Newlyweds found shot dead in Jamaica

The bodies of two British newlyweds have been discovered in Jamaica.

Tamalyn Davis, 17, from Brighton, and Jermaine Davis, 21, were discovered with gunshot wounds to the head 18 miles south of the capital Kingston.

The couple had arrived in Jamaica to visit Jamaican-born Jermaine's family less than two weeks before they were killed.

The bodies were bound together, their hands and feet tied with masking tape and their mouths covered. The badly decomposed bodies were discovered by a farmer on Tuesday who noticed a "foul odour" coming from bushes on his land - but they were not formally identified until yesterday. No motive has been established.

According to local police, it appeared they were killed elsewhere before the bodies were dumped.

The couple were last seen alive on November 28 getting into a taxi in the western Jamaican town of Falmouth, near to where Jermaine Davis's family lived.

Davis told his relatives that he and his wife were visiting friends in Kingston for a couple of days. He had spent the past year living in England where he met Tamalyn. She had lived with her father in Stevenage before moving to Brighton where she set up home with her husband.

A local police spokesman said: "His [Jermaine's] relatives came into the police station to report them missing on Wednesday after they heard on the radio that a young white woman and black man had been found shot dead near Spanish town."

Police said that although no motive had been established it was unlikely that robbery or abduction were the reasons behind the murders. The state in which the bodies were found - with two gunshot wounds to the head and hands and feet bound - is often associated in Jamaica with execution-style shootings by drug dealers.

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that the woman was a British national who had been living in the Brighton area and that the other victim was her spouse. He said: "Our sympathies go out to the families of the victims."

A Sussex police spokeswoman said that the force had been contacted by Interpol about the deaths and were contacting relatives. A spokesman for Hertfordshire police said: "We can confirm that a local family has been involved in a tragic double death.

"The murdered couple were away on an extended holiday and the victims' families are being looked after by family liaison officers."

Scotland Yard detectives will be sent to Jamaica next week to help the government fight Kingston's crime wave, providing technical support to a joint military and police force set up to combat gangs.

More than 950 people have been murdered on the island this year in violent incidents that police say is mostly drug-related.