THE bodies of two men found with machete wounds to the head, off the Portmore Causeway in St Catherine early yesterday, have been identified as those of Mark Anthony Yap Shing, 32, and Patrick Ramsay, 40, both of Ocho Rios, St Ann.

Police said they made the gruesome discovery at about 5:30 when a patrol from the Hunts Bay station in Kingston saw a Toyota Starlet motor car, licensed 3205 DJ, parked off the causeway with bloodstains on the trunk.

The police said when they searched the area they found the bodies in the vicinity of the zinc factory with the heads mutilated. The hands of both men, they said, were tied with an electric cord and the mouths sealed with scotch tape. A latex glove was found near the bodies.

A senior police spokesman said they theorise that the men were apparently involved in a drug deal that went sour, and that they were killed elsewhere, placed in the trunk of the car and the bodies dumped in the area.

Investigations, the superintendent said, revealed that both men left Ocho Rios at about 1:00 Sunday afternoon in the Starlet motor car, owned by Derrick Tiechang of Ocho Rios, for an undisclosed address in Kingston.

This killing brings to 290 the number of murders reported to the police since the beginning of the year.