The cops are theorising that a 17-year-old who had been a student of Dunoon Technical High School and of Angels Estate in Spanish Town, St Catherine, committed suicide yesterday.

Reports are that at 7:10 a.m., Michael Sterling was visiting a home in Bullard Content, York Town, Clarendon, when he used a firearm belonging to a cousin, a police officer attached to the Clarendon Division, to shoot himself.

It is alleged that the police officer left his .38 revolver under his pillow, in his bedroom and went to use the bathroom. When he returned he noticed that his firearm was missing. After enquiring where it was and conducting a search, he found Sterling's body a few chains from the house with a wound to the forehead. He was reportedly still cl**tching the service revolver.

When the STAR visited the home, Sterling's mother, Audrey Sewell, who had journeyed from Spanish Town was too traumatised to speak. However, a cousin said; "Michael came to spend time with us yesterday because he did not have any exams doing now as he had already completed most of them. He was here on Sunday and left and came back yesterday."

She added; "He slept at my house last night and left in the morning to this house where he died." She went on to say, "I don't know why he would have done something like this because we don't know of him having any problems. It is puzzling to everyone."