecturer at Montego Bay Community College.

Police said the shooting took place about 2:00 am when Vaughan drove off following an altercation with people outside the party venue. One person from the group, police said, pulled out a handgun and shot the mortician in the head. She lost control of the vehicle and slammed into an embankment.

Police, who found Vaughan slumped over the steering wheel of her car, took her to Cornwall Regional Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. “Early this (yesterday) morning the police were notified that an explosion was heard in the Bogue area. When we went there we observed that the lady was wounded by gunshots. Based on what we gather so far, a dispute developed [at a club] and one person drew a firearm and fired shots, one of which caught her,” acting police superintendent in charge of operations at the St James Police Division Gary McKenzie told journalists at a press conference at Freeport Police Station in Montego Bay.

Counsellors from the Ministry of Education as well as the guidance counsellor at Montego Bay Community College had to provide grief counselling to traumatised students who heard of their lecturer’s gruesome killing.

Vaughan, who taught funeral service and mortuary sciences at the community college, last met with her students on Saturday.

The students sat their embalming laboratory examination yesterday.

The Criminal Investigating Branch at Freeport Police Station are probing the incident.

Acting Superintendent McKenzie, meanwhile, expressed confidence that the police will nab the shooter soon.

“He is known to the persons who were there and we think that in very short order he will be brought to justice,” he said.